The West Virginia Morning Show With Hans and Rona

“The healthy habit of sleeping seven to nine hours every night is not always the most natural way for humans to rest. Scientific studies and history demonstrate that, throughout history, people actually did not sleep at a stretch, . . . A sixteenth-century medical manual even recommended keeping sex in the middle of the night, after a "first sleep" as "more enjoyable" and "done better". According to historian Roger Ekirch, who has researched the subject for 16 years, there is numerous historical evidence to show that people slept in two phases. Today the Tiv tribe of Nigeria continues to use the terms "first sleep" and "second sleep" to refer to the times of the night. Ekirch's study, says the BBC, concluded that this conception of sleep at night began to fade in the late seventeenth century, coinciding with the arrival of night lighting of cities (Paris was in 1667, the first city to put lighting in all its streets).”