In Medieval and Tudor England, people used to sleep sitting up in their beds. Bed frames were a sign of wealth and they were often passed down in wills. Sleeping upright was considered healthy because it helped prevent respiratory problems. The wealthy would often have special chairs that they would use to sleep in.
To be clear: Most people didn't sleep sitting fully upright in bed, with their backs against the wall or headboard. Rather, Handley says that a person's head and upper back were propped up with pillows and bolsters to ease digestion and prevent food from being regurgitated while one slept.
Lying flat in bed was associated with death, so medieval people would sleep in a half upright position.
Beds were most likely lined with straw and animal skin. However, some historians believe that the Vikings actually slept sitting up with their backs against the wall given the limited and confined space that was available on the benches.
Sleeping sitting up in a recliner shouldn't be harmful. It could, in some cases, raise your risk of deep-vein thrombosis, a blood clot in a limb that can occur if your arms or legs are bent and you are motionless for hours. This sometimes occurs in people who sit still for long periods of time in an airplane seat.
Sleeping in a chair every once in a while won't harm you, but sleeping in one every night may not be a good idea. Always talk with your doctor about best sleep practices if you're recovering from a surgery or currently living with chronic pain or a serious illness.
Confusional arousals: During a confusional arousal, a sleeper acts disoriented and may sit up and look around but does not leave the bed. Sleepwalking: Sleepwalking occurs when people get out of bed while still asleep but exhibit limited awareness or responsiveness to their surroundings.
“The Tudors slept slightly raised up - not flat as we do - and 'segmented' their sleep, waking for around an hour during the night to chat or read,” says Anna Roberts from Little Moreton Hall.
Victorians would typically sleep for around five hours then wake back up and use their time for cleaning, reading or relaxing before settling down for the second round of sleep, otherwise known as a biphasic sleep pattern.
Vikings were extremely clean and regularly bathed and groomed themselves. They were known to bathe weekly, which was more frequently than most people, particularly Europeans, at the time. Their grooming tools were often made of animal bones and included items such as combs, razors, and ear cleaners.
Electricity came, and humans had to adjust their sleep patterns accordingly. But before that time, some parts of the world slept in two phases within a 24-hour span. It was common practice in some populations to have “two sleep periods”; you could have the first snooze during the day and the second at night.
For millennia, people slept in two shifts – once in the evening, and once in the morning. But why? And how did the habit disappear? It was around 23:00 on 13 April 1699, in a small village in the north of England.
In Medieval and Tudor England, people used to sleep sitting up in their beds. Bed frames were a sign of wealth and they were often passed down in wills. Sleeping upright was considered healthy because it helped prevent respiratory problems. The wealthy would often have special chairs that they would use to sleep in.
As for how humans slept without soft pillows, they likely slept in a more upright or reclined position rather than lying flat on their backs, as is common today. They may have also used blankets or other soft materials to cushion their heads and support their necks while they slept.
The old beds and even their wooden counterparts were elevated higher than what we're use to today because of cold drafts that were close to the ground. The higher a bed could be constructed from the ground, the closer to the warmer air that collected at the ceiling it would be.
In Medieval societies, people generally slept for around four hours, then woke for a few hours to pray or socialise with their bed fellows, before going back to sleep – a practice that seems very alien to us nowadays.
In an 1852 publication by Charles Delucena Meigs, protection for menstruation came in the form of a T-bandage. A T-bandage was cloth “folded like a cravat” and tied around the hips with a string or ribbon.
Typically, they went to sleep three hours and 20 minutes after sunset and woke before sunrise. And they slept through the night. The result of these sleep patterns: Nearly no one suffered from insomnia. In none of their languages is there even a word for insomnia.
Some people live with medical conditions that make sitting up more comfortable for sleeping. These include morbid obesity and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Some people may also feel more comfortable sleeping in a recliner.
The purpose of marriage was to procreate but for the times the Tudors didn't want to fall pregnant, there were rudimentary forms of contraception they could use. Basic condoms made from a cleaned out fish gut or sheep's intestine turned inside out.
The beds were short because people slept sitting up. This was so they could have their weapons ready (swords most likely) and attack any nighttime intruders. The doors were low so that anyone coming in had to bend down when coming in. This made chopping their heads off much easier.
Wool and linen cloths were used by Tudor people to clean their teeth – there were no toothbrushes at this time. Worn out clothes were torn and used as cloths; larger pieces were used as household cleaning cloths, smaller pieces for washing bodies and cleaning teeth.
Sexsomnia, characterized by sexual behavior during sleep, is within the spectrum of parasomnias occurring predominantly in NREM sleep, as a variant of confusional arousals and sleepwalking, with or without associated obstructive sleep apnea1.
If anyone sleeping near you has ever complained about groaning or moaning at night, you may have a rare sleep disorder called catathrenia. It makes you produce those sounds and hold your breath while you sleep.
What are confusional arousals? Confusional arousals is a sleep disorder that causes you to act in a very strange and confused way as you wake up or just after waking. It may appear that you don't know where you are or what you are doing.