SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Hunter-gatherers and farming villagers who live in worlds without lightbulbs or thermostats sleep slightly less at night than smartphone-toting city slickers, researchers say.
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, people in societies without electricity do not sleep more than those in industrial societies like ours," says UCLA psychiatrist and sleep researcher Jerome Siegel, who was not involved in the new research.
Different patterns of slumber and wakefulness in each of these groups highlight the flexibility of human sleep — and also point to potential health dangers in how members of Western societies sleep, conclude evolutionary biologist David Samson of Duke University and colleagues. Compared with other primates, human evolution featured a shift toward sleeping more deeply over shorter time periods, providing more time for learning new skills and knowledge as cultures expanded, the researchers propose. Humans also evolved an ability to revise sleep schedules based on daily work schedules and environmental factors such as temperature.
Samson's team describes sleep patterns in 33 East African Hadza hunter-gatherers over a total of 393 days in a paper published online January 7 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. The team's separate report on slumber among 21 rural farmers in Madagascar over 292 days will appear later this year in the American Journal of Human Biology.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday January 31 2017, @07:41PM
I'm an engineer and I don't need sleep. That's for mundanes.
Heads to coffee machine for employer-provided stimulants.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:08PM
I see they even correlated it to moon phase; makes sense for rural living.
I wonder how it correlates to tribe size. If at all, of course.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:02PM
I assure you, "it" does correlate to tribe size. Everything is correlated with everything else when it comes to biological activity.
(Score: 1) by qzm on Wednesday February 01 2017, @01:12AM
'Hunter-gatherers and farming villagers who live in worlds without lightbulbs or thermostats sleep slightly less at night than smartphone-toting city slickers, researchers say.'
Doh, perhaps thats because they have to actually spend all day doing the labor that keeps them alive?
They have a short sleep when the day is hottest (wonder why that is.. cannot possibly imagine) also, and start again nice and early in the cool morning.
No, its the lightbulbs, thats the ticket!
ffs.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Zinho on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:27PM
Hey, maybe if this research is well enough recieved our doctors will stop prescribing medication for people with polyphasic sleep! [wikipedia.org] The historical record is full of references [bbc.com] to a sleep-wake-sleep pattern, which is assumed to be common knowledge when referenced (first sleep vs second sleep).
"It's not just the number of references - it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge," Ekirch says.
During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.
And these hours weren't entirely solitary - people often chatted to bed-fellows or had sex.
A doctor's manual from 16th Century France even advised couples that the best time to conceive was not at the end of a long day's labour but "after the first sleep", when "they have more enjoyment" and "do it better".
Too bad we've forgotten all about this in the 20th century, so much so that we mistranslate historical documents and over-prescribe medicine to people exhibiting a normal sleep pattern.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:43PM
I was gonna comment about a natural habit to consider that things beyond our personal experience are odd and probably wrong, but there's been enough politics around here...
> "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
Your sig bothers me every time, since he knew pretty damn well those are ellipses!
(or weird if you take the moon's gravity into account, and weirder in an heliocentric system)
Lost an opportunity to educate, the old man...
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:42PM
I was gonna comment about a natural habit to consider that things beyond our personal experience are odd and probably wrong, but there's been enough politics around here...
Yes, that's a very human tendency: "I don't do it, so it's odd/wrong if someone else does" sums up pretty much every culture clash in human history.
It's especially dangerous when the person thinking that has the habit of dispensing chemicals to "fix" the oddities.
Your sig bothers me every time, since he knew pretty damn well those are ellipses!
(or weird if you take the moon's gravity into account, and weirder in an heliocentric system)
Lost an opportunity to educate, the old man...
Hey, don't shoot the messenger
;)
You're right, of course. I choose to focus on his meaning that we really need to go back to manned exploration of celestial bodies; the ISS barely counts as leaving the planet (still in the gravity well, after all). I chalk up the simplification to him speaking to his audience - you gotta dumb it down for U.S. Senators to understand it
:P
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 1) by charon on Tuesday January 31 2017, @11:35PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:34AM
There is research to suggest that that style of sleeping only sprang up after we started become more civilized (started being indoors to work rather than outside foraging or hunting all day) and that our actual evolutionary pattern is fully sleeping through the night. Though I don't have a clue how they decided how cave men slept. These researchers claim the sleep-wake-sleep researchers didn't go back far enough in history. No one claims the 15th century was a pinnacle of human health so cherry picking one thing they did and claiming it to be optimal deserves strong evidence. We can measures these types of things today. Where are the measurements?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:47PM
(Mainly posting to show appreciation to the poster for finding this interesting article. As much fun as the politics articles are, this kind of basic science article is the types of gems which appear too infrequently... and get few replies because the main comment is "huh, that's interesting.")
I wonder what the actual cause of the differences in sleep patterns is. If anything, apriori I would have thought that segregated sleep would be more likely in a society with electricity and cheap lighting (you can do more stuff at night) than a hunter-gathering society.
Also, I'm curious what all the pre-industrial societies do when not-sleeping after sunset. Is firelight/starlight/moonlight/etc really enough to do things? Well, apparently it is, but what kinds of stuff are they doing in that relatively dim environment?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:00PM
> hunter-gathering
Hunting can be pretty good at night if the moon is right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:25PM
a society with electricity and cheap lighting (you can do more stuff at night)
Perhaps the bright lights inhibit the chances of returning to sleep, while in the absence of bright light it is easier to have extended periods of wakefulness and still maintain the ability to return to sleep.
(Score: 1) by charon on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:41PM
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 01 2017, @05:55PM
Well, I don't know about you, but around my office the cause of the difference in sleep patterns is my boss's droning voice!
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 02 2017, @04:25AM
Story telling?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:49PM
An interesting follow up to this study would be to compare the sleep patterns of domestic dogs (since they have been pretty much compelled / bred over the centuries to adopt our sleep patterns ) to their wild ancestors / feral cousins. If there's a correlation with the human results, it might add weight to the conclusions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:53AM
It's a problem. I didn't go to work yesterday because I didn't want to get out of bed.
Depression makes me sleep even more, but I sleep quite a lot even when not depressed.
The worst part is when I wake up in the morning, only rarely do I feel rested. Usually I feel completely wrecked. I want nothing more than to go back to bed but were I to do that consistently I couldn't hold a job.
It is one reason I work as a consultant - I'm paid to deliver a project on-time. Provided I meet my deadline I don't have to show up on any particular days. But if I don't show up at all I cannot deliver.
I've been round and round and round about this with all manner of medical and mental health professionals. Nothing helps.
Oddly if I can stay awake for two hours - somehow - I start to feel fine and can work productively for the rest of the day.
The gig I've got now is a problem because there is a very long commute. I don't have a key to the office, so I have to work when everyone else does. That means I must leave home early and return late.
I just bought a Mac Mini. Soon I should be able to work at home, which will eliminate the commute and let me sleep a little more.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jelizondo on Wednesday February 01 2017, @05:05AM
I have a similar problem, I really feel better working at night and sleeping during the day, except I can’t because my job practically demands daytime activity.
So I got me a dog, a border collie. They (now I have two) will get restless around 6 or 6:15 in the morning. They will not be quiet until let out of the house, the longest I can wait is about 7, the racket is just too much. Then I have to go downstairs, let them out and guilt comes to the rescue, I must feed them before I go out, so I must remain awake waiting for them to do their business outside, get them in, feed them and then, I’m fully awake and ready to rock and roll.
YMMV, but it has worked wonders for me. Usually I’m ready to get out by 8 in the morning and some mornings, even earlier. Hell, last Sunday I was ready to roll by 6:45 and I had nowhere to go!
And sleeping in a tent with a dog will provide you with additional heat. Of course, there’s the problem with you going to work and what happens to the dog? Maybe, call me crazy, just adopt a stray one. Like Mark Twain commented, unlike humans, dogs are faithful to he who feeds them.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m NOT making fun of you, I’ve had to deal with my own demons and I know how hard it can be. I’m just suggesting what has worked for me, but your circumstances are different and you need to be creative on solving your particular problems.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday February 03 2017, @03:28AM
Ultimately it is funded by Housing and Urban Development, but now that I'm working I'll be paying my rent myself.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by jelizondo on Friday February 03 2017, @05:59AM
Cheers!
Glad to hear you're doing better. Keep it up, man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @08:26AM
This may sound strange, but have you tried high doses if Vitamin D?
That, and vitamin B injections really helped me.
(2 digit UID but posting AC for Reasons)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday February 03 2017, @05:57PM
At this point I'd be willing to try waving a dead chicken over it.
I got 2000 IU Vitamin D3, also some Vitamin B12. The article I read also recommends B5 but the drugstore didn't have any.
I just took my first doses, I'll take more tonight at bedtime.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @08:47AM
Are you thirsty in the morning too? Because it really sounds like you have sleep apnea. Try to get that checked - it saved my life.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday February 03 2017, @03:40AM
at least at the time it worked. Possibly it has come back.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]