For those who have trouble sleeping, Newsweek has a genuinely mind-opening piece on insomnia: Five Myths about Insomnia. Myth Number One:
1. Humans Need Eight Hours Sleep a Night: There are
many ways of sleeping and few cultures sleep in eight-hour consolidated
blocks like we do. In places like Bali and New Guinea, people tend to
slip in and out of sleep as they need it, napping more during the day,
and getting up more at night. Until the industrial era, many Western
Europeans divided the night into "the first sleep" and the "second
sleep." They'd go to bed soon after dark, sleep for four hours then
wake for an hour or two during which they'd write, pray, smoke, reflect
on dreams they'd had, have sex or even visit neighbors. In fact,
there's some evidence to suggest that this sleep pattern may be the one most in tune with our inherent circadian rhythms.
Damn, that makes sense. The link takes you to a study in Psychiatric Times:
At Day's Close:
Night in Times Past, which is about night in preindustrial times, A.
Roger Ekirch, professor of history at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in
Roanoke, uncovered the fact that in preindustrial times before
artificial illumination was widely used, persons typically slept in 2
shifts.1 They called the shifts "first sleep" and "second sleep." In
those times, sleep was more closely associated with sunset and sunrise
than it is now. Within an hour or so after sunset, persons retired to
bed, slept for about 4 hours and then woke up. They remained awake for
a few hours and then returned to sleep at about 2 am for another 4
hours or so...
Although diaries, court documents, and literature of the time indicate that this sleep pattern was widely acknowledged, this bit of history had been lost until the debut of Ekirch's work. The pattern of sleep he describes as the norm in days past is no longer the norm in developed countries where artificial light extends the day. Anthropologists, however, have observed a similar pattern of segmented sleep among some contemporary African tribes,1 such as the Tiv of central Nigeria, who even refer to their customary sleep patterns as first sleep and second sleep, just as the early Europeans did.
Although diaries, court documents, and literature of the time indicate that this sleep pattern was widely acknowledged, this bit of history had been lost until the debut of Ekirch's work. The pattern of sleep he describes as the norm in days past is no longer the norm in developed countries where artificial light extends the day. Anthropologists, however, have observed a similar pattern of segmented sleep among some contemporary African tribes,1 such as the Tiv of central Nigeria, who even refer to their customary sleep patterns as first sleep and second sleep, just as the early Europeans did.
Maybe what we need is more time for sleep and fewer pills...
