The Myth of the 8 Hour Sleep

The great sleep conspiracy.

Having a bored brain is one thing that can get you to sleep. New Africa/Shutterstock

There is a special kind of madness reserved for 3:17 a.m. It’s the hour when your brain, left unsupervised for too long, decides to unearth every mortifying thing you’ve ever said, every bill you’ve forgotten to pay, and the distinct possibility that the Eight-Hour Sleep Rule is a colossal lie.

The last thought, at least, has some merit.

Because here’s the thing, the idea that humans are meant to sleep in one solid, uninterrupted block of eight hours is utter nonsense. It’s the kind of historical fib that’s been repeated so often, we’ve mistaken it for scientific fact.

And yet, it dictates everything from the multi-billion-dollar sleep industry to the guilt we feel when we wake in the night.

But let’s get one thing straight: humans were not designed for this rigid, industrial approach to sleep.

We are, in fact, biphasic sleepers by nature. We used to sleep in two parts. We used to wake up in the middle of the night and not immediately fall into despair.

And, more importantly, we were completely fine.

The Myth of Eight Hours

To understand how we got here tossing and turning in the dark, clutching our phones as we Google “WHY AM I AWAKE AT 2AM” in all caps, we must first go back to a simpler time. A time before alarm clocks. Before electricity. Before work emails followed us into our beds like malevolent spirits.

In medieval Europe, people didn’t sleep for one long stretch.

Instead, they had a “first sleep” (usually from sunset to around midnight), followed by “the watch,” a mysterious, liminal period where they chatted, snacked, prayed, or just thought.

Then, around 2 or 3 a.m., they’d return for a “second sleep,” which lasted until morning.

This wasn’t some quirky niche habit of a few monks in drafty stone buildings. It was the norm.

And then, as usual, the Industrial Revolution came along and ruined everything.

Blame the Factories

In 1817, a Welsh factory owner named Robert Owen came up with the phrase “Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest” and not because it was based on some profound scientific discovery, but because it was convenient.

A tidy, factory-approved division of the 24-hour day to keep workers awake enough to avoid getting sucked into the machinery.

Fast forward 200 years, and we are still prisoners of this Victorian workday logic, despite the fact that the only thing most of us are operating at 6 a.m. is a coffee machine.

The Modern Sleep Crisis

Now, you may be wondering: If segmented sleep was so great, why did we abandon it?

The answer, predictably, is artificial lighting.

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Before electricity, night was properly dark. People went to bed when the sun set because there was simply nothing else to do, unless you had a penchant for fumbling around with a candle and setting fire to your curtains.

But with the arrival of gas lamps, electric bulbs, and smartphones beaming into our retinas at 11:47 p.m., we extended our waking hours.

Once we stopped going to bed early, the first sleep disappeared, the “watch” got lost, and all that remained was one interrupted slab of sleep, which we are now terrible at achieving.

The Science of Broken Sleep

Here’s where things get interesting.

When people are placed in environments without artificial light, like in controlled sleep studies, they automatically revert to biphasic sleep. They wake up in the middle of the night, wander about for an hour or two, and then fall back asleep again.

So what does this mean?

If you wake up in the night, you are not broken.

You are, in fact, doing exactly what your ancestors did for centuries.

The real sleep disorder isn’t waking up, it’s our collective insistence that sleep must happen in one uninterrupted block.

So, What Should We Do?

For a start, we need to stop panicking.

If you wake up at 2 a.m., congratulations, you’re functioning exactly as humans did for most of history.

Instead of sweating about impending cognitive decline, lean into it. Read a book. Make tea. Stare broodingly out the window like a misunderstood hero.

Second, embrace your chronotype, whether you’re a morning lark, a night owl, or some sort of permanently exhausted pigeon, your body is wired a certain way for a reason.

Andrey_Kuzmin/Shutterstock

Studies show that sleep variation is 40–72 percent genetic, meaning if your ancestors were happiest starting their day at noon, so are you.

And finally, let’s set fire to the rigid sleep schedule. Humans aren’t robots. We don’t all need the same amount of sleep at the same time, in the same way.

The Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania get an average of 6.25 hours of sleep a night with no concept of bedtime, yet show no signs of sleep deprivation or existential collapse.

Meanwhile, we, with our blackout blinds, melatonin gummies, and desperate devotion to sleep apps, are walking zombies.

Maybe, just maybe, we’re doing it all wrong.

A New Approach to Sleep

The ideal sleep schedule? It’s the one that works for you. Not one dictated by a Welsh factory owner from 1817. Not one enforced by rigid social expectations.

So the next time you wake up in the middle of the night, remember, it’s not a crisis. It’s history knocking at your door.

And instead of fighting it, maybe, just maybe, you should make a cup of tea and let it in.