I seem to hear from a variety of people that they struggle to fall asleep at night; but the difficult to fall asleep sounds like an evolutionary downside. Even as hunter-gatherers, being able to sleep whenever and wherever sounds like it would be an advantage.
Is it a recent product of modern times and people didn’t actually struggle with it a while back? In which case, what of modern life is causing this? If not, what is the evolutionary advantage of not falling asleep easily?
Actual insomnia has been documented forever, it’s something going wrong, but I do think struggling to sleep in general is our modern lifestyles. Back in my grandads day the majority of people got up early, went out to work hard physical jobs, came home exhausted, had dinner and maybe a bit of family time, then in bed by 9pm. Women at the time often stayed at home but that involved a lot more physical work than we do these days, you’d wash the clothes by hand, heat up the water in a pot for washing up, always busy.
Modern life is brilliant, we have more time to do stuff we enjoy, but we’re just not that physically challenged.