For much of history, humans probably got pretty lousy sleep. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, many people slept in the same bed alongside their family in dwellings lacking any temperature control beyond a fire or air ventilation. Those homes were littered with bed bugs, fleas, and lice that not only feasted on their hosts at night but also spread diseases, which — in the absence of modern medicine — kept the infirm awake and suffering. The noises of cities and rural life alike also made sleep difficult, thanks to the all-hours bustling of laborers, horse-drawn carriages, and livestock with whom farmers might’ve shared a home. “Because in the winter they generated warmth,” says A. Roger Ekirch, a history professor at Virginia Tech and author of At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past.

Nighttime itself was a risk. Slumber left people vulnerable to crime or death from fire or other natural disasters. Some prayers throughout history sought God’s protection from the litany of threats adherents encountered in the dark, says Ekirch.

For those who are lucky enough to have access, modern marvels like central heating and air conditioning, comfortable beds, and even Tylenol have all but eliminated many of these barriers to sleep. “We don’t have to worry about the myriad perils to sound slumber and our physical well-being that people did 300, 400 years ago,” Ekirch says.

“We don’t have to worry about the myriad perils to sound slumber and our physical well-being that people did 300, 400 years ago.”

Still, sleep doesn’t come easily to millions of Americans. Over 14 percent of adults had trouble falling asleep most days in 2020, according to the National Health Interview Survey. Nearly just as many people — 12 percent — have been diagnosed with chronic insomnia, according to an American Academy of Sleep Medicine survey. Among the

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