Why You Wake Up at 3 A.M. (Your Ancestors Planned It)

It's 3 a.m. and you're wide awake. Five hundred years ago, that hour was on the schedule. Here's what people did with sixteen hours of darkness, the "first sleep" historians forgot, and what to do next time you wake up. 💬 What time is it where you're watching? Drop the time + your country in the comments. 🔔 Subscribe for more everyday history:    / @inkartistic   Chapters 0:00 3 a.m. 0:29 A day's pay for one evening 1:20 The circle changes the talk 1:59 The phrase nobody explained 2:51 The watch 3:43 But is it real? 4:17 The twist 4:54 The switch 5:22 Back to 3 a.m. 5:57 Close Sources A. Roger Ekirch, "Sleep We Have Lost", American Historical Review 106(2), 2001; At Day's Close: Night in Times Past (Norton, 2005) Thomas A. Wehr, "In short photoperiods, human sleep is biphasic", Journal of Sleep Research 1(2), 1992 Polly W. Wiessner, "Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen", PNAS 111(39), 2014 Gandhi Yetish et al., "Natural Sleep and Its Seasonal Variations in Three Pre-industrial Societies", Current Biology 25(21), 2015 William D. Nordhaus, "Do Real-Output and Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not", NBER, 1996 Kelly G. Baron et al., "Orthosomnia", Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 13(2), 2017 Music: Traumerei by Robert Schumann (performed by Donald Betts) and Nocturne in F major, Op. 15 No. 1 by Frederic Chopin (performed by Luke Faulkner). Public domain / CC0, via Musopen. This video is for general interest, not medical advice. If you're exhausted every day, talk to a doctor.