Is insomnia natural?
Busting the 8-Hour Sleep Myth: Why You Should Wake Up in the Night
By Natalie Wolchover
Life's Little Mysteries
16 February 2011
More than one-third of American adults wake up in the middle of the night on a regular basis. Of those who experience "nocturnal awakenings," nearly half are unable to fall back asleep right away. Doctors frequently diagnose this condition as a sleep disorder called "middle-of-the-night insomnia," and prescribe medication to treat it.
Mounting evidence suggests, however, that nocturnal awakenings aren't abnormal at all; they are the natural rhythm that your body gravitates toward. According to historians and psychiatrists alike, it is the compressed, continuous eight-hour sleep routine to which everyone aspires today that is unprecedented in human history. We've been sleeping all wrong lately — so if you have "insomnia," you may actually be doing things right.
The flip of a light switch
"The dominant pattern of sleep, arguably since time immemorial, was biphasic," Roger Ekirch, a sleep historian at Virginia Tech University and author of "At Day's Close: Night in Times Past" (Norton 2005), told Life's Little Mysteries. "Humans slept in two four-hour blocks, which were separated by a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night lasting an hour or more. During this time some might stay in bed, pray, think about their dreams, or talk with their spouses. Others might get up and do tasks or even visit neighbors before going back to sleep."
(Continued here.)
By Natalie Wolchover
Life's Little Mysteries
16 February 2011
More than one-third of American adults wake up in the middle of the night on a regular basis. Of those who experience "nocturnal awakenings," nearly half are unable to fall back asleep right away. Doctors frequently diagnose this condition as a sleep disorder called "middle-of-the-night insomnia," and prescribe medication to treat it.
Mounting evidence suggests, however, that nocturnal awakenings aren't abnormal at all; they are the natural rhythm that your body gravitates toward. According to historians and psychiatrists alike, it is the compressed, continuous eight-hour sleep routine to which everyone aspires today that is unprecedented in human history. We've been sleeping all wrong lately — so if you have "insomnia," you may actually be doing things right.
The flip of a light switch
"The dominant pattern of sleep, arguably since time immemorial, was biphasic," Roger Ekirch, a sleep historian at Virginia Tech University and author of "At Day's Close: Night in Times Past" (Norton 2005), told Life's Little Mysteries. "Humans slept in two four-hour blocks, which were separated by a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night lasting an hour or more. During this time some might stay in bed, pray, think about their dreams, or talk with their spouses. Others might get up and do tasks or even visit neighbors before going back to sleep."
(Continued here.)
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