Artificial lighting is probably the turning point for all of this. Before that, night was just… night. You had some candlelight or an oil lamp, but it wasn’t enough to really extend the day in a meaningful way. Then you get gas lighting, then electricity, and all of a sudden people aren’t tied to the sun anymore. You can sit up, read, work, whatever, well past dark. Night stops being a hard stop and turns into optional time.
The body didn’t exactly sign off on that change. Bright light at night shifts your whole internal clock. It delays melatonin, pushes sleep later, and over time you stop getting that natural wake-up in the middle of the night that people used to have. Even just normal house lighting before bed is enough to nudge things in that direction.
Then the Industrial Revolution comes along and kind of locks it in. Factory schedules aren’t built around “sleep for a while, wake up, then go back to sleep.” They need you functional in the morning, consistently. So people start consolidating sleep into one block because they have to, not because it’s necessarily how the body originally worked. By the early 1900s, the idea of eight straight hours just becomes the standard.
What’s interesting is if you take all that away, people drift back to the old pattern pretty quickly. In lab studies where there’s no artificial light and no clocks, people tend to split their sleep again, with a calm stretch of being awake in the middle. And it’s not just labs. There was a 2017 study looking at a rural community in Madagascar without electricity, and people there still sleep in two segments, waking up around midnight like it’s completely normal.”
Thorbertthesniveler on
Now I have first pee and second pee!
TannyBoguss on
It’s the ying yang for a mid day siesta
abembe on
What if I only get the second half each night???
OcelotInevitable5631 on
“but what about 2nd sleep?”
joelfarris on
Huh. So weird to read this, because I’ve been doing this very thing for over a year or so.
Wake up past midnight, or maybe even one or two, alert for perhaps half an hour or more, then asleep again until sunrise. No alarm needed anymore.
People used to wake up, pee, and take 30 minutes to fall back asleep
BabyScreamBear on
I can’t remember the last time I went to sleep and didn’t wake up til the morning
This_guy_Jon on
Spork_Warrior on
We’ve had first sleep, yes…
Tea_and_toast_ on
I kinda do this.
I have my peaceful first sleep until around 3. Wake up and think about everything wrong with my life and eventually fall into my second sleep after an hour or two.
BuenoMario on
I’m about to take my 2nd sleep right now. Probably add a 3rd one after. Should just be enough time to get ready for my 1st sleep
Philosophile42 on
You sleep I watch
FuntimeBen on
I found out about Biphasic Sleep from a podcast and have been interested in it ever since. I’m not sure I have it down, but it has been interesting to think about sleep in this way.
Secure-Tradition793 on
Maybe also because they went to the bed earlier. Until recently people had nothing else to do after it got dark.
Traveling_Solo on
Please don’t post misinformation. The person who made that story doesn’t seem to have read his own bloody sources. From one of them: “The sleep period consistently occurred during the nighttime period of falling environmental temperature, was not interrupted by extended periods of waking, and terminated, with vasoconstriction, near the nadir of daily ambient temperature.”
rockclimberguy on
As I have aged I started falling asleep early and waking up in the middle of the night. I have been in this pattern for well over a decade. I hated it at first. Now I find it completely natural and resent the times when scheduling prevents me from following it.
I now have 2 different times of day when I find it easier to concentrate and achieve the elusive state of ‘flow’ that is so productive and rewarding.
three9 on
I’ve been doing this for years and it absolutely ruins my life.
Google_Knows_Already on
Wait til you turn 40. There is before 3am pee and after 3am pee
PlainBread on
My cat demands I still work on this system.
Odd_Loquat_8702 on
Oh yeah, i’ve had period of sleeping for 4 hours twice. It was interesting experience.
Now I’m texting this after 1 sleep, another air raid russian missles woke me. Gonna continue to sleep. Not interesting experience
Edt: grammar
Shawnk_69 on
Yeah, one to two AM when I wake up to pee, smoke some pot, and go back to bed. Lol
SelarDorr on
extrapolating this from a 2001 book that just cites mentions of terms similar to ‘first and second sleep’ in the 1300-1800’s, primarily from europeans with zero systematic analysis
to behavior that represents all of humanity in ‘most of human history’, which is hundreds on thousands of years long, is the epitome of unscientific.
they provide zero scientific basis to defend such a claim.
Otherwise-Pick8135 on
First sleep, pee, second sleep, pee, cat bites my foot, third sleep, cat goes full Rocky slapping my foot, wake up.
28 Comments
But what about elevensies sleep?
“Each of these sleeps lasted several hours, separated by a gap of wakefulness for an hour or more in the middle of the night. [Historical records](https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2815%2901157-4?referrer=&priority=true&module=meter-Links&pgtype=Blogs&contentId=&action=click&contentCollection=meter-links-click&version=meter+at+null&mediaId=%25%25ADID%25%25) from Europe, Africa, Asia, and beyond describe how, after nightfall, families would go to bed early, then wake around midnight for a while before returning to sleep until dawn.
Artificial lighting is probably the turning point for all of this. Before that, night was just… night. You had some candlelight or an oil lamp, but it wasn’t enough to really extend the day in a meaningful way. Then you get gas lighting, then electricity, and all of a sudden people aren’t tied to the sun anymore. You can sit up, read, work, whatever, well past dark. Night stops being a hard stop and turns into optional time.
The body didn’t exactly sign off on that change. Bright light at night shifts your whole internal clock. It delays melatonin, pushes sleep later, and over time you stop getting that natural wake-up in the middle of the night that people used to have. Even just normal house lighting before bed is enough to nudge things in that direction.
Then the Industrial Revolution comes along and kind of locks it in. Factory schedules aren’t built around “sleep for a while, wake up, then go back to sleep.” They need you functional in the morning, consistently. So people start consolidating sleep into one block because they have to, not because it’s necessarily how the body originally worked. By the early 1900s, the idea of eight straight hours just becomes the standard.
What’s interesting is if you take all that away, people drift back to the old pattern pretty quickly. In lab studies where there’s no artificial light and no clocks, people tend to split their sleep again, with a calm stretch of being awake in the middle. And it’s not just labs. There was a 2017 study looking at a rural community in Madagascar without electricity, and people there still sleep in two segments, waking up around midnight like it’s completely normal.”
Now I have first pee and second pee!
It’s the ying yang for a mid day siesta
What if I only get the second half each night???
“but what about 2nd sleep?”
Huh. So weird to read this, because I’ve been doing this very thing for over a year or so.
Wake up past midnight, or maybe even one or two, alert for perhaps half an hour or more, then asleep again until sunrise. No alarm needed anymore.
Waking up after the first sleep:
https://preview.redd.it/bj0ib7gr2gvg1.jpeg?width=299&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8f636be6e864b340c6cd2dc2913f07e34e45e66
2 morning woods?
People used to wake up, pee, and take 30 minutes to fall back asleep
I can’t remember the last time I went to sleep and didn’t wake up til the morning
We’ve had first sleep, yes…
I kinda do this.
I have my peaceful first sleep until around 3. Wake up and think about everything wrong with my life and eventually fall into my second sleep after an hour or two.
I’m about to take my 2nd sleep right now. Probably add a 3rd one after. Should just be enough time to get ready for my 1st sleep
You sleep I watch
I found out about Biphasic Sleep from a podcast and have been interested in it ever since. I’m not sure I have it down, but it has been interesting to think about sleep in this way.
Maybe also because they went to the bed earlier. Until recently people had nothing else to do after it got dark.
Please don’t post misinformation. The person who made that story doesn’t seem to have read his own bloody sources. From one of them: “The sleep period consistently occurred during the nighttime period of falling environmental temperature, was not interrupted by extended periods of waking, and terminated, with vasoconstriction, near the nadir of daily ambient temperature.”
As I have aged I started falling asleep early and waking up in the middle of the night. I have been in this pattern for well over a decade. I hated it at first. Now I find it completely natural and resent the times when scheduling prevents me from following it.
I now have 2 different times of day when I find it easier to concentrate and achieve the elusive state of ‘flow’ that is so productive and rewarding.
I’ve been doing this for years and it absolutely ruins my life.
Wait til you turn 40. There is before 3am pee and after 3am pee
My cat demands I still work on this system.
Oh yeah, i’ve had period of sleeping for 4 hours twice. It was interesting experience.
Now I’m texting this after 1 sleep, another air raid russian missles woke me. Gonna continue to sleep. Not interesting experience
Edt: grammar
Yeah, one to two AM when I wake up to pee, smoke some pot, and go back to bed. Lol
extrapolating this from a 2001 book that just cites mentions of terms similar to ‘first and second sleep’ in the 1300-1800’s, primarily from europeans with zero systematic analysis
to behavior that represents all of humanity in ‘most of human history’, which is hundreds on thousands of years long, is the epitome of unscientific.
they provide zero scientific basis to defend such a claim.
First sleep, pee, second sleep, pee, cat bites my foot, third sleep, cat goes full Rocky slapping my foot, wake up.