Your Ancestors Didnt Sleep Like You. Watch Sheep &Amp; Wolves Online Goodvideohost. Ok, maybe your grandparents probably slept like you. And your great, great grandparents. Find your favorite Disney movies available now or preorder on Bluray disc, DVD, and download to watch any time. In partnership with Theatre Under the Stars and DEFINE body mind, we are excited to bring Body by Broadway to Market Square Park Sing, squat, dance and plank along. Watch Where The Wild Things Are Putlocker. The Starry Night is an oil on canvas by the Dutch postimpressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the eastfacing window. Replicants, superheros, and reboots await you in our Fall Movie Guide. Level Up Full Movie Part 1 there. Plan your season and take note of the hotly anticipated indie, foreign, and documentary. But once you go back before the 1. Your ancestors slept in a way that modern sleepers would find bizarre they slept twice. And so can you. The History. The existence of our sleeping twice per night was first uncovered by Roger Ekirch, professor of History at Virginia Tech. His research found that we didnt always sleep in one eight hour chunk. We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. This range was about 1. References are scattered throughout literature, court documents, personal papers, and the ephemera of the past. What is surprising is not that people slept in two sessions, but that the concept was so incredibly common. Two piece sleeping was the standard, accepted way to sleep. Its not just the number of references it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge, Ekirch says. An English doctor wrote, for example, that the ideal time for study and contemplation was between first sleep and second sleep. Chaucer tells of a character in the Canterbury Tales that goes to bed following her firste sleep. And, explaining the reason why working class conceived more children, a doctor from the 1. Ekirchs book At Days Close Night in Times Past is replete with such examples. But just what did people do with these extra twilight hoursPretty much what you might expect. Most stayed in their beds and bedrooms, sometimes reading, and often they would use the time to pray. Religious manuals included special prayers to be said in the mid sleep hours. Others might smoke, talk with co sleepers, or have sex. Surviving Christmas The notasawfulastheysaybutstillkindastupid Christmas movie from 2004 piles on way too many lame gags, but a genuine relationship. AllPhotosAPGI/11822480/11822480_aa.jpg' alt='The Night Before The Night Before Christmas Full Movie' title='The Night Before The Night Before Christmas Full Movie' />Directed by Jonathan Levine. With Joseph GordonLevitt, Seth Rogen, Jillian Bell, Lizzy Caplan. On Christmas eve, three lifelong friends spend the night in New York. The idea that you needed to get up in the middle of the night to tend the fire is most likely not true. Heres why Before you went to bed, you raked the coals. Responses to Dreams Nightmares Its a Sinister Stroll with The Night Walker TonightSome were more active and would leave to visit with neighbours. As we know, this practice eventually died out. Ekirch attributes the change to the advent of street lighting and eventually electric indoor light, as well as the popularity of coffee houses. Author Craig Koslofsky offers a further theory in his book Evenings Empire. With the rise of more street lighting, night stopped being the domain of criminals and sub classes and became a time for work or socializing. Two sleeps were eventually considered a wasteful way to spend these hours. No matter why the change happened, shortly after the turn of the 2. Until about 1. 99. The Science. Two sleeps per night may have been the method of antiquity, but tendencies towards it still linger in modern man. There could be an innate biological preference for two sleeps, given the right circumstances. KYo90Fnfzog/hqdefault.jpg' alt='The Night Before The Night Before Christmas Full Movie' title='The Night Before The Night Before Christmas Full Movie' />In the early 9. Thomas Wehr of National Institutes of Mental Health conducted a study on photoperiodicity exposure to light, and its effect on sleep patterns. In his study, fifteen men spent four weeks with their daylight artificially restricted. Rather than staying up and active the usual sixteen hours per day, they would stay up only ten. The other fourteen hours they would be in a closed, dark room, where they would rest or sleep as much as possible. This mimics the days in mid winter, with short daylight and long nights. At first, the participants would sleep huge stretches of time, likely making up for sleep debt thats common among modern people. Once they had caught up on their sleep though, a strange thing started to happen. They began to have two sleeps. Over a twelve hour period, the participants would typically sleep for about four or five hours initially, then wake for several hours, then sleep again until morning. They slept not more than eight hours total. The middle hours of the night, between two sleeps, was characterized by unusual calmness, likened to meditation. This was not the middle of the night toss and turn that many of us experienced. The individuals did not stress about falling back asleep, but used the time to relax. Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford, points out that even with standard sleep patterns, this night waking isnt always cause for concern. Many people wake up at night and panic, he says. I tell them that what they are experiencing is a throwback to the bi modal sleep pattern. Outside of a scientific setting, this kind of sleep pattern is still attainable, but it does require changing our modern, electric lifestyle. Very cool person J. D. Moyer did just that. He and his family intentionally went an entire month with no electric light. In the winter months, this meant a lot of darkness and a lot of sleep. Moyer writes I would go to bed really early, like 8 3. This was alarming at first, but then I remembered that this sleep pattern was quite common in pre electric light days. When this happened I would end up reading or writing by candlelight for an hour or two, then going back to bed. Moyer didnt set out to reproduce our ancestors sleep pattern, it just happened as a byproduct of a lot of dark hours. Should We Revive Two Sleeps Although history shows that two sleeping was common, and science indicates that it is in some conditions natural, there is no indication that it is better. Two sleeps may leave you feeling more rested, but this could simply be because you are intentionally giving yourself more time to rest, relax, and sleep. Giving the same respect to the single, eight hour sleep should be just as effective. Note too that two sleeping needs a lot of darkness darkness that is only possible naturally during the winter months. The greater levels of daylight during summer and other seasons would make two sleeping difficult, or even impossible. Perhaps two sleeping is merely a coping mechanism to get through the long, cold, boring nights of the winter. Today, we dont need to cope. So long as we give our sleep the time and respect it needs, getting the standard eight hours of sleep should be fine. But next time you wake up at 2 AM and cant sleep, just remember your great, great, great, great, great grandfather. He did the same thing every night. Update. Well this article proved exceedingly popular Thank you to everyone who visited, or took the time to leave a comment. I would encourage new visitors to have a read through the comments below for some interesting ideas and perspectives. I learned two things in particular 1. This is far more common that I thought. A lot of commenters either practice, or used to practice this kind of sleep. Another possible reason for two sleeps is tending the fire during the night.