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The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

bbc.com

81–90 of 254 posts

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#81

This article got me thinking, if artificial light forever changed the way people sleep, what other modern changes have also altered life or physical characteristics of people long ago. 200 years ago everyone had perfectly straight teeth, some think heavily blended/processed foods may have lead to under developed jaws and crooked teeth for alot of modern people or possibly high sugar, its not known but something in th…

On the point of teeth (and bones), going hungry increase growth hormone, which was good for the skeleton and thus straight teeth. You see this today with dogs prone to hip dysplasia, as a puppy they were likely overfed with not enough tryptophan (60mg converts to 1mg nicotinic acid in humans) or nicotinic acid (vitamin b3) in their diet, ergo not enough growth hormone and so you get Labradors and other dogs getting h…

>Dont we see two sleeps in the older generations, known colloquially as the afternoon nap?

Interrupted sleep in the middle of the night for a bit is something I always thought was a normal occurrence as you got older, based on my family.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#84
post #20

Considering this has been in the news for 10 years and pretty much no one does it, not even a weird sub community, we can safely say this is not a legitimate sleeping pattern for humans.

All my life, I was always under the impression that it was normal for modern people once they're in their 50s or 60s.

Never heard of the medieval studies before this.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#86
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Maybe you mean "empirically" rather than "ethically"?

[deleted]

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this theory is largely thought false nowadays, or phrased too strongly at least. What theory? The article doesn't really claim that this kind of sleep is better or more natural, just that it was incredibly common. Is the idea that it was common now thought to be false?

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…

> Early humans

This article is about the 17th century (with some references going back further). Does Ekirch write also about early homo sapiens? Earlier ancestors? I am not nitpicking, just wondering if that term is used intentionally.

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