Thread by @NBCLX

It was a Tuesday in January and @fhurtado was on his "4th day of waking up in the middle of the night for an hour the way our ancestors used to."

Ok, cool...but, uh, why?

Good question.

trib.al/cVGlAOc

Why do we need 8 hours of sleep and did we always sleep that way?

Turns out, we didn’t.

“People in the western world...experienced what is referred to as a segmented...sleep,” said Roger Ekirch, a historian and professor at Virginia Tech.
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“Our sleep today is less than 2 centuries old. It's a construct of modernity. It's artificial,” said Ekirch.
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So when our ancestors woke up in the middle of the night in this biphasic sleep pattern, what did they do?

“Sex, particularly if you and your spouse were interested in conceiving a child."
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Some would pray or meditate, while others would socialize with neighbors before returning home for their 2nd sleep
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So @fhurtado wanted to find out if it could be possible to be a successful member of society today and sleep in a biphasic fashion
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"My plan was this: I would go to bed at 11 p.m. like I usually do. Get up at 3:30 a.m. for an hour, and then go back to bed at around 4:30 a.m. for a 4-hour second sleep."

Find out how segmented sleep worked out for him:
lx.com/science-tech/h…