Eight Hours of Uninterrupted Sleep May Be a Modern Fantasy, Anthropologist Says
For many people, a good night’s sleep has become almost synonymous with eight uninterrupted hours: going to bed at the right time, staying asleep until morning and waking up feeling completely rested. Anthropologist Alyssa Crittenden argues that this ideal is more rigid than human sleep patterns have been throughout history. Crittenden, an anthropologist at the […]
The Hadza people of Tanzania challenge the notion that eight uninterrupted hours of sleep is the ideal for human health. Anthropologist Alyssa Crittenden, studying the Hadza, argues the idea of uninterrupted sleep is more rigid than historical sleep patterns suggest. The Hadza's sleep patterns are strongly aligned with natural changes in light, temperature and daily activity.
They sleep an average of 6.25 hours per day with 68.9% sleep efficiency. About 68% of their sleep is spent in uninterrupted blocks, while the remaining is made up of frequent daytime naps averaging 47.5 minutes. This flexibility in sleep patterns suggests that the modern expectation of an uninterrupted, eight-hour night is not a universal biological requirement, but rather a construct shaped by modern environments and social norms.
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