Typically, they went to sleep three hours and 20 minutes after sunset and woke before sunrise. And they slept through the night. The result of these sleep patterns: Nearly no one suffered from insomnia. In none of their languages is there even a word for insomnia.
They found that average time the members of each tribe spent asleep ranged from 5.7 to 7.1 hours per night, quite similar to the reported sleep duration in more modern societies.
A new study looking at sleeping patterns in three traditional hunter-gatherer tribes suggests ancient humans were just as sleep-deprived as we are, averaging a little under 6.5 hours of shut-eye every night.
Caveman beds
The archaeologists found a mattress complete with soft bedding. It was made primarily from stems, leaves and other plant materials. Even back then, we were looking for a comfy night's sleep. What surprised scientists most, however, was the use of natural insecticides.
They also slept less than seven hours a night, getting an average of six and a half hours of sleep per day, with no naps. They typically slept six hours during the summer, and seven in the winter.
Li Zhanying, a citizen of China's Henan region, has been suffering from a strange sickness that prevents her from sleeping for even a second. For the past 40 years, the Chinese woman claims she hasn't slept in 40 years.
The planet would have gone pitch black.
The first day after people would go to sleep, most fossil fuel power stations would shut down, resulting in blackouts all over the world. Only Times Square and Las Vegas would still have light for a few more days.
A study of hunter-gatherer societies suggests that our prehistoric ancestors slept for about the same number of hours we do today. And, contrary to the claims of siesta aficionados who say that we are biologically wired to sleep in the middle of the day, our ancestors likely didn't nap.
Anthropological studies suggest that sleeping in two phases used to be the norm. Centuries ago, before the industrial era, people in many parts of the world, including Europe, Africa, North America, South Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Australia, followed a segmented sleep pattern.
1) The world record for the longest time asleep.
However, in 2017, seven-year-old Wyatt Shaw fell asleep for 11 days! After running tests, doctors could not determine what was causing his prolonged nap. He woke up with mild cognitive issues but recovered with the help of anti-seizure medication.
Each block of sleep would be around four hours, with most people staying awake for an two to four hours in between. This in between waking period was often seen as a good time for those nocturnal arts, such as procreation and pillow talk.
Ancient Sleeping Patterns
During and before the 15th Century, we used to sleep in two shorter periods over 12 hours. Due to a lack of artificial lighting and candlelight, our ancient ancestors went to bed at dusk for around four hours, woke in the middle of the night and were active, then slept again until dawn.
Arguably from time immemorial to the nineteenth century, the dominant pattern of sleep in Western societies was biphasic, whereby most preindustrial households retired between 9 and 10pm, slept for 3 to 3 ½ hours during their “first sleep,” awakened after midnight for an hour or so, during which individuals did ...
The average person spends about 26 years sleeping in their life which equates to 9,490 days or 227,760 hours. Surprisingly, we also spend 7 years trying to get to sleep. That's 33 years or 12,045 days spent in bed! But what's so special about sleep?
A good night's sleep is vital for every human being to survive. Given that an average a person sleeps for 8 hours in a day, that means that an average person will sleep for 229,961 hours in their lifetime or basically one third of their life.
The longest time a human being has gone without sleep is 11 days and 25 minutes. The world record was set by … American 17-year-old Randy Gardner in 1963.
More importantly, as several other findings have shown, early tribes shared common sleeping space, children attached to their parents, and families wrapped up work by sunset and woke up at sunrise. Leaving babies in separate spaces, away from their caregivers, day or night, was simply not a consideration.
In the Victorian era the public would typically fall asleep at 7pm when the sun disappeared, however this dramatically moved to 10pm in the Edwardian era, finally settling at 12pm in the modern age. Although our bedtime has become later throughout the years, we've continued to wake up around a similar time.
200,000 Years Ago, Humans Created Beds of Grass and Ash to Sleep | Inside Science.
First sleep or dead sleep began around dusk, lasting for three to four hours. People woke up around midnight for a few hours of activity sometimes called “the watching.” They used it for things like praying, chopping wood, socializing with neighbors, and for sex.
First and foremost is that while Paleolithic-era humans may have been fit and trim, their average life expectancy was in the neighborhood of 35 years. The standard response to this is that average life expectancy fluctuated throughout history, and after the advent of farming was sometimes even lower than 35.
Einstein Slept Only 3 Hours a Year.
Can we go further, putting people to sleep for decades and maybe even the centuries it would take to travel between the stars? Right now, the answer is no. We don't have any technology at our disposal that could do this. We know that microbial life can be frozen for hundreds of years.
History of Ancient Human Sleep
In this sleep research, they found that the people went to sleep about 3.5 hours after sunset, challenging the idea that staying awake later may result from modern technology. The average sleep duration was 6.25 hours, with the subjects sleeping less during summer and more in winter.