11/16/2025
I’ve taught clients for years that segmented sleep is fine, if your a have the luxury to pull it off and maintain your job.
Once, men and women did not sleep as we do now. The notion of “eight hours straight” was foreign. In the Middle Ages, the night unfolded in two distinct breaths: the first sleep and the second sleep.
As the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky turned to dark velvet, people would retire early, surrendering to the hush of night. After four or five hours, their eyes would open—not from anxiety or disruption, but from rhythm. This pause in the night was a quiet, secret world.
By candlelight, they prayed, leafed through worn books, or sipped spiced wine. Some crossed the street to knock on a neighbor’s door, while others lingered in the kitchen, telling stories to their children, hands wrapped around warm cups. It was the heart of the night, and yet life moved gently—intimate, unhurried, profound.
When the invisible clock of darkness signaled, they returned to bed. The second sleep carried them to dawn, when the rooster’s crow marked the beginning of the day.
For centuries, this was the rhythm of rest—recorded in diaries, stories, even medical manuals. But the 19th century arrived with streetlamps, factories, and the clamor of urban life. The middle hours of the night lost their enchantment, and people began to sleep “all in one go.”
By the 20th century, the memory of segmented sleep had faded. What was once a natural rhythm became misunderstood. Today, we might call it insomnia.
Then… it was simply the most human way to live in harmony with the night.
