Throughout history, people have always worked during the day and slept during the night, only waking when the sun rose or the cock crowed. That’s just one of those self-evident historical facts, right? Well, not necessarily.
In the pre-industrial age, people’s sleep habits were rather different to what they are today. The Industrial Revolution transformed not only how we lived and worked, but how we slept. Our modern sleep patterns are influenced by a range of factors our ancestors would have had no knowledge of before the late 18th century, particularly electricity.
Electricity powers our days and shapes our nights, but how? How has it changed our sleep patterns over the past two-hundred years, and has it changed them for the worse?
How did people sleep before electricity?
How we sleep is dictated by our circadian rhythm, or body clock. Every single human being has a natural cycle of wakefulness and tiredness, letting them know when it’s time for bed and time to get up.
Before industrialisation filled our lives with artificial light, our circadian rhythms were influenced in large part by the sun. After sunset, aside from candles and firelight, the primary source of light was gone, making work and socialisation more difficult. Therefore, most people tended to head to bed shortly afterwards.
However, going to sleep so early meant they woke up early too, during the middle of the night. Whereas now we see night-time wakefulness as a sign of insomnia, pre-industrialisation, it was perfectly natural. They would have one long stretch of sleep, wake up for a couple of hours, then have a second, shorter sleep before sunrise.
This biphasic sleep, or segmented sleep, was the way people across Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa slept for centuries. Those hours of night-time waking were a time for light chores (stoking the fires, checking the animals), talking, reading and spiritual contemplation. Our minds and bodies were accustomed to it, but big changes were on the horizon.
How electricity affects our sleep patterns
Our circadian rhythm is affected by light exposure, and while for most of history the sun was our primary source of light, now we are bombarded with light thanks to electricity and the technology it powers.
Lightbulbs, screens, headlights, billboards; all these things and more keep us awake and stimulated for longer than our ancestors could have imagined. Evenings are no longer dimly lit and relaxing preludes to a natural bedtime, but a time of television, texting, and nightlife. It can also be a time for work, as artificial light makes night shifts and overtime not only possible, but a necessary part of modern society.
The impact of electricity cannot be overstated. Now, we squeeze our sleep into a single stretch and become concerned if that sleep is interrupted by a period of wakefulness. This reflects the way in which electricity has supercharged our body clocks, delaying the production of the sleep hormone melatonin, making that one stretch of sleep more important, yet more elusive.
Are older sleep patterns healthier?
It is tempting to believe that our ancestors had the right of it, that they were more in tune with the natural rhythm of the body, and this knowledge has been lost in our modern, fast-paced world. However, it is worth noting that the sleep patterns of the past were suited to the lifestyles of the past, and that those sleep patterns may no longer be suited to us.
The secret to good sleep is consistency. A regular bedtime and waking time – which take their cues from your body – will make you feel better rested than a forced segmented sleep. Still, it is nice to think that whenever you wake in the middle of the night, it may well be an echo of a long-lost way of life.
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