Photo: Anete Lusina

Why are old beds so small?

If you've ever been on a tour of an upper-class historical home or castle, the docent probably made a point of telling the group that beds of the past were so short because people used to sleep sitting upright, leaning against the headboard.

architecturaldigest.com - A Closer Look at Sleep Habits We've Left Behind - Architectural Digest

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Over the past few years, you may have heard the term sleep hygiene peppered throughout morning news segments, articles on self-care, and maybe even conversations with your own doctor or therapist. This concept, which sounds simultaneously on-trend and out of an earlier era, focuses on developing better sleep habits and creating the ideal environment for catching some z’s. And while these tips make sense and can be useful, they’re only the latest example of the evolution of what are considered normal sleep habits. Here’s a look back at some of the other sleep practices we’ve left behind. (Or did we…?)

Sleeping in shifts

The idea of crawling into bed and getting a full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep is a relatively new concept: There is evidence that at least some of our ancestors slept in two separate segments. Sometimes referred to as first and second sleep, this schedule was the norm in preindustrial Europe, as noted by anthropologists and historians including A. Roger Ekirch, a history professor at Virginia Tech and author of the book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past. Instead of sticking to a set bedtime, says Ekirch, households would head to bed a few hours after dusk, wake up for an hour or two, and finish off the night with their second sleep, which lasted until dawn. So what would people get up to in the middle of the night? “During this waking period, people would relax, ponder their dreams, or have sex,” sleep researchers Melinda Jackson and Siobhan Banks write in an article for The Conversation. “Some would engage in activities like sewing, chopping wood, or reading, relying on the light of the moon or oil lamps.” But this intentionally disruptive sleep schedule did not last: According to Ekirch, segmented sleeping gradually fell out of favor during the late 17th century.

Sharing a bed

Beds themselves have also evolved over time. By the 17th century, having a purpose-built piece of furniture, typically consisting of a mattress stuffed with wool and rags placed on top of a wooden frame, became more accessible to the masses, instead of being exclusive to the upper crust of society, Ekirch writes. At the time, he explains, beds were usually the first significant furniture investment families made—in some cases, comprising a quarter of the overall value of a modest household. This meant that sleeping was a family affair, and beds were shared by multiple people. In fact, throughout most of human history, beds and sleeping areas had multiple occupants, says Brian Fagan, an anthropology professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, in an article for The Conversation. Not only was it common for family members to squeeze into the same bed, but it was also an accepted part of traveling—even if you weren’t traveling with your family. Thanks to Samuel Pepys, a 17th-century politician and noted diarist, we know that sharing a bed with a fellow weary traveler who happens to be a stranger was normal in Britain in the 1600s. There’s also evidence of travelers sharing a bed on the other side of the pond, perhaps most famously when John Adams and Benjamin Franklin spent a night as bedfellows in a New Jersey inn in September 1776.

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Sleeping in an upright position

If you’ve ever been on a tour of an upper-class historical home or castle, the docent probably made a point of telling the group that beds of the past were so short because people used to sleep sitting upright, leaning against the headboard. The widely circulated explanation for this was that people believed that “bad air” was heavier than fresh air, so positioning oneself with your head elevated (allowing your nose to access the superior air) was better for your health. Although that sounds feasible, it lacks historical evidence. However, 17th-century medical texts from Great Britain indicate that an elevated sleeping position was in fact adopted, but for the purpose of creating a gentle slope from the head to the stomach to aid digestion, according to Sasha Handley, author of the 2016 book Sleep in Early Modern England.

architecturaldigest.com - A Closer Look at Sleep Habits We've Left Behind - Architectural Digest

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