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Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

nautil.us

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Re: Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

#121

Post by dotancohen »

salawat wrote: post #97
dotancohen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why is that fundamentally different from the technobabble description of any other vital organ?

Life has a surprising amount of detail, and if you're only curious enough to interact with the answer as 'technobabble', this does not speak well of your genuine curiosity on the subject. However, in general... Form is shaped by function. The liver/pancreas are designed to handle the production of detoxifying/neutralizing agents that may in and of themselves kill nearby tissue, resulting in the propensity for notable…

I very much appreciate you engaging me with such an informative reply! I actually would love to read volumes in that style - yet I've never seen that style applied to biology before.

Re: Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

#122

Post by scotty79 »

layer8 wrote: post #88
scotty79 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked if there's abundant evidence for monophasic sleep in historical writings. Or do we just assume it was monophasic, because there's not much written about sleep either way?

You were asking for historical backing. Sleep is definitely abundantly mentioned in historical writing, while segmented sleep is not. I take the absence of the latter as historical backing.

Monophasic sleep is mentioned, or just sleep is mentioned without hints on whether it was monophasic of polyphasic?

Re: Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

#123

Post by n4r9 »

randusername wrote: post #73
Flashtoo wrote: post #3

> Some emerging research suggests Earth’s magnetism matters, as well. Being barefoot on the ground versus 30 stories high in a downtown skyscraper puts you in a completely different magnetic environment. Really? My instinctive reaction to this statement is that it's quackery. Would be very interested to see headlines appear about this if it's true.

This is called "grounding" or "earthing" and Wikipedia doesn't pull punches in dismissing it [0]. You can buy grounding wires for your mattress or copper rivets for your shoes. From my tissue engineering class in undergrad my 2 cents is this is maybe 95% supplements quackery and 5% genuine mystery. You can find papers that claim EM fields have cellular interactions [1]. I don't think serious scientists will touch con…

Hilariously, the wikipedia page suggests that the research looks less like it's "emerging" and more like it's "submerging".

Re: Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

#124

Post by mindslight »

dtech wrote: post #40
teekert wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a biologist so forgive me the poor wording, but there are "infinitely high" peaks/walls in the evolutionary landscape, as in: "the human urinary system has some evolutionary constraints and anatomical features that are not optimally designed from an engineering perspective, but they are generally functional and reflect our evolutionary history rather than deliberate design." So in that sense, a global maxima (min…

That is the difference between global and local optima. We're not at a local optimum though, our bodies can probably evolve to produce half the urine or something without changing the route, but there is no evolutionary pressure to do so.

You're implying that "half the urine" describes something that could be a local optimum, but a local optimum would be something more in terms like urine output versus energy expenditure required to achieve that. But that doesn't even capture it, because you can directly control how much urine you produce - water in, water out. So what's really being optimized for is the pressure/stress/disutility function of the kidneys in the context of how much water you are intaking. Which is presumably moderated by your access to water, and higher level conscious optimization like how much water you're wanting to intake and how much urine you're wanting to produce. And that's not even capturing all the constraints in play! But it hopefully illustrates how the scope of what is being optimized for is quite large - it's not each metric in isolation, but rather some (probabilistic) utility function over the whole.

Re: Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

#125

Post by everyday7732 »

47635274172635 wrote: post #119
hastily3114 wrote: post #24

>“No way. They’re partying all night.” But they can, because there’s no top-down pressure to go into the office at 8 a.m. They’re free to catch supplemental sleep as needed throughout the 24-hour period. This feels like the key point to me. These societies follow their body and go to sleep when they are tried, while us in the west have to sleep at a specific time to fit our schedules.

>while us in the west have to sleep at a specific time to fit our schedules. This does seem to work great at group level. Considering we're in a competitive setup and all that. I also recognize I personally benefit from others having this schedule. It would quickly go sideways if the firefighter felt like he wanted to sleep a bit more, or the police officer didn't really feel like it whenever is an emergency.

Firefighters and police are quite strange examples to choose, since they both have to offer 24hr support. Surely they could benefit from sporadic sleeping and shift work?

For example if they're able to have some firefighters napping at the station, whilst others keep watch for alerts, that would seem better than enforcing strict wakefulness for the whole squad so they are all tired if the call comes in at the end of a night shift?

Obviously there would have to be some communication and understanding about who stays awake and who takes a rest, but I could see it working.

Re: Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

#126

Post by devilbunny »

tharkun__ wrote: post #109
devilbunny wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are wearing clothing or any covering, clearly it isn’t your optimal temperature. I’m not trying to be glib here; I understand the appeal of being warm in a cool or even chilly room with air that keeps you from overheating. But that’s not sleeping at the optimal temperature; it’s choosing the sleeping setting you like. And there are huge swaths of the world where the temperature basically never gets that low (1…

Your feeling might be different. But for me, body temperature and feeling is way different from the air I'm breathing. I can be, actually want to be toasty warm under the blanket. But I want the air I am breathing to be fresh and cold. That is when I feel comfortable and "at peace". I will often stick out my feet from under the blanket because it's way too toasty but the rest of my body needs to be warm. Sure, when i…

I was really responding to the article’s odd claim of 18 C being the perfect sleeping temp, and your comment was so extreme in the make-it-cold direction that it seemed to be a good spot to reply. If we’re talking about “optimum” sleep temp as though such a thing has meaning beyond personal preference, then clearly it must not be cluttered with cultural detritus like depth of blankets, etc.

My wife wants it to be 20 C or lower and sleep under two blankets. I pointed out that 23 with a fan and a sheet is less energy-intensive and gives equivalent results, and she said stuff it. Not a battle worth fighting at home, but on the internet…

(Of note, the one of our dogs that loves me but worships her still sleeps next me every night, under covers, because she’s a Chihuahua and gets cold easily, and unlike my wife I sleep like a dead log.)

Re: Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

#128

Post by 47635274172635 »

everyday7732 wrote: post #125
47635274172635 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>while us in the west have to sleep at a specific time to fit our schedules. This does seem to work great at group level. Considering we're in a competitive setup and all that. I also recognize I personally benefit from others having this schedule. It would quickly go sideways if the firefighter felt like he wanted to sleep a bit more, or the police officer didn't really feel like it whenever is an emergency.

Firefighters and police are quite strange examples to choose, since they both have to offer 24hr support. Surely they could benefit from sporadic sleeping and shift work? For example if they're able to have some firefighters napping at the station, whilst others keep watch for alerts, that would seem better than enforcing strict wakefulness for the whole squad so they are all tired if the call comes in at the end of…

That was the low hanging fruit, after I set the stage for the real state of things. Again, we are in a competitive setup, globally, which imposes a certain gameplay. If we're not organized we're not as efficient. Or functional for that matter. You are either putrid rich and can afford to pay others to keep it together for you, or you need to do what you don't really enjoy, but must be done. As always basically. In the past we were facing famine mostly, so we had to do what we had to do. There were times for partying but we always had to do what we do not enjoy doing. It's nothing new really, it's just the way we're doing it that's different.

So coming back, what would be your solution? Because you cannot simply ignore the global competition for resources and basically power. If you slack you get taken over. As in, slacking might work for a while, sure. But that will inevitably be seen somewhere, in some numbers, statistics, resources etc. Sooner or later. What do you do then? One just needs to look at some current wars footage to get a sense of how bad it can be. Also don't get me wrong, I'm all for world peace and all that. Very hard feat though, considering human nature.

Re: Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

#129

Post by bitshiftfaced »

musicale wrote: post #105
bopou wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a contentious theory with little actual historical backing. Most likely people have been sleeping in one block since forever.

> Historical texts and recent research suggest an alternative view: that sleep can be naturally segmented into two periods across the 24h cycle – a pattern known as biphasic sleep https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138994572...

I believe that "little actual historical backing" could accurately describe what evidence that publication has provided, don't you?

Re: Where Human Sleep Went Wrong

#130

Post by IAmBroom »

sd9 wrote: post #60
usernametaken29 wrote: post #22

> untangle what he calls the sleep paradox: Sleep is critical to human functioning, and yet, we sleep fewer total hours than any other ape Instead of going to Tanzania you could’ve asked a sleep scientist. Sleep length has no known correlation to brain size and is known for drastic within family variation. What’s more sleep has a high within species variation too, some sleepers can survive 4 hours, others need 8. Col…

How do you think sleep scientists got their data in the first place? Some of them went to Tanzania.

Cite.
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