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The medieval habit of 'two sleeps' (2022)

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

#41

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

defrost wrote: post #37
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

> 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.

OK, now you're being a bit silly.

I assume error over malice. It's not only imagining the best, it's also statistically and ethically a better way.

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

#42

Post by livueta »

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.

Always interesting to hear other perspectives on simple stuff like this. Personally, I like doing dishes in the morning while the espresso machine heats up. It's a nice rote task my half-asleep brain can come up to speed on, I feel like I've accomplished something right out of the gate, and I didn't need to interrupt the flow of whatever I was enjoying the previous night.

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

#43

Post by [deleted] »

livueta wrote: post #42
imp0cat wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Always interesting to hear other perspectives on simple stuff like this. Personally, I like doing dishes in the morning while the espresso machine heats up. It's a nice rote task my half-asleep brain can come up to speed on, I feel like I've accomplished something right out of the gate, and I didn't need to interrupt the flow of whatever I was enjoying the previous night.

[deleted]

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

#44

Post by nly »

buserror wrote: post #28

I do that a lot these days. I went to bed around 8:30pm, woke at 4am... It's 6:50 now and I've done a lot of work! It's nice, quiet, I just really crack on. I'm waiting for 8am, then feed + walk the dogs, then I'll go back to bed for 1h or a bit more (tops), and it'll still be early when I wake up again. Most of my colleagues will show up around 10 with bleary eyes while I've done most of the stuff I wanted to do alr…

So your weekday evening social life is non existent?

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

nly wrote: post #44
buserror wrote: post #28

I do that a lot these days. I went to bed around 8:30pm, woke at 4am... It's 6:50 now and I've done a lot of work! It's nice, quiet, I just really crack on. I'm waiting for 8am, then feed + walk the dogs, then I'll go back to bed for 1h or a bit more (tops), and it'll still be early when I wake up again. Most of my colleagues will show up around 10 with bleary eyes while I've done most of the stuff I wanted to do alr…

So your weekday evening social life is non existent?

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by romanovcode »

nly wrote: post #44
buserror wrote: post #28

I do that a lot these days. I went to bed around 8:30pm, woke at 4am... It's 6:50 now and I've done a lot of work! It's nice, quiet, I just really crack on. I'm waiting for 8am, then feed + walk the dogs, then I'll go back to bed for 1h or a bit more (tops), and it'll still be early when I wake up again. Most of my colleagues will show up around 10 with bleary eyes while I've done most of the stuff I wanted to do alr…

So your weekday evening social life is non existent?

I would imagine everyone who is 35+ with family has no evening social life. Or am I missing something?

Another question, at some point in your life - do you even want an evening social life?

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

#47

Post by amonith »

nly wrote: post #44
buserror wrote: post #28

I do that a lot these days. I went to bed around 8:30pm, woke at 4am... It's 6:50 now and I've done a lot of work! It's nice, quiet, I just really crack on. I'm waiting for 8am, then feed + walk the dogs, then I'll go back to bed for 1h or a bit more (tops), and it'll still be early when I wake up again. Most of my colleagues will show up around 10 with bleary eyes while I've done most of the stuff I wanted to do alr…

So your weekday evening social life is non existent?

Not OP, but most of the people I know above 30 don't "go out" on weekday evenings nor regular weekends tbh. Even people without kids. Various trips and meets in friends' houses during the day (usually Sunday) is the main form of socializing.

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

#48

Post by boomboomsubban »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #10
ilvez wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it feels bad because it inevitably messes up one's digestive clock (which is implicated in robustly configuring the sleep clock) and by implication, particularly with modern food, blood sugar levels. (I suspect that the long cultural stability of the Spanish long siesta has a lot to do with the cultural stability of mealtimes -- and meal types/sizes -- that developed around it.) The other day I felt queasy, s…

Feeling queasy then sleeping for a day sounds like more like the 24 hour flu than something blood sugar related.

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

#49

Post by mschuster91 »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #29
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…

> our obsessive encyclopedic documentation ...will bitrot away in 50 years. In 1000, future historians will probably view our period as a curious dark age. (Where are all the books and the monuments??)

The government-run national libraries (think Library of Congress and similar) at least have the mandate for long-term archival.

Bitrot isn't as much a concern any more - we have data formats worked out these days, with well defined specifications and open standards (PDF/A), so basically as long as computers keep operating on the fundamental principle of bits and bytes, our documents will always be able to be read, and for virtually all popular data storage formats there is open source software that can, should the need arise, be run in an emulator.

In fact, future historians should have it easier to understand our times, given that machines can actually sift through data at speed and you don't need humans to tediously take and scan brittle paper, and a lot of data is replicated so often across the planet that even a nuclear war should leave at least one copy alive in contrast to earlier times where wars, fires and natural disasters would routinely wipe out entire nations' memories. (Doesn't stop people from trying though, just look at the book burnings in Ukraine committed by Russia)

The dark era IMHO more concerns pre-MS Windows computing and everything related to gaming. The former because a lot of data there (hole punch cards...) literally rotted away, the latter because of decades worth of homegrown architectures, all kinds of DRM, a lack of obligations for publishers to submit DRM-free copies and copies of the server backend code to national libraries, and the current "trend" towards e-stores for games instead of physical media.

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

#50

Post by peebeebee »

nly wrote: post #44
buserror wrote: post #28

I do that a lot these days. I went to bed around 8:30pm, woke at 4am... It's 6:50 now and I've done a lot of work! It's nice, quiet, I just really crack on. I'm waiting for 8am, then feed + walk the dogs, then I'll go back to bed for 1h or a bit more (tops), and it'll still be early when I wake up again. Most of my colleagues will show up around 10 with bleary eyes while I've done most of the stuff I wanted to do alr…

So your weekday evening social life is non existent?

Not OP, but I'm almost the same.

If you have (young) kids, it's non existent either way.

Now I go to sleep at the same time my kids do, around 9PM. My social life is during noon. My lunch-time is 2.5 hours instead of the usual 40min. During that time I go to the gym, have lunch with my wife, do some shopping, go to the barber,...

I can recommend it. More sunlight, more movement, no evening binging, no hanging in the couch, no useless late-night phone scrolling, no tired mornings, better quality time with the family...

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