Sleeping for 8 hours a night is good for you because it allows your brain to refresh and clean up. There are chemicals in your brain that cleanup everything that accumulates during the day. If you don’t sleep, you can become moody and uncoordinated, sometimes you even start to hallucinate. The hormones in your body become unbalanced, and in worst case scenarios, you die.
However, it hasn’t always been this way. People used to sleep for 2 4-hour blocks, with an hour or so of waking time in between that. That one hour was used to relax, meet people, enjoy, and have fun. Some scientists of that time even said it was the best hour to conceiveĀ as they were well rested but not too drowsy.
There is no real fixed amount of time people should sleep, it varies from person to person. Some people function better with more sleep, and some don’t require as much. So it’s basically just sleeping as much as you require to function throughout the day.
I really like how you explained the history of how people used to sleep, as well as the effects that a lack of sleep can have on a person. It was detailed yet still simple. š