I have trouble sleeping,I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for an hour or so. I thought I might have sleep apnea as a friend of mine has, so I did some research and found that the sleep pattern I was experiencing was more normal than not.
More than one-third of North American adults wake up in the middle of the night on a regular basis. Of those who experience "nocturnal awakenings," nearly half are unable to fall back asleep right away, and rather worry about this aspect of my life now I accept that I have fallen into old human habits so I still get a good night sleep.
Mounting evidence suggests, however, that nocturnal awakenings aren't abnormal at all; they are the natural rhythm that your body gravitates toward. References to "first sleep" or "deep sleep" and "second sleep" or "morning sleep" abound in legal depositions, literature and other archival documents from pre-Industrial European times. Until the modern age, most households had two distinct intervals of slumber, known as "first" and "second" sleep, bridged by an hour or more of quiet wakefulness
The dominant pattern of sleep, arguably since time immemorial, was biphasic," Roger Ekirch, a sleep historian at Virginia Tech University and author of "At Day's Close: Night in Times Past" (Norton 2005), said. "Humans slept in two four-hour blocks, which were separated by a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night lasting an hour or more.
Usually, people would retire between 9 and 10 o'clock only to stir past midnight to smoke a pipe, brew a tub of ale or even converse with a neighbor. During this time some might stay in bed, pray, think about their dreams, or talk with their spouses. Others might get up and do tasks or even visit neighbors before going back to sleep." Others remained in bed to pray or make love. This time after the first sleep was praised as uniquely suited for sexual intimacy; rested couples have "more enjoyment" and "do it better," as one 16th-century French doctor wrote.
Often, people might simply have lain in bed ruminating on the meaning of a fresh dream, thereby permitting the conscious mind a window onto the human psyche that remains shuttered for those in the modern day too quick to awake and arise.
For most of evolution we slept a certain way,' says sleep psychologist Gregg Jacobs. 'Waking up during the night is part of normal human physiology. The idea that we must sleep in a consolidated block could be damaging, he says, if it makes people who wake up at night anxious, as this anxiety can itself prohibit sleeps and is likely to seep into waking life too. Russell Foster, a professor of circadian [body clock] neuroscience at Oxford, shares this point of view. ' Many people wake up at night and panic,' he says. ' I tell them that what they are experiencing is a throwback to the bi-modal sleep pattern.' "
Source: Stephanie Hegarty, “The Myth of the Eight-Hour Sleep,” BBC News Magazine, February 22, 2012
So if you wake up in the middle of the night, relax and enjoy the time and recognize that you to may have fallen into an old human habit--but if it does cause you worry, do seek help from a professional.
More than one-third of North American adults wake up in the middle of the night on a regular basis. Of those who experience "nocturnal awakenings," nearly half are unable to fall back asleep right away, and rather worry about this aspect of my life now I accept that I have fallen into old human habits so I still get a good night sleep.
Mounting evidence suggests, however, that nocturnal awakenings aren't abnormal at all; they are the natural rhythm that your body gravitates toward. References to "first sleep" or "deep sleep" and "second sleep" or "morning sleep" abound in legal depositions, literature and other archival documents from pre-Industrial European times. Until the modern age, most households had two distinct intervals of slumber, known as "first" and "second" sleep, bridged by an hour or more of quiet wakefulness
The dominant pattern of sleep, arguably since time immemorial, was biphasic," Roger Ekirch, a sleep historian at Virginia Tech University and author of "At Day's Close: Night in Times Past" (Norton 2005), said. "Humans slept in two four-hour blocks, which were separated by a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night lasting an hour or more.
Usually, people would retire between 9 and 10 o'clock only to stir past midnight to smoke a pipe, brew a tub of ale or even converse with a neighbor. During this time some might stay in bed, pray, think about their dreams, or talk with their spouses. Others might get up and do tasks or even visit neighbors before going back to sleep." Others remained in bed to pray or make love. This time after the first sleep was praised as uniquely suited for sexual intimacy; rested couples have "more enjoyment" and "do it better," as one 16th-century French doctor wrote.
Often, people might simply have lain in bed ruminating on the meaning of a fresh dream, thereby permitting the conscious mind a window onto the human psyche that remains shuttered for those in the modern day too quick to awake and arise.
For most of evolution we slept a certain way,' says sleep psychologist Gregg Jacobs. 'Waking up during the night is part of normal human physiology. The idea that we must sleep in a consolidated block could be damaging, he says, if it makes people who wake up at night anxious, as this anxiety can itself prohibit sleeps and is likely to seep into waking life too. Russell Foster, a professor of circadian [body clock] neuroscience at Oxford, shares this point of view. ' Many people wake up at night and panic,' he says. ' I tell them that what they are experiencing is a throwback to the bi-modal sleep pattern.' "
Source: Stephanie Hegarty, “The Myth of the Eight-Hour Sleep,” BBC News Magazine, February 22, 2012
So if you wake up in the middle of the night, relax and enjoy the time and recognize that you to may have fallen into an old human habit--but if it does cause you worry, do seek help from a professional.
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