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The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

bbc.com

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Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#181

Post by d3ckard »

blahgeek wrote: post #178
yummypaint wrote: post #174

I regularly sleep in 4 hour blocks, and it's definitely the most productive and energetic ive felt. I encourage anyone who is curious to try it for at least 2 weeks, though i find it doesn't take long to get used to. The challenge is mapping sleeping times around the rest of society. In my experience the easiest way to transition from sleeping 8 is to wake up early on a weekend day and do a bunch of tiring activity,…

So it’s 3*4 hours per day? I thought the target is to reduce the total time of sleeping

Reducing amount of sleep is the dumbest idea ever that I fell victim too as well.

It's never about reducing sleep, is about making sure you rest properly. It takes what it takes, if you fight your body, it will fight you back (and make your life a horror for a while).

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#182

Post by gspr »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #145
gspr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. But the fact that the norm is that one doesn't have to worry about these things still is a huge improvement.

Indeed, and since you already called it the norm, we need to ensure that everybody gets to live that way.

Oh I agree with that.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#184

Post by nottorp »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #5

I believe this theory is largely thought false nowadays, or phrased too strongly at least. I myself have weird sleep cycles. I prefer to stay up into the night and wake up around 12:00, but I vary my sleeping hours by up to 4 hours or so. I go to sleep when I feel like it, and don't feel much discomfort by falling asleep at different times. It leads to weird situations - especially in winter - where I might not see t…

> I prefer to stay up into the night and wake up around 12:00, but I vary my sleeping hours by up to 4 hours or so. I go to sleep when I feel like it, and don't feel much discomfort by falling asleep at different times.

Yep. Exactly the same here. I tend to wake up 7-9 hours after I go to sleep (usually between 00-04:00) no matter when that happens. With very rare occurences of two part sleep. No side effects by 45, but I do exercise.

Come to think of it, I may get two part sleep more often than I think, because I do wake up during the sleep period. But most of the time I ignore it and fall asleep again in a couple minutes.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#185

Post by quickthrower2 »

zarzavat wrote: post #141
aparticulate wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory— In the UK, 24-hour is used much more in writing than in other parts of the anglosphere, but no Brit uses 24-hour in speech. I reckon the typo occurs when people have to convert from their "speaking" brain to their "writing" brain.

That and because British people are used to thinking in both systems and implicitly converting between them, they may not even notice the inconsistency. Whereas for Americans who are used to the 12 hour system, the discrepancy sticks out much more strongly.

As a Brit and a developer who has ploughed through many a 24h format log entry, I agree!

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#186

Post by nottorp »

flatiron wrote: post #11

I blame it on alcohol. If I drink I’m always up for a few hours in the middle of the night. And I’m quite sure they were doing a lot of that back in that time.

> And I’m quite sure they were doing a lot of that back in that time.

Technically, they were all drinking alcohol because water was unsafe. However, beer at least had half the alcohol content that it has today and the wine was strongly watered. For women and children they even added water to the beer.

Googled it once. The information should still be available.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#187

Post by type0 »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #175
bloak wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really talking about lice, or do you mean bedbugs? If you mean lice, do you mean head lice, body lice, or pubic lice?

I've had lice before, both head and body types, and they were so benign and not bothersome that I allowed them to stay voluntarily out of kindness and generosity. They are really amazing little creatures.

> ... I allowed them to stay voluntarily out of kindness and generosity.

> They are really amazing little creatures.

To each their own, if it's not a pet peeve then it's a pet

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#188

Post by a_square_peg »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #5

I believe this theory is largely thought false nowadays, or phrased too strongly at least. I myself have weird sleep cycles. I prefer to stay up into the night and wake up around 12:00, but I vary my sleeping hours by up to 4 hours or so. I go to sleep when I feel like it, and don't feel much discomfort by falling asleep at different times. It leads to weird situations - especially in winter - where I might not see t…

Yeah - I'm currently reading 'Why We Sleep' by Matthew Walker (excellent book by the way) and it mentions that this theory has been debunked.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#189

Post by joshuacc »

necovek wrote: post #150
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and since you already called it the norm, we need to ensure that everybody gets to live that way.

A norm does not make it a minimum baseline: a norm is something that's prevalent or average. Not disagreeing with your desire to make that the baseline, just with the terminology :)

The word norm can mean either “prevalent” or “the desired state of things.” So I’m assuming the previous comment was engaging in a bit of wordplay.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/norm

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#190

Post by hnbad »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #100
7thaccount wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how typical your experience is. My daughter needed to be fed every few hours for the first 11 months. Both my wife and I were freaking zombies. It was rough on us. My wife would basically get a couple of hours every time the baby went down, but no long and peaceful sleep. In talking with friends, it would seem like our experience was extra crappy and yours is uncharacteristically mild. So the reality may…

My wife and I thought the same as you, BTW. Then she visited a sleep training centre with our daughter. Turns out if you stop feeding them or going to them in the middle of the night, they adapt and sleep through in less than a week.

They have training centers for this now? I'm genuinely horrified. I'm aware there are different meanings to "sleep training" depending on who talks about it, but the way you imply they use the term ("stop going to them", i.e. let them cry it out) it's just a cutesy way to say "neglect".

There's a reason parents pick up this version (i.e. the "let them cry it out" version, not the "create a safe and comfortable environment to allow them to self-regulate when they wake up" one) of so-called sleep training from books, "experts" and now apparently also training centers, whereas co-sleeping needs to be actively discouraged to stop parents from doing it intuitively.

I'm not saying every parent who doesn't co-sleep with their child is engaging in child abuse, but many mainstream forms of "sleep training" (especially the informal ones) very much boil down to "neglect your infant until they learn not to broadcast their needs because nobody will take care of them".

I'm also not saying that OP's account is representative of all co-sleeping parents. Co-sleeping (with breast-feeding) simply allows for reducing interruptions from nightly feeding in a way that is hardly replicable without it.

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