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The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

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Re: The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

#31

Post by ianstormtaylor »

rappatic wrote: post #2

It's so interesting to me that fundamental ways of life like this can go nearly undocumented save passing references. We know a lot more about the annals of Greek history, for example, because that's what was written down. Ekirch took years to rediscover all these references to biphasic sleep because it was so fundamentally normal that historic writers never thought to focus on it. Now, with our obsessive encyclopedi…

I agree, it’s kind of mind blowing when simple things like this are discovered—very humbling. (If the research can be trusted ofc.)

> Now, with our obsessive encyclopedic documentation, it's unlikely that future generations will forget our ways of life.

I’m not so sure. One, due to increasing reliance on bits for that documentation. But also two, because we already find it incredibly hard to truly imagine the ways of the world just a few generations back.

Re: The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

#32

Post by INTPenis »

Ever since I learned of sleep cycles, and how to measure my own, I've pretty much governed my life around them.

Each person has a cycle where they go between waking and resting state. The trick is to go to bed when you're headed into resting state. And if you wake up and can't go back to sleep, get up and do something for X number of minutes until you go back into resting state.

For me the cycle is about 45-50 minutes.

This also means that if you wake up naturally before your alarm that means you're in the waking state, so it doesn't matter how sleepy you might feel, just get up and get on with your day. Going back to sleep will waste 45*2 minutes at least.

Re: The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

#34

Post by rapjr9 »

As people get older polyphasic sleep often becomes their norm, they sleep when they are tired, and are awake when they are not, especially if they no longer have a job. If you have to interact with people (sign for packages for example) it can be a problem, but if you don't it seems about the same as normal sleep to me. Being forced to change sleep schedule constantly does cause health issues, but just doing what your body tells you seems to work out ok in my experience. Taking drugs to force sleep to a schedule seems like a worse option.

One drawback to it is that many sleep trackers don't handle it well. They'll treat a second sleep as a nap for example and then pester you that you're not getting enough sleep. The Galaxy G5 seems to capture all sleeps fairly well (but it loses pairing every few months and has to be reset from scratch), the Oura Ring sometimes catches 2nd or 3rd sleeps as naps and adds them to the total, the Xiaomi Mi7 Band often misses shorter sleeps or lists them as naps without adding them to the total. The Android app "Sleep as Android" is started and stopped manually so if you can remember to do that it works well.

Re: The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

#35

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

imp0cat wrote: post #30
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to tell you, 4am-5am, between sleep phases, is the best time to clean a kitchen. It's vaguely contemplative and when you go into the kitchen later that day it's like the cleaning fairy did it.

I think it's even better to do it right before sleep. Waking up to a clean kitchen which is nice. But obviously, YMMV.

Oh... what I mean is, one of the things that is interesting about the gap between the two sleeps is that your brain is awash with prolactin.

So some tasks you do in that period of time are done with a kind of lower level of objection, easier "starting", and in a contemplative start, and you're not actually tired.

Which is what also gives this "cleaning fairy" sense that nobody in particular did it.

Re: The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

#36

Post by shiroiuma »

eschulz wrote: post #4
rappatic wrote: post #2

It's so interesting to me that fundamental ways of life like this can go nearly undocumented save passing references. We know a lot more about the annals of Greek history, for example, because that's what was written down. Ekirch took years to rediscover all these references to biphasic sleep because it was so fundamentally normal that historic writers never thought to focus on it. Now, with our obsessive encyclopedi…

I think that future generations may forget most details of our way of life. However, as you said, it won't be due to lack of a historical record, but instead it will be due to a lack of interest in uneventful details combined with a plethora of information. I think with history we often have no clue about certain details even though the evidence is right in front of us; it's just not something we find interesting.

As an example, think about how some alien visitors might try to piece together how we live day-to-day by watching TV shows and movies and reading whatever books they manage to dig up. The only way they'll even know we have bathrooms and take a crap there is if they find books or other archives detailing toilet diagrams, bathroom design, etc. If they just watch movies and TV, they'll think we somehow never have to expel waste, even though we obviously eat a lot as proven by how much screen time eating gets.

Re: The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

#37

Post by defrost »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #27
defrost wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that specifically but that's certainly one whisp of smoke that might be found should: > (Has this) evidence been examined sceptically? The implication there is that the "evidence" quoted might not exist, might be a stretch of translation, misreading of spidery handwriting, or spun whole from new cloth to fit a narrative.

No, that's your implication. I personally read "sceptically" to imply the idea of seeing whether the study falls victim to significance bias -- e.g. once you see it, you see it a lot, but is it an indicator of a widespread habit, or just a not-particularly-unusual one? Edit: And indeed if you read on a bit about Ekrich, he suffers from sleep disorders for which he takes medication. That's a potential risk factor for…

That's my partial, not exhaustive, list of the kinds of things that have turned up in past skeptical examinations of researcher claims.

Many times, of course, researchers are supported in their claims by skeptical examination.

It's of interest that you personally chose a limited reading of "skeptical examination", whether that's due to limited experience or an innate tendancy to only imagine the best behaviour in people I wouldn't speculate.

Re: The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

#38

Post by kqr »

lmm wrote: post #3

Has this evidence been examined sceptically? I've heard this theory a few times, but it always sounds like one person's obsession, and I struggle to credit it.

Especially since there's that one other person -- Piotr Wozniak -- who shares the idea of two sleeps but argues they are completely different to the Ekrich characterisation. Wozniak thinks the second sleep is the mid-day nap. That resonates much more with my needs.

Re: The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

#39

Post by satvikpendem »

ilvez wrote: post #8
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right (and very observant) that this is mostly Ekrich when you dig into it. I didn't realise this until quite recently, and I too had assumed there was a lot more work about this. But what he's found in literature is pretty consistent, and biphasic sleep was once quite normal in a specific context: the siesta. It's dying out in continental Europe alas -- a lost cultural touchstone -- and in the contemporary W…

And it feels bad as well. I have polyphasic periods and I'm always relieved when they end. Not sure why I don't feel too good, because I have ways to cope now, but good monophasic sleep makes me wake up rested and without a headache.

Because it takes time to adapt fully. Your polyphasic periods are more like stopping and restarting a routine that disallow your body from adaptation. Those who adapt fully over the course of a month feel as good as you do during monophasic sleep.

Re: The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

#40

Post by satvikpendem »

I've been experimenting a lot with polyphasic sleep over the years. I've done siestas, Everyman routines, Dual Core, Biphasic-X, etc. They're all interesting in their own way but these days I've been getting into the dual core routine which is similar to the post's two sleeps. These routines by the way are documented on https://www.polyphasic.net/polyphasic-sleep-schedules/
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