About sleeping, waking up, and all the possibilities in between

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Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and immediately thought, “Something’s wrong with me”?
You’re not alone. So many of us have been taught that “good sleep” means sleeping straight through the night. When that doesn’t happen, we worry, try harder, and often feel defeated by our own biology.

But what if waking up in the night isn’t always a problem?
What if, instead, it’s something deeply human: something our ancestors experienced for thousands of years?

Roger Ekirch, a sleep historian and professor at Virginia Tech, has spent decades studying how humans used to sleep. His research revealed something fascinating: for most of history, people didn’t sleep in one continuous block.

They slept in two phases - a first sleep and a second sleep - with a gentle period of wakefulness in between. During that quiet hour after midnight, people prayed, reflected, journaled, tended the fire, cooked, or simply sat in stillness. Some even used that time for closeness with their partners, when the day’s fatigue had lifted and the world felt soft again.

Waking in the night wasn’t strange. It was expected. It was part of life.

So when did things shift?

During the Industrial Revolution, artificial lighting, urban life, and factory schedules began reshaping our nights. People stayed up later under gas lamps and electric lights but still had to wake early for work. Sleep became shorter, more condensed and, eventually, consolidated into one uninterrupted stretch.

Culturally, values like efficiency, productivity, and “early to rise” ambition became symbols of success. Sleep was reframed as something to minimize: a necessary evil to “get through” rather than a natural rhythm to honor.

By the end of the 19th century, waking in the middle of the night - once seen as normal - was suddenly labeled as insomnia.

For generations, our bodies followed a natural rhythm of segmented sleep. But once the world shifted toward this new ideal of uninterrupted rest, people who woke at night began to feel that something was wrong with them.

Medical textbooks even described night awakenings as early signs of mental illness. Over time, that message stuck, and still echoes today.

Many of my clients tell me that their middle-of-the-night wakefulness feels isolating or shameful. But when they learn that this pattern mirrors an ancient, deeply human rhythm, something softens. Their anxiety eases. The self-blame begins to lift.

They realize: My body isn’t broken. It’s remembering.

Ekirch doesn’t suggest that we should all return to biphasic sleep — modern life simply doesn’t support it. Research today shows that consolidated sleep tends to support our physical and cognitive well-being best.

But understanding this history can change our relationship with our own nights.

If you wake in the middle of the night, try not to panic or label it as “insomnia” right away. Instead, take a few deep breaths. Let your body settle. You might read something soothing, journal a few lines, or simply rest in the dark. Or, as I tell my clients: get up and go bake a cake!

This isn’t failure: it’s being human.

When we stop fighting our nights, we make space for peace to return.
When we understand that our ancestors often slept in two phases, we can meet our wakefulness with gentleness instead of fear.

Maybe, in a quiet way, our bodies are remembering a slower, softer rhythm: one that once brought comfort, not concern.

As Roger Ekirch beautifully reminds us:

“Sleep has never killed anyone. Lack of sleep has.”