Humans Used to Sleep in Two Shifts, And Maybe We Should Start It Again
MELINDA JACKSON AND SIOBHAN BANKS, THE CONVERSATION
26 DECEMBER 2020
Around a third of the Australian population have trouble sleeping, including difficulties maintaining sleep throughout the night.
While nighttime awakenings are distressing for most sufferers, there is some evidence from our recent past that suggests this period of wakefulness occurring between two separate sleep periods was the norm.
Throughout history, there have been numerous accounts of segmented sleep, from medical texts, to court records and diaries, and even in African and South American tribes, with a common reference to first and second sleep.