July 27, 2026 • 6 mins
Ever wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning and think something is wrong with you? Turns out for hundreds of years, it may have been completely normal. Before electricity and 9-5 jobs, many people practiced "biphasic sleep" -- going to bed, waking up in the middle of the night for a couple hours, then going back to sleep. On this episode of IDKMYDE, B Daht shares if the 8-hour sleep myth was literally sold to us! Let's find out.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I welcome back know at Als to another episode of
the most anticipated podcast on the Black Effect Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
It's entitled I didn't know, Maybe you didn't either.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm your host, be Dot and just to catch people
up on the Worship on the Water event going down
next month. I told you we added Gospel Bingo, but
we've also added the good brother DeAndre Patterson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I met DeAndre at a men's group that my brother
Flata has every first Tuesday of the month. Men meet
together in Charlotte, a nice, vulnerable, transparent space for us
to just get together and realize, Hey, we not doing
life like this alone. Oh you having problems in your
maverage too? Oh you having problems with your parents? And
two are you having issues with your job too? Are
(00:47):
you having dealficulty? It's something therapeutic about a room full
of men that are either dealing with struggle, coming from struggle, or.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Actually headed to struggle.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Just so many different viewpoints and so many different levels
of experience maturity. But one session we had at the end,
they had somebody praying, and while he was praying, he said, Yo,
you all can pray amongst yourselves while I'm praying.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Never really heard that before you know.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Usually when somebody praying, they the leader and it's just
your job to do the Jezi ad libs like yes, sir,
well glory, yes, Father, that's it. But he was letting
folks actually pray, and the gentleman beside me was praying
heaven down.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I couldn't even hear what the lead prayer person was
saying because DP was over here to my left, rebuking
every demon out that room that even thought about coming
to the party. So God put in my spirit yo.
I don't necessarily want a sermon on worship on the water,
but maybe a sermon at maybe a good word that
can be shared to the people, And I definitely want
(01:44):
a prayer, like as soon as you get to the yacht,
I want you to write down things on your prayer list.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
We're gonna get oose.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So DeAndre Patterson at the end of the night six
point thirty, when we headed back to doc, I'm gonna
need him to pray Heaven down once again. Worship on
the Water August sixteenth, Stellar Awards weekend wrap up party
in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can visit Sunset on the
Lake dot com for details, or you can check it
out on my social media bt TV. I've been promoting
(02:11):
everywhere now. While I was online, as a matter of fact,
I saw this post that said that folks used to
sleep in four hour intervals until a mattress company paid
a doctor to tell us we need to sleep eight hours.
And you know me, I said, wait a minute, I'm
gonna do an episode about this. But before I get
into today's episode, I've got three of the most useless
(02:35):
facts you will never need, never, not a day in life.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
About by phasic sleep. Now, before I get into these,
I need to explain something to you.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Before electricity and nine to five jobs, most people practice
by phasic sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I never heard of the term.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It's going to bed, waking up in the middle of
the night for a couple of hours, then going back
to sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
So your first useless.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Fact about by phasic sleep is people literally called it
first sleep and second sleep. Like those phrases appear in
hundreds upon hundreds of historical books, court records, letters and
diaries from Europe before the Industrial Revolution. Your second useless
fact the middle of the night wake up.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It wouldn't wasted time. Nah.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
In that time period, people would pray, they would read,
they would write letters, they would check on the animals,
they would stoke the fire, they would talk with family,
they would visit neighbors, and of course it'll be time
for some of that hanky panky time, and then they
go back to sleep. And your third useless facts about
(03:41):
by phasic sleep. Sleep researchers actually recreated it, and a
famous nineteen nineties experiment volunteers was exposed only to natural
length winter nights. After a couple of weeks, many of
them just naturally settled into two separate sleep periods, but
like a calm hour or two of wakeful this in between.
So now that I'll give you three useless facts about
(04:03):
by phasic sleep, let's talk about what waking up in
the middle of the night really means. They've been telling
us that's insomnia, and that might be cap I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I didn't know. I didn't know. Man, it's happened to
all of us. You wake up at two thirty in
the morning, you look at the clock and immediately start stressing. Now,
why am I wait, don't got insomnia. Maybe not, because
for centuries many people didn't sleep for one solid eight
hour block, and I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Maybe you didn't either.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Historians call it by phasic or segmented sleep. Instead of
sleeping eight straight hours, many people will go to bed
shortly after sunset, sleep for about four hours, wake up
for an hour or two, then go back to sleep
until sunrise. They even had names for it, first sp
and then second sleep. And this wasn't some rare habit either.
(05:04):
There's a historian, Roger Ekirch, and he found hundreds of
references to it in old books, journals, court documents, medical writings.
So what were people doing while everybody else was supposed
to be sleep? Well, a little bit of everything. Man.
Some prayed in them two hours, some read by candlelight,
some wrote letters, some checked on the live stock. Married couples, well,
(05:25):
let's just say they had time between first and second
sleep to do push ups on top of each other.
Then things started to change. Cities grew, factories needed workers
to clock in at specific times, gas lamps, and eventually
electricity let people stay awake way later into the night.
So instead of sleeping when it got dark, we stayed
(05:46):
up watching TV now scrolling social media. You know how
it goes, Manajee, one more episode and I'm gonna go
to sleep. Man over time, our schedule shifted into one
long block of sleep because work demanded it, not necessarily
because that's the only way humans naturally slept. Now here's
the important part. Does that mean everybody should start sleeping
(06:06):
four hours, waking up for two, then sleep in another
four hours? No sleep signs that still recommend getting enough
total sleep, And for most people today, one continuous stretch
works just fine. Now, Somewhere along the way, mattress companies,
sleep experts, and advertisers, they all had financial incentives to
convince us that better sleep started with buying a better bed.
(06:29):
And while you probably heard the story that a mattress
company hired a psychiatrist to popularize eight hours of sleep,
historians say that they haven't found solid evidence that that
actually happened. So a great story, but not sure how credible.
What is true is that the modern work schedules, artificial light,
and an entire sleep industry helped turn one long night
(06:51):
of sleep into the gold standard.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
And I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either.
I welcome back know at Als to another episode of
the most anticipated podcast on the Black Effect Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
It's entitled I didn't know, Maybe you didn't either.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm your host, be Dot and just to catch people
up on the Worship on the Water event going down
next month. I told you we added Gospel Bingo, but
we've also added the good brother DeAndre Patterson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I met DeAndre at a men's group that my brother
Flata has every first Tuesday of the month. Men meet
together in Charlotte, a nice, vulnerable, transparent space for us
to just get together and realize, Hey, we not doing
life like this alone. Oh you having problems in your
maverage too? Oh you having problems with your parents? And
two are you having issues with your job too? Are
(00:47):
you having dealficulty? It's something therapeutic about a room full
of men that are either dealing with struggle, coming from struggle, or.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Actually headed to struggle.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Just so many different viewpoints and so many different levels
of experience maturity. But one session we had at the end,
they had somebody praying, and while he was praying, he said, Yo,
you all can pray amongst yourselves while I'm praying.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Never really heard that before you know.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Usually when somebody praying, they the leader and it's just
your job to do the Jezi ad libs like yes, sir,
well glory, yes, Father, that's it. But he was letting
folks actually pray, and the gentleman beside me was praying
heaven down.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I couldn't even hear what the lead prayer person was
saying because DP was over here to my left, rebuking
every demon out that room that even thought about coming
to the party. So God put in my spirit yo.
I don't necessarily want a sermon on worship on the water,
but maybe a sermon at maybe a good word that
can be shared to the people, And I definitely want
(01:44):
a prayer, like as soon as you get to the yacht,
I want you to write down things on your prayer list.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
We're gonna get oose.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So DeAndre Patterson at the end of the night six
point thirty, when we headed back to doc, I'm gonna
need him to pray Heaven down once again. Worship on
the Water August sixteenth, Stellar Awards weekend wrap up party
in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can visit Sunset on the
Lake dot com for details, or you can check it
out on my social media bt TV. I've been promoting
(02:11):
everywhere now. While I was online, as a matter of fact,
I saw this post that said that folks used to
sleep in four hour intervals until a mattress company paid
a doctor to tell us we need to sleep eight hours.
And you know me, I said, wait a minute, I'm
gonna do an episode about this. But before I get
into today's episode, I've got three of the most useless
(02:35):
facts you will never need, never, not a day in life.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
About by phasic sleep. Now, before I get into these,
I need to explain something to you.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Before electricity and nine to five jobs, most people practice
by phasic sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I never heard of the term.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It's going to bed, waking up in the middle of
the night for a couple of hours, then going back
to sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
So your first useless.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Fact about by phasic sleep is people literally called it
first sleep and second sleep. Like those phrases appear in
hundreds upon hundreds of historical books, court records, letters and
diaries from Europe before the Industrial Revolution. Your second useless
fact the middle of the night wake up.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It wouldn't wasted time. Nah.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
In that time period, people would pray, they would read,
they would write letters, they would check on the animals,
they would stoke the fire, they would talk with family,
they would visit neighbors, and of course it'll be time
for some of that hanky panky time, and then they
go back to sleep. And your third useless facts about
(03:41):
by phasic sleep. Sleep researchers actually recreated it, and a
famous nineteen nineties experiment volunteers was exposed only to natural
length winter nights. After a couple of weeks, many of
them just naturally settled into two separate sleep periods, but
like a calm hour or two of wakeful this in between.
So now that I'll give you three useless facts about
(04:03):
by phasic sleep, let's talk about what waking up in
the middle of the night really means. They've been telling
us that's insomnia, and that might be cap I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I didn't know. I didn't know. Man, it's happened to
all of us. You wake up at two thirty in
the morning, you look at the clock and immediately start stressing. Now,
why am I wait, don't got insomnia. Maybe not, because
for centuries many people didn't sleep for one solid eight
hour block, and I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Maybe you didn't either.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Historians call it by phasic or segmented sleep. Instead of
sleeping eight straight hours, many people will go to bed
shortly after sunset, sleep for about four hours, wake up
for an hour or two, then go back to sleep
until sunrise. They even had names for it, first sp
and then second sleep. And this wasn't some rare habit either.
(05:04):
There's a historian, Roger Ekirch, and he found hundreds of
references to it in old books, journals, court documents, medical writings.
So what were people doing while everybody else was supposed
to be sleep? Well, a little bit of everything. Man.
Some prayed in them two hours, some read by candlelight,
some wrote letters, some checked on the live stock. Married couples, well,
(05:25):
let's just say they had time between first and second
sleep to do push ups on top of each other.
Then things started to change. Cities grew, factories needed workers
to clock in at specific times, gas lamps, and eventually
electricity let people stay awake way later into the night.
So instead of sleeping when it got dark, we stayed
(05:46):
up watching TV now scrolling social media. You know how
it goes, Manajee, one more episode and I'm gonna go
to sleep. Man over time, our schedule shifted into one
long block of sleep because work demanded it, not necessarily
because that's the only way humans naturally slept. Now here's
the important part. Does that mean everybody should start sleeping
(06:06):
four hours, waking up for two, then sleep in another
four hours? No sleep signs that still recommend getting enough
total sleep, And for most people today, one continuous stretch
works just fine. Now, Somewhere along the way, mattress companies,
sleep experts, and advertisers, they all had financial incentives to
convince us that better sleep started with buying a better bed.
(06:29):
And while you probably heard the story that a mattress
company hired a psychiatrist to popularize eight hours of sleep,
historians say that they haven't found solid evidence that that
actually happened. So a great story, but not sure how credible.
What is true is that the modern work schedules, artificial light,
and an entire sleep industry helped turn one long night
(06:51):
of sleep into the gold standard.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
And I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either.
Host
Brian "B Daht" McLaughlin
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