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The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

bbc.com

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Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#201

Post by hnbad »

cdot2 wrote: post #10
boomboomsubban wrote: post #8

The most interesting thing about this to me is how it shoes just how little are know and likely will ever know about historical life. This entire concept was just forgotten for centuries, and even now we can just sort of guess that it happened but are unsure why. How many other parts of daily life were just never written down? All our historical sources are so absurdly biased towards a wealthy few that our conception…

We're not really sure what actually happens when two phalanxes meet. We're also not sure how the Romans swapped lines of men out during combat. Lots of the details about ancient combat just werent written about in detail and its not something we can (ethically) test

What we do know about pre-modern warfare though is that people generally didn't want to die, didn't want to kill each other and many times battles ended with one of the two armies losing morale and fleeing or surrendering. Individual battles could also last for days with very little time actually being spent physically clashing.

Two phalanxes meeting face-to-face with neither side drastically outnumbering the other was likely the worst case scenario because it meant a war of attrition rather than a quick and decisive victory.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#202

Post by Mordisquitos »

SimplyUnknown wrote: post #140
hatmatrix wrote: post #103

"Despite near-constant headlines about the prevalence of sleep problems, Ekirch has previously argued that, in some ways, the 21st Century is a golden age for sleep – a time when most of us no longer have to worry about being murdered in our beds, freezing to death, or flicking off lice, when we can slumber without pain, the threat of fire, or having strangers snuggled up next to us." What a wonderful time we live in…

Conditions may apply. If you're homeless or living in a country with ongoing war, disease or hunger the likelihood that you have to worry about any of these things goes up dramatically.

Indeed, but being homeless(*) or living in a country with ongoing war, disease or hunger is much less likely today than at any point in history. Not only that, but if you were to be suffering those circumstances, is there any period in the past in which you would be better off than you would be today?

    (*) for a modern understanding as to what constitutes homelessness

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#203

Post by yummypaint »

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

It's 2*4 hours, so the total is the same.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#204

Post by notahacker »

int_19h wrote: post #78
notahacker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about commonly thought to be false because I'm not sure it's commonly thought about at all, but it's a theory with considerable weaknesses Ekirch hypothesis: Early humans had two distinct phases of sleep with an important gap between. Lack of in-depth discussion or even a name for that gap in any language is actually evidence of it being so common it wasn't worth commenting on. It disappeared - again wit…

> A lot of references to "first sleep" can be found if you search digitized records with that string and its foreign language equivalents, but so can references to obviously non-systematic things like "first injury" or "first marriage" This hypothesis would also have to explain why we don't say things like "first sleep" anymore, even though we do say things like "first injury" or "first marriage".

We don't talk about first sleeps but you'll still find plenty of modern references to "first sleep", "second sleep" and even "third sleep" in modern text too, from book titles to scholarly articles on sleep cycles

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#205

Post by andi999 »

jarenmf wrote: post #133
jdshaffer wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly curious here and not picking on you. If it was super productive and enjoyable, why only do it for a year?

Like others have pointed out, It's really difficult to operate on a different schedule than the rest of society. Eventually family, friends, and other activities pushed me to give up my evening "first sleep"

If you have small kids going to bed early is an option (since you need to be home anyways)

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#207

Post by gmadsen »

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.

what, my six year old memories seem to strongly disagree with this. like an itchy rash all over your head

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#208

Post by honkdaddy »

a_square_peg wrote: post #188
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.

I haven't read Why We Sleep yet, but I do remember a post[1] on here a while ago which found issue with some of the books' claims. YMMV

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#209

Post by Mistletoe »

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.

Enough HN for today.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#210

Post by Aramgutang »

dang wrote: post #116
TigeriusKirk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Polyphasic sleep" was a popular topic here for a while. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=polyphasic

I remember it well, and also how curiously it died out. But I don't think it's really that related.

It's doubly curious that there hasn't been a recent resurgence. I'd expect that the WFH trend would be making it more practical and sustainable for many.

During polyphasic experiments in my youth, my biggest obstacle was always securing reliable conditions to allow the daytime naps.

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