Is 8 hours of consecutive sleep really necessary?

Last updated on April 28th, 2023 at 04:35 pm

If you wake up during the night feeling anxious that you might not be able to get back to sleep, then you are not alone.

We have been led to believe that 8 hours of consecutive sleep is essential. However, science and history evidence shows us some reassuring evidence that will change the way we thing about awakening during the night.

In today’s society, awakening during the night can cause anxiety. We panic that we are interrupting our sleeping hours, which in turn prevents us from falling back to sleep. This comes as no surprise to many sleep psychologists, as the increased pressure to sleep for a certain amount of time appears unnatural to our bodies.

Science and history evidence suggests that awakening during the night is completely normal. We should instead enjoy the moments of being awake to calm our minds and think, rather than stressing too much about falling back into a deep sleep quickly. To no surprise, being active for an hour or two or even just lying their thinking can actually allows our bodies to relax and fall back to sleep quicker.

These science and history sleep experiments prove eight hours of consecutive sleep is completely unnatural. So why are we so anxious about awakening during the night?

Psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in the early 1990s, in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a whole month to analyse their sleep behaviour. Within 4 weeks, the experimenters sleep began to regulate into a distinct sleeping pattern. The pattern consisted of 4 hours of sleep, then awake for 1-2 hours and then back to sleep for another 4 hour period. Though sleep scientists were impressed by the results, the norm of today’s culture is that we need to get a consecutive eight hours of sleep every night to restore and rejuvenate for the next working day. So this leaves us with the question of whether 8 hours of consecutive sleep is really necessary.

Historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper in 2001. Based on over sixteen years of research, the paper suggests how humans used to sleep in two distinctive periods. Ekirch’s book ‘At Day’s Close’ references more than 500 cases of a segmented sleeping pattern. The references from diaries, court records, medical books and literature describe the broken periods of sleep as common knowledge. This represents a great contrast within today’s representation of required sleep, as we can clearly understand that in the past, two conjunctive periods of sleep were the norm.

In today’s culture, we are anxious about waking up periodically during the night as we are frightened that we are interrupting our sleep. However, research suggests that in the past, these periods of awakening during the night were actually something we could celebrate. It would mean that we could treasure our precious time and continue with everyday activities. Whether toilet or tobacco breaks, visiting neighbours, or praying, these hours were well spent and society were encouraged to make the most out of this time. There were even countless prayer manuals from the late 15^th Century offering special prayers for the hours in between sleep. This time was not entirely solitary though, as often people used this time to have sex. A doctor’s manual from the 16^th Century encouraged those who wanted to conceive to have sex during the “first sleep” when the couple has “more enjoyment”. It was the norm to be awake during the night hours, and society were often encouraged to be active.

Since when did we require 8 hours of consecutive sleep?

Before the 17th century, people were encouraged to make the most out of the two hour period during the night which they were awake. It was a time to be celebrated rather than anxious about. In today’s society, we are told that 8 hours of consecutive sleep is an essential requirement for a healthy lifestyle, so when did these changes happen?

Historian Ekirch noticed the disappearance of references to the first and second sleep during the late 17^th Century. By the 1920s, the idea of an interrupted sleep receded completely from our social consciousness.

Why were society encouraged to be awake during the night hours?

Craig Koslofsky, historian author of ‘Evening’s Empire’ accounts how the night hours were spent before the 17th Century. He states that nights before the 17^th Century were full of criminals, prostitutes and drunks roaming the streets. “There was no prestige value associated with staying up all night”. In the wake of the Reformation and the counter-Reformation, the shift occurred. Protestants and Catholics began to hold secret services at night, during periods of persecution. Respectable people were becoming accustomed to exploiting the night hours.

For those who could afford to live by candlelight, they could roam the streets at night. Night life was beginning to trend, while spending hours lying in bed was considered a waste of your precious time. “People were becoming increasingly time-conscious and sensitive to efficiency, certainly before the 19^th Century” states Roger Ekirch. “But the industrial revolution intensified that attitude by leaps and bounds.”

Strong evidence in a medical journey from 1829 represents the shift, with statements that refer to parents urging their children out of a pattern of first and second sleep.

The human body’s natural preference is segmented sleep… Could 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep be the cause of sleep maintenance insomnia?

In today’s society, we are bombarded with articles that suggest adults require 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night, which of course has added pressure to the population. Ekirch believes that many sleeping problems may have roots in the human body’s natural preference for segmented sleep as well as the ubiquity of artificial light. He suggests that this could be the cause of a condition called sleep maintenance insomnia in which a person awakes during the night and struggles to get back to sleep. Sleep maintenance insomnia is first accounted for at the end of the 19^th Century.

Gregg Jacobs, a sleep psychologist backs Ekirch’s theory by agreeing that “waking up during the night is part of normal human physiology.” He makes a great point of reminding us that we are human, and society adding pressure over something we cannot control can actually add increased anxiety and stress, which in turn prevents us from falling back to sleep. He mentions that the waking periods in the past could have played an important role in the human capacity to regulate stress naturally.

Could today’s sleeping regulations be contributing to stress, anxiety and depression?

In many accounts, Ekirch found that people used their waking periods to meditate on their dreams. For this reason, Dr Jacobs understands that “it’s not a coincidence that, in modern life, the number of people who report anxiety, stress, depression, alcoholism and drug abuse has gone up”.

The majority of doctors still fail to acknowledge that this added pressure to get a consolidated eight hours of sleep might be unnatural.

Russel Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford states that “over 30% of the medical problems that doctors are faced with stem directly or indirectly from sleep. But sleep has been ignored in medical training and there are very few centres where sleep is studied”.

This concludes to the likelihood that lying awake at night might actually help us regulate our stress and reduce the symptoms of anxiety or depression. If our pre-industrial ancestors could enjoy the night hours, without feeling anxiety for being awake, then maybe we should follow their footsteps and celebrate that we are resting and relaxing our mind.

References:

(Stephanie Hegarty, BBC World Service, The myth of the eight-hour sleep, 22nd February. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783)