Eli5: Why do many people struggle to sleep on the first night in a different bed or environment?
In: 6
Many people struggle to sleep on the first night in a different bed or environment because they are not used to the new surroundings. Their body is used to being in a certain position and sleeping in a certain way, so it can take some time to adjust to a new bed or environment.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about evolutionary psychology.
But here’s my theory: it’s pretty simple, an alertness due to the perception, even subconsciously so, that a new environment may contain unknown threats.
Before agriculture we probably slept in different places quite a lot. It would be advantageous for our survival to spend at least the first night observing our new tree, cave, hummock of grass, what-have-you for potential threats before getting too cozy.
This behaviour may be especially helpful since so many potential predators or venomous animals are nocturnal.
You might know, consciously, that there isn’t a hungry jaguar waiting for you to fall asleep in your room at the Best Western but your lizard brain is just makin’ sure…just to be safe.
it’s because your brain is unsure if the new place is “safe” or not. you never fully go into deep sleep cycles because your brain subconciously feels as if it needs to stay somewhat alert in the event that you need to quickly switch into flight or fight to escape danger.
When people sleep in an unfamiliar place, only half the brain sleeps. Usually it’s the right side of the brain, for some reason. As far as we know, this usually only happens the first night. It’s also been observed in people under stress.
Until recently, we thought only animals could do this. for example, We knew that whales did this, which allowed them to rise to the surface to breathe while sleeping. they even keep one eye open to watch for predators while sleeping.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sleeping-with-half-a-brain/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sleeping-with-half-a-brain/)
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