Has Your Lifestyle Destroyed Your Full Night of Sleep?

When you can’t get a full night of sleep, it can feel like you’re the only one in the world suffering that way. However, you are far from alone. In fact, it’s currently estimated that one in three people in the United States struggles to be able to fall asleep or remain sleeping. 

What Research Says About Getting a Full Night of Sleep

With a third of the population struggling to get a full night of sleep, researchers have been pouring their efforts into finding out what is going on and how it can be corrected.  Though there are many, many schools of thought in this area, there is one thing that everyone seems to agree is playing a role: our daily (and nightly) lifestyles.

The way we’re currently living our lives, from long working hours to irregular bedtime and waking times and our obsession with light-emitting screens have all been accused of playing a role in our struggle to get a full night of sleep. Beyond that, there is another school of thought that some scientists are investigating with respect to the way we approach sleep as a whole.

Do We Have the Wrong Sleeping Goals?

Some scientists are now investigating whether we should be trying to get a full night of sleep in the first place. A high-quality sleep supplement can be very helpful in assisting many of us to get on track when we’re struggling with overall sleeplessness or a continually shifting bedtime and waking time. They’re handy for letting us fall asleep in the first place, or to fall back to sleep when we’ve woken up and face hours of sleeplessness to follow.

But did we evolve with the need to get all our sleep at once? Should we expect to be able to go to bed at the same time every night, remain asleep for eight hours, and wake up at the same time in the mornings? Perhaps not! Research is suggesting that we may have evolved in a way that had us wake up between two separate sleeping periods. In fact, many cultural records from African, South American, pre-industrial European and even Dickensian histories have shown that the expectation of a “first” and “second” sleep was quite normal.

Does a Full Night of Sleep Happen in Two Parts?

Bi-modal sleeping, also known as biphasic sleeping has now been placed in the spotlight. Should you be giving up on getting a full night of sleep all at once and giving two parts a try? That’s up to you.  Talking to your doctor about this issue might be quite helpful to you in making your decision.  That said, for many of us, it is our lifestyles that decide whether we will be able to make this type of change.

The typical lifestyle has certain committed working hours for school or employment, which limit the times during which we are able to lie down to get some rest.  Realistically, we don’t all have the opportunity to accept that we will wake up in the middle of two sleeping sessions. Though this may be something to which the world will adapt in the future, at the moment, many of us will need to continue our reliance on healthy bedtime routines and the occasional use of sleep supplements to ensure we get the rest we need.