What you can learn from the middle ages

It’s interesting how historical sleep patterns, like the segmented sleep cycle, are making a sort of comeback in today’s understanding of sleep. People in the Middle Ages didn’t have the pressure of sleeping perfectly for eight uninterrupted hours, and it wasn’t seen as a problem if they woke up in the middle of the night. People often slept in two periods, known as 'first sleep' and 'second sleep.' After the first sleep period, they would wake up in the middle of the night, have a short waking period, and then sleep again until morning. In fact, those wakeful moments were often used for reflection, reading, prayer, or even intimacy.

In modern times, we’ve been taught that anything less than a straight 8-hour block of sleep is disruptive or unhealthy. But as science and cultural attitudes towards sleep evolve, we're learning to embrace our natural rhythms more, including those nighttime awakenings.

So, what can we learn from the Middle Ages? Perhaps we should stop seeing fragmented sleep as something to fix, and instead view it as a part of a more natural, human sleep cycle.

Today, we usually sleep uninterrupted, but many people still experience waking up during the night. This could be a natural response to our old rhythms. Instead of getting frustrated, try to calmly accept these moments and think: I’m not sleeping badly, I’m sleeping the way we’ve done for centuries.