As the standard for staying healthy in the modern world, we have accepted the attempt to sleep for eight hours in a row as a constant fact, but in a deep analysis of history and science, our ancestors' sleep patterns were completely different and diverse in the present.
From medieval European literature to Victorian There are numerous evidences of ‘biphasic sleep’ or biphasic sleep in various documents of the era. Historian Roger Ekirch has analyzed more than 500 historical sources and found that before the industrial revolution, people were used to sleeping mainly two phases. This ancient lifestyle people used to go to bed immediately after sunset and their ‘first sleep’ was broken at 10 or 10 o'clock at night.
After the first round of sleep, there was a special break in people's lives, which would have been stopped for two hours in the life of a person. In this society, people do not sit idly in this time, do a little work, talk, gossip with neighbors or family members and worship religious and religious.
According to scientists, in the absence of artificial light, the human body used to inhibit the release of melatonin hormones differently, according to a study by psychologist Thomas Weire in the 1990s, if people are kept in the dark for a long time, their body will naturally return to this bifurcated sleep pattern.
Between these two sleeps, the level of a hormone called ‘prolactin’ in the human body increases in the human body, which makes people mentally calm and highly creative. Many modern insomnia or insomnia patients are actually stuck in this ancient biological pattern, which is not suitable for the current mechanical society.
The introduction of street light in Europe in the late seventeenth century and later the industrial revolution resulted in artificial light Expansion will change this primitive habit of people. The culture of drinking coffee and the desire to work at night will kill the creative break in the middle of sleep forever.
Modern science says that the practice of eight hours of continuous sleep is actually a contemporary invention that is often contradictory to the primitive habits in our DNA, especially for students, researchers and people involved in intellectual or creative work, this intermediate wake-up or ‘Otach’ can be very fruitful.
This turning point in history makes us think that rest has no fixed mathematical nature, but it was the true nature of man to match the body with the rhythm of nature. Using it properly in the creative work of the present day, it can sharpen our thinking power.
Author: Dr. Taukeer Hasan (Bangladesh Specialized Hospital)
English 
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