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Humans used to sleep in two shifts

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Re: Humans used to sleep in two shifts

#41

Post by tobesure »

markrages wrote: post #6

Controversy: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many...

>Siegel’s team has shown that people who live traditional lifestyles in Namibia, Tanzania, and Bolivia don’t fit with any of these common notions about pre-industrial dozing. “People like to complain that modern life is ruining sleep, but they’re just saying: Kids today!” says Siegel. “It’s a perennial complaint but you need data to know if it’s true.”

One of the unspoken consequences of the modern PC culture gripping the academic institution is a hesitation to recognize that different ethnicities evolved in radically different environments for thousands of generations. The result is poor quality work like this reference, which presume that indigenous Subsaharan African or South American peoples are an adequate surrogate for pre-industrial human behavior. The reluctance to control for the understated confounding effect effect of genetic lineage is, I believe, a significant contributor to the seemingly contradictory Brownian-like back and forth of many biological sciences.

There are consequences for greater society. It is rather unlikely, for example, that a single food pyramid would suffice as a recommended diet for peoples who originate from environments as diverse as African Savannahs or Arctic Tundras. The result would be disproportionate morbidity for some ethnic groups.

Re: Humans used to sleep in two shifts

#42

Post by hsn915 »

markrages wrote: post #6

Controversy: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many...

To add support for this:

In Japan there's a word that literally means "second sleep". 二度寝 (ni.do.ne)

It's a word still in common use today.

It simply refers to when you wake up in the morning but still feel tired or groggy so you sleep again.

Re: Humans used to sleep in two shifts

#43

Post by StanislavPetrov »

I personally maintained a two-shift sleep schedule for about a year, with a 2-3 hour gap between shifts. It did work surprisingly well for me, leaving me feeling both physically and mentally refreshed and rested. Societal obligations forced me to move back to a traditional sleep schedule, but I could definitely see going back to that if conditions allowed it.

Re: Humans used to sleep in two shifts

#45

Post by Jiocus »

markrages wrote: post #6

Controversy: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many...

Someone conducts an experiment in contemporary time with a limited subset of population with very specific critera, and their result somehow falsifies written historical account what went down in the past?

That's controversial.

Re: Humans used to sleep in two shifts

#46

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

lurquer wrote: post #35
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I read your list. It’s very comprehensive. Incorrect. It is a small subset. > I’d wager an average person from any previous century would trade places with you in a heartbeat. Indeed, I bet an average resident of many third-world countries would do the same. Sure. Many would. Others would be overwhelmed by the complexity of not just required hours in the day (which tend to increase for the very poor) but also by th…

Sorry to hear about your wife. And your lack of food. Similar items were in your list. I ignored them. Because those issues are universal at all times and at all places. Dealing with a mentally ill wife in the 1300s was, I would bet, a bit more ‘complex’ and draining that dealing with a mentally ill wife in a modern city with emergency psych wards, effective drugs (available for convenient pick-up at pharmacies on ne…

> Dealing with a mentally ill wife in the 1300s was, I would bet, a bit more ‘complex’ and draining that dealing with a mentally ill wife in a modern city with emergency psych wards, effective drugs (available for convenient pick-up at pharmacies on nearly every corner), and entire industry of psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, etc.

It'd be simpler then because there was simply nothing to do.

> I’d chime in with the other response. Namely, you sound very stressed out. I wish your situation wasn’t so complex. Seriously. Hang in there.

Thanks. This is hardly just me tho. My challenges are mid-grade. Just in the US are many millions who have far more difficult challenges. That something so prevalent might not be well-known is interesting.

Re: Humans used to sleep in two shifts

#47

Post by randcraw »

I can see an extended two stage sleep rhythm making more sense at times of year when daylight is short (9 hours of daylight at my latitude) than when it's long (15 hours). It's much harder to extend your night downtime to last 10-11 hours when it overlaps at one/both ends with sunshine.

With the increase in physical activity during Summer, two stage sleep seems more biologically useful in Winter anyway. In days of yore, what else was there to do during all that dark?

Re: Humans used to sleep in two shifts

#48

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

manmal wrote: post #33
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I read your list. It’s very comprehensive. Incorrect. It is a small subset. > I’d wager an average person from any previous century would trade places with you in a heartbeat. Indeed, I bet an average resident of many third-world countries would do the same. Sure. Many would. Others would be overwhelmed by the complexity of not just required hours in the day (which tend to increase for the very poor) but also by th…

I hope I don’t offend you by suggesting this, and I’m ready to face a hard rejection - but you could probably benefit from saying No to obligations/responsibilities more often, and caring a little bit less about always doing the right thing. Murphy’s law means people fill their life with complexity until there’s no room left.

> I hope I don’t offend you by suggesting this, and I’m ready to face a hard rejection - but you could probably benefit from saying No to obligations/responsibilities more often

A couple of things. I'm outlining common challenges so your advice would have to be applied broadly. You'd be asking a large chunk of the population to not be engaged in their community, etc.

Past that, my not-absolutely-critical activities did wind down when catastrophe after catastrophe became the new norm. In that phase, what was left was minimal for survival. Letting any of that go would just tack-on another catastrophe.

Again - the larger point is that I wasn't an outlier for the whole of the US. However, within the group that have the resources to post here, midday, I might be an outlier.

Re: Humans used to sleep in two shifts

#49

Post by cperciva »

toast0 wrote: post #27
cperciva wrote: post #13

As the parent of a 2 month old: I wish my sleep were a mere two shifts!

Congrats! I found that as my child aged, the hardest point was when the cycle time allowed for three hours of sleep for the parents[1]. When it was only two hours, it seemed bad, but was way more restful than three hours. Once it got to four hours, it was much better. If possible, lean on external help during the three hour sleep cycle (grand parents, etc). [1] we needed both parents for feeding logistics, although o…

Yeah, I feel like the past couple weeks have been the hardest so far, even though she's moved from sleeping 2 hours at a time to sleeping 3-4 hours for her nighttime sleep. Mind you, this is partly due to feeding/changing logistics -- she's less cooperative now that she has learned to crawl.

Leaning on external help is unfortunately not a great option for us.

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