# Mediaeval people had two sleeps



## Brian G Turner (Apr 9, 2013)

I think I've posted up something about this before, but it's come up on the BBC website again, with a few good reference examples:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783


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## AnyaKimlin (Apr 9, 2013)

If Walls Could Talk  - this was a fascinating series and includes a medieval sleep.


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 9, 2013)

Yes, I remember watching those videos a while back after discussion here - a quick glance through the history section here didn't show the original discussion where I expected it.


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## AnyaKimlin (Apr 9, 2013)

I probably posted it before - it is a really useful resource.


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## paranoid marvin (Apr 9, 2013)

So that's why it was called the Dark Ages! Or maybe it was because they were all working knights?


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## thaddeus6th (Apr 9, 2013)

Napoleon did something like this. He only slept 4 hours a night, but it was two batches of 2 hours each with a gap in between.

I tried this once, and it wrecked both my sleep cycle and my diet (I had a very small bite to eat during the gap) the next day.


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## Dozmonic (Apr 9, 2013)

Polyphasic sleeping is something that'd probably benefit most of us if we could fit it into our schedules


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## thaddeus6th (Apr 10, 2013)

Not quite the same, but I read somewhere or other that about half of Britons would be able to take a siesta (if it were the social norm), and the other half would just find it screwed with their circadian rhythms.

It is fascinating how variable the human requirement for sleep is. Napoleon/Thatcher needed only 4 hours, Einstein about 10. There's at least one woman who needs (or needed, not sure if she's still alive) an hour or less a day.


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## Alex The G and T (Apr 10, 2013)

This doesn't surprise me a bit.  A habit I picked up when my daughters were teens and the household ran chaotic with a continually posse of their friends.

Retire earlier, to escape the hubbub.  
I get my best thinking done, awake in the middle of the night, when the house is quiet.  Processing the events of the previous day; and planning for the next day's endeavors.

Then, when the thinking begins looping, no longer productive; time for some reading to distract from redundant thoughts, until I drowse off again.

 I find the second sleep most restful.


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## anivid (Apr 10, 2013)

In the South we still cherish _le Midi/the Siesta _ between 12h and 14h - almost everything closed - go home - eat & sleep


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## Gary Compton (Apr 10, 2013)

I do 2am to 7am for my main sleep and then at teatime I have a power nap 5-7PM

Works for me!

Am I medieval?


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## bluenimbus (Apr 10, 2013)

i heard about this article, perhaps it would be interesting to try this, just to see what it's like.


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## Venusian Broon (Apr 10, 2013)

This discussion makes perfect sense when you look at studies that have been done on sleep in healthy adults. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnogram

Has the most accessible graph showing it. 

There is a first a period of about 4 hours where you have a mostly very deep, non-REM sleep. Then after that there is a lot of lighter REM sleep, including quite a number of waking moments. So there is a qualitative difference in the type of sleep either side of 'halfway'

I definitely have experienced that halfway moment - I think this is where most 'I only need 4 hours of sleep a night' people are coming up - you can feel very fresh and relaxed at that point if you wake. In fact I would then get up and go to work and ditch the REM sleep...till, probably, catching up with it at the weekend. (I used to have a very early-start job and I'm a 'night person'). No idea if that is bad for you . 

I think for the purposes of stopping death or madness by lack of sleep, the first four hours are crucial, it would appear your mind, on the multi-year experiment I put myself through, can go into REM-debt reasonably happy.


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## jastius (Apr 10, 2013)

I think that most shift workers have experienced this bi-partitioned sleep pattern, its just not really discussed. However if you look up the studies done upon napping as a means of supplementing a disrupted sleep pattern as published in the journals of the APSS, SLEEP;  you will clearly see the pattern of a three to four hour complete sleep cycle followed by a waking or lucid cycle followed by another sleep cycle. 
Here is a link to the journal: 
www.[B]journalsleep[/B].org/CurrentIssue.aspxhttp://www.bing.com/search?q=sleep+magazine+journal&x=0&y=0&form=MSNH56&qs=n&sk=#


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## anivid (Apr 10, 2013)

Gary Compton said:


> I do 2am to 7am for my main sleep and then at teatime I have a power nap 5-7PM
> 
> Works for me!
> 
> Am I medieval?


 
May be you are 
- but that's what'll happen when not forced to follow society's/other's schedules - if allowed to, the body will seek out the pattern most natural for it.
My body does the same - has a break in the night sleep around 4 o'clock, where it's inhabitant rise and does some creative work - every night 
As I know my body to be very clever - it actually has saved me several times - I don't let my brains interfere


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## Gramm838 (Apr 10, 2013)

anivid said:


> In the South we still cherish _le Midi/the Siesta _ between 12h and 14h - almost everything closed - go home - eat & sleep




...leaving the Brit tourists who want to buy stuff fuming, because we don't want to go shopping at 10pm


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## anivid (Apr 11, 2013)

Gramm838 said:


> ...leaving the Brit tourists who want to buy stuff fuming, because we don't want to go shopping at 10pm


 
Brit tourists ? - yeah, they're funny. 
Travelling abroad for experiencing something different - then expecting it to be like home 
Get up early and go to _les puces_/the markets - they close at noon


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## The Judge (Apr 11, 2013)

I can't say I'm convinced of this as being the norm throughout all Western (and/or other) society everywhere pre the Renaissance.  

A 4 hour sleep, plus hour or two awake, plus another 4 hours makes 9 or 10 hours.  Even up here in the frozen north, we don't get 10 hour nights all year round, so that means either people are going to bed before dusk, or sleeping in well after dawn, at least in the summer.  That is, they're wasting valuable daylight to have two hour break in the middle of the night when it's cold and dark.  Using that time for sex, or silent meditation, OK, but reading and visiting??  Burning costly candles? Going out in the pitch-black?  I can't see your average villager doing any of that.  (And it might be my age, but I don't count getting up and going to the loo in the middle of the night as being "active".)

And as anivid says, in the south of Europe, especially in the summer, they would be resting in the terrible noon-day heat, and instead staying up late and rising early to make use of the cooler ends of the day, so where's the 4+2+4 theory there?

(I've been trying to remember what I knew about canonical hours, to see whether monks took any notice of a second sleep pattern, but I'm too lazy to check.)

For me, it's a question of daylight.  People, certainly in the countryside, worked to its rhythms.  In the winter, with its long nights, they might well have woken at some point and got up to pee and think about things, but in the summer, they'd have slept less, and perhaps had a rest at noon.  So yes, the overall idea of not needing 8 hours straight is there, but not quite as formalised as the author makes it sound.


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## AnyaKimlin (Apr 11, 2013)

It is worth noting that anybody who wrote about it and owned a bed wasn't going to be a peasant.   It does fit with the rhythm the monks had though because Matins was around 2 am.


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## anivid (Apr 11, 2013)

The Judge said:


> I can't say I'm convinced of this as being the norm throughout all Western (and/or other) society everywhere pre the Renaissance.
> 
> A 4 hour sleep, plus hour or two awake, plus another 4 hours makes 9 or 10 hours. Even up here in the frozen north, we don't get 10 hour nights all year round, so that means either people are going to bed before dusk, or sleeping in well after dawn, at least in the summer. That is, they're wasting valuable daylight to have two hour break in the middle of the night when it's cold and dark. Using that time for sex, or silent meditation, OK, but reading and visiting?? Burning costly candles? Going out in the pitch-black? I can't see your average villager doing any of that. (And it might be my age, but I don't count getting up and going to the loo in the middle of the night as being "active".)
> 
> ...


 
Yes – your calculation sounds more like hibernating 
The problem with such saying as the medieval one being that the generalisation/induction may lie on a very fragile number of cases/empiricism – further we don’t know much about common people from those times – which were not at all democratic.
IMO the term « the dark ages » is founded more on the little we know about those times, than them not being enlightened – sure they were, the few ones 
Monks were more inclined to follow cloister orders with - if memory serves me well - prayers every fourth hours, than their own natural sleep patterns.
The masses were not free men during the medieval times, if not slaves they were in the (sometimes severe) service of a higher authority (feudal or ecclestical) – or their trade.
Seldom we heard about somebody being able to follow own inclinations, bodily or whatever.
In industrialised societies we’re trained (like rats) to follow the general pattern (6-8 hours) – but as we are VERY different beings on this planet , I sincerely suggest "the reality" to be much more diverse – also as for sleep patterns.
As we can see – and have seen – the human body is adaptable.
Listen to your body – and sooner or later you’ll find out - at least when you get retired


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## Gramm838 (Apr 11, 2013)

anivid said:


> Brit tourists ? - yeah, they're funny.
> Travelling abroad for experiencing something different - then expecting it to be like home
> Get up early and go to _les puces_/the markets - they close at noon



I only wear a football shirt occasionally while I'm on holiday 

But why would I want to get up early to go to a market when I'm on holiday..? I do enjoy the differences abroad (I lived in Germany for over 11 years) and I really like France as well and, gasp, speak good German and some French!

The Tower of London doesn't close down for two hours during each afternoon...


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## Mirannan (Apr 14, 2013)

Anivid - Interesting. I used to sleep the traditional 8 hours or so, but the last couple of years I have found that biological needs (to put it politely) wake me up about 5:30 to 6 AM and I need a couple more hours after that. Also, I find I can't get back to sleep without having a little bit of breakfast.

Quite a long time ago, I was working in a bakery; starting time was 6 AM and 5 AM on Saturdays, which meant getting up about 5 and 4 respectively. Fortunately, baking stopped around 1-2PM (depending on how busy we were) which meant that having a Spanish-style siesta was viable.

Being sleepy after lunch is fairly natural, especially if you live somewhere hot - I suppose that's why the siesta developed in the first place.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 15, 2022)

And the BBC has a new article on how a "first and second sleep" was normal and ordinary before the advent of artificial lighting:








						The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'
					

For millennia, people slept in two shifts – once in the evening, and once in the morning. But why? And how did the habit disappear?




					www.bbc.com


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## Danny McG (Jan 15, 2022)

It's one of the main plotlines in *The* *Second Sleep* by Robert Harris.

A somewhat dreary SF novel set in a medieval type "broken society' England but 850 years in the future


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## Stephen Palmer (Jan 15, 2022)

Brian G Turner said:


> And the BBC has a new article on how a "first and second sleep" was normal and ordinary before the advent of artificial lighting:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Fascinating!


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## Foxbat (Jan 15, 2022)

I have two sleeps most nights. I usually awaken from my first at around 0200, maybe have an apple or banana then  read a book or watch TV and then about an hour and a half later, go back to bed. I get up around 0500 and go for a cycle. It’s been going on for more than a decade now. This article makes me feel quite normal


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## Dave (Jan 15, 2022)

I thought it was well established that people awoke during the night. There are contemporary writers that mention talking with their neighbours. 

I would agree that it is probably staying awake late into the evenings that changed things. It is hard to do any productive activity after dusk, even by gas lights, and especially after your eyesight gets beyond a certain age.



Danny McG said:


> somewhat dreary SF novel


I liked it, and didn't think it "dreary", though "pedestrian" possibly, but the title was a clever play on words. The future people had already lost their knowledge of the past once, and at the end of the book were in danger of losing it a second time but that would be a spoiler!


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## Montero (Jan 20, 2022)

A while back, an article, or maybe a Alice Roberts documentary, commented on the survival advantages of staggered sleep patterns - so if you have a tribe surrounded by dangerous countryside - have some people awake at all times is helpful. So the variation in sleep patterns between people, could be a survival trait.


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## Judderman (Jan 22, 2022)

I wonder if in winter some people split the sleeps with a break due to long nights, but perhaps had one sleep in summer.


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 22, 2022)

Didn't (famously - at least famously on QI) French Peasants just 'hibernate' throughout winter. So not just two sleeps but just stay in bed as long as possible.






						The Big Sleep
					

It’s that time of year again. Cold, windy, wet or snowing and we really don’t feel like venturing out. We might call it hibernating, but the French could




					www.angloinfo.com
				




EDIT: Thinking about, it makes a lot of sense. I believe sleeping suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin, so if you have little food, you're very poor and the land can't produce anything cause it's winter, better to spend most of your time asleep and be inactive to conserve energy.


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## Bowler1 (Apr 15, 2022)

I think sleep would fit into work activities, with less sleep in summer when farming work had to be done, with less work and more sleep in winter, if only to pass the time.

My lockdown sleep patterns were nearly all two sleeps as my working day was less regulated. Now I'm back in the office I'm back to one very modern night time sleep. Not quite proof positive of my proposal, but I'm sticking to it


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## Danny McG (Apr 15, 2022)

Judderman said:


> I wonder if in winter some people split the sleeps with a break due to long nights, but perhaps had one sleep in summer.


I find I tend to catnap and short sleeps all through the summer but do several hours at a time in winter.

In like late August/early September I'm looking forward to the long dark nights to catch up on my kip.

(On the other hand I actively dislike winter weather!)


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## Montero (Apr 15, 2022)

Bowler1 said:


> I think sleep would fit into work activities, with less sleep in summer when farming work had to be done, with less work and more sleep in winter, if only to pass the time.


Reading Annie Hawes on living in Italy, she was told a story by an elderly smallholder, of waking up on moonlit nights and seeing his mother working by the window, doing such things putting walnuts on a string for market. Her reaction was initially "aw" for the lovely childhood memory and she was rapidly put straight by the elderly man that the point was that his mother had to work hard any time there was enough light to see by to do work.

@Danny McG I put yellow filter specs on in the evening from about 20:30 to cut out the blue light which definitely helps, and I have a cloth eye mask to sleep in to keep out dawn's really early light...... can get a little hot. Also useful for napping mid-afternoon.


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