by Sun Meilan

Created on: February 23, 2012

In the United States, United Kingdom and a number of other countries, it has long been presumed that the optimum sleeping pattern is to get about eight hours of sleep a night, then stay awake all day without napping. Indeed, working days are designed so that there isn’t time for napping, even at lunchtime, when people are often expected to work or run chores. However, findings from research and historical evidence suggests that getting eight hours sleep a night all in one go may actually be unnatural.

According to a BBC article, research conducted by Thomas Wehr in the 1990s showed that, when a group people were plunged into darkness for fourteen hours a day for a month, they exhibited a pattern of first and second sleep. This meant that they slept for around four hours, woke up and stayed awake for one or two hours, then fell back to sleep again.

History, too, shows that sleeping in two blocks was once accepted practice, because that was the natural way of sleeping. The BBC article also cites a book called “Evening’s Empire” by Craig Koslofsky, in which the author suggests that this pattern of sleeping changed when night lighting became common practice in towns and cities and so night-time activity increased. As a result, people had less time to dedicate to sleep and so tried to cram it all together. A historian, Roger Ekirch from Virginia Tech, has found historical evidence that this situation was exacerbated during the Industrial Revolution, when time was money. Even children, who would once have been encouraged to sleep during the day, were forced out of their pattern in order to work.

The aim to sleep for eight hours has continued forward to the present day. Although in some countries, it is still considered acceptable to sleep during the day, it is seen as lazy by many, who believe that sleeping at night is the way to go. However, most people find that they have a dip in energy during the day when they could easily fall asleep and many find that they lie awake at night, unable to sleep. This would therefore fit with the idea that sleeping in two blocks is more natural than sleeping for eight hours in one go.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the average adult gets less than seven hours sleep a night. Nevertheless, the NIH claims that this is not enough and that adults, even older adults who are believed to need less sleep, need from 7.5 to nine hours sleep a night in order to function properly during the day. Even

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