At Space Studio.

Hi, I'm Dr. Eric Prather, a psychologist who helps people get more restful sleep, a sleep evangelist, if you will.

And if you've ever had insomnia, or even one sleepless night, you know it can affect

everything, from your mood to your productivity to your overall health.

So I'm here to share the science behind sleep, how it happens, and the tools you need to help

you sleep well.

Because let's face it, who couldn't use more quality shut eye?

Today, I'm going to debunk the biggest sleep myths out there and show you what to try instead

so you can literally sleep easier.

It's interesting to think about what the origin of the eight-hour sleep recommendation comes from.

In general, if people sleep in kind of a

consolidated fashion, they will sleep between seven to nine hours if they need to. And so it's thought that this

might represent someone's sleep need. But historically, people haven't necessarily slept in one big chunk like that.

Several decades ago now, Robert Eckrich, who was a historian, wrote a book documenting

the fact that there may have been a time in which we had polyphasic sleep, where we slept in two chunks,

which has to do with the fact that before industrial lighting,

we would go to sleep when the sun went down.

We would sleep for, say, three to four hours,

wake up for some period of time,

where people would do things, have rituals,

procreate, and then go back to sleep for several more hours and wake up when the sun came up.

And the thinking is that, potentially, when there was indoor lighting and changes in industrialization,

...