Sleep specialists share this assumption.'īut, Brown wrote, this is changing. The general public seems to regard 7 to 8 hours of unbroken sleep as a birthright anything less means that something is awry. According to a recent article in Psychiatric Times by Walter Brown, a psychiatrist at Brown Medical School, 'Working against the clinical application of findings is the extent to which they fly in the face of current thinking. However, the behavioral paradigm shift has been slow to take hold. Wehr's and Ekirch's results are becoming more and more widely known, and psychiatrists and sleep specialists are beginning to implement them. So in short, we have lost what people in the past regarded as a critically important part of their lives – their dream life.' The light goes on and we get out of bed immediately. 'With morning dreams we don't have the opportunity to let our dreams settle. 'Waking up directly after dreaming afforded people a pathway to their subconscious,' he said. According to Ekirch, the historical evidence bears that out. Wehr's study subjects normally awakened from REM sleep, which is the deep sleep stage during which dreams occur. One benefit of biphasic sleeping may be that it makes it easier to recall and access dreams. He also inferred that modern humans are chronically sleep-deprived, which may be why we usually take only 15 minutes to fall asleep, and why we try our best not to wake up in the night. Wehr concluded that biphasic sleeping is the most natural sleep pattern, and is actually beneficial, rather than a form of insomnia. In Wehr's well-known study, he subjected participants to 14 hours of darkness per night, and found that they gradually shifted to a routine of taking two hours to fall asleep, then sleeping in two four-hour phases separated by about an hour of wakefulness-a pattern that exactly matched Ekirch's historical findings. In the 1990s, a sleep scientist named Thomas Wehr discovered that everyone sleeps biphasically when subjected to natural patterns of light and dark. 'But people with particularly strong circadian rhythms continue to ,' said Ekirch. Now, 'normal' sleep requires forgoing the periods of wakefulness that used to break up the night we simply don't have time for a midnight chat with the neighbor any longer. At the same time, it has cut nighttime short, and so to get enough sleep we now have to do it all in one go.

In places with electricity, though, artificial lighting has prolonged our experience of daylight, allowing us to be productive for longer. Segmented or biphasic sleep patterns evolved to fill the long stretch of nighttime, and as observed by anthropologists, segmented sleep continues to be the norm for many people in undeveloped parts of the world, such as the Tiv group in Central Nigeria. Except for those affluent enough to burn candles for hours, folks were left with little to do but go to bed early, and this gave a great deal of flexibility to their nightly sleep requirements. To get in sync with this reset, Breus explains that you should focus on this being the most consistent in your sleep routine over a consistent bedtime to feel the most well-rested.You can blame the shift in your sleeping habits on Thomas Edison's lightbulb and the Industrial Revolution.Įkirch explained that in the past, and especially during winter, darkness spanned up to 14 hours each night. Our circadian rhythm, the internal clock that runs our sleep and wake cycle, resets every morning. “Waking up at the same time will help you get optimal sleep at night,” says Michael Breus, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and author of The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan. But it turns out that the secret to getting the best sleep isn’t going to bed at the exact same time each night-it’s actually the opposite. According to a study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in three adults don’t get the recommended seven or more hours of healthy sleep, which can lead to a number of health problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and frequent mental distress. Let’s face it: Many of us are sleep deprived. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs.

Average night time and wake up time