It is normal to wake up at night?
25-10-2012
It is received wisdom that when you close your eyes at night it is natural to sleep all the way through to morning and anything else is an aberration. So deeply ingrained in us is this belief that when we wake in the middle of the night most of us stress about getting back to sleep as fast as possible and get worried if we feel too awake in the middle of the night. Often this attitude can be self-defeating but that hasn’t stopped us from feeling that way.
Maybe this will. What if we were to tell you that in fact the idea of sleeping all the way through the night is actually a modern invention and that there are still a number of peoples and cultures around the world that sleep the way humans have for millennia, with a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night.
Well, it is true. Modern science has just rediscovered something our ancestors already knew. That it is actually natural and healthy to wake in the middle of the night for an hour or so. Up until the 19th Century most of humanity followed this routine, waking in the middle of the night and not getting worried about it.
This time was even recommended by doctors as the perfect baby making time!
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