Three centuries ago, people have forgotten how to sleep properly

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In every life must have been like this: lying, and lies in the middle of the night, having slept only a few hours.Some of this time exploring the bowels of the refrigerator, some - with a sigh, sit at the computer or turn on the TV to a couple of hours sleep again.It is likely that this - absolutely normal.Abnormally in this case - it's just "healthy" (but really just an unhealthy) eight-hour sleep.

recent article "Bi-bi-si" recounts how there was such a theory.

In 1990, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people placed in a dark room for fourteen hours every day for a month.Almost all of these people eventually began after four hours of sleep to wake up an hour or two and then go to sleep for another four hours.

If you look in the book of historian Roger Ekirha "At the end of the day: Sleeping in the past century," then we can be sure: this is no accident.Ekirh collected a lot of historical evidence that in the past people were sleeping so: in two steps.Nobody thought of the night awakening nuisance.People defecate, prayed, walked around the house, went to visit the neighbors, talk to people in the household, or had sex with a partner (in some medical treatises of the XVI century recommended to have sexual intercourse is "the first sleep" - to increase the chances to conceive a child).

Ekirh found that the mention of the double dream began to fade in the XVII century.The changes began with the higher strata of society in the north of Europe, and two hundred years of continuous eight-hour sleep almost become the norm throughout the world.Historian connects it with the emergence of street lighting and the availability of artificial lighting in homes.In addition, around that time began to appear cafe who work late.

now most prefer to sleep for eight hours every day, but Ekirh believes that it is segmented sleep - the solution of many problems associated with sleep."Most of his stories we slept in a certain way.The habit of waking up in the middle of the night - part of human physiology, "- he writes.

He was echoed by Professor Russell Foster, a circadian neuroscience, which considers that the lack of sleep is guilty segmented in many problems of modern society.For example, anxiety, stress, depression, and place them in alcohol and drug abuse to some extent may be due to the fact that people do not sleep in two steps.It is in between one and another dream of our ancestors relaxed, thinking about the spiritual, and it helps smooth out the disturbing forget their problems.

Yuri Mikhailov


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Articles Source: computerra.ru