How modern society may have ruined biological sleep...

[DGUtley]

How modern society may have ruined biological sleep...

Around a third of the population have trouble sleeping, including difficulties maintaining sleep throughout the night. While night time awakenings are distressing for most sufferers, there is some evidence from our recent past that suggests this period of wakefulness occurring between two separate sleep periods was the norm.

Throughout history, there have been numerous accounts of segmented sleep, from medical texts, to court records and diaries, and even in African and South American tribes, with a common reference to “first” and “second” sleep. In Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge (1840), he writes

He knew this, even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream.

Anthropologists have found evidence that during preindustrial Europe, bi-modal sleeping was considered the norm. Sleep onset was determined not by a set bedtime, but by whether there were things to do. Historian . Roger Ekirch’s book At day’s close: night in times past describes how households at this time retired a couple of hours after dusk, woke a few hours later for one to two hours, and then had a second sleep until dawn.



https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/sp...tm_source=digg

[Chris]

Well that makes me feel better about two sleeps but what about three and four!?!?

[Retirednsmilin308]

How modern society may have ruined biological sleep...

Around a third of the population have trouble sleeping, including difficulties maintaining sleep throughout the night. While night time awakenings are distressing for most sufferers, there is some evidence from our recent past that suggests this period of wakefulness occurring between two separate sleep periods was the norm.

Throughout history, there have been numerous accounts of segmented sleep, from medical texts, to court records and diaries, and even in African and South American tribes, with a common reference to “first” and “second” sleep. In Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge (1840), he writes

He knew this, even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream.

Anthropologists have found evidence that during preindustrial Europe, bi-modal sleeping was considered the norm. Sleep onset was determined not by a set bedtime, but by whether there were things to do. Historian . Roger Ekirch’s book At day’s close: night in times past describes how households at this time retired a couple of hours after dusk, woke a few hours later for one to two hours, and then had a second sleep until dawn.



https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/sp...tm_source=digg

Since I retired, I have naturally resorted to first and second sleep cycles.

This is why you will sometimes see me posting at zero-dark-thirty.

It is natural and quite restful.

Drop off about 10 or so...sleep about three or four hours...get up for three or four hours...then drop back off until morning.

It is purely natural to sleep in four hour increments.

[RMNIXON]

In my experience one has the worst sleep when you know you need to get up early and be somewhere or do something important. It is stress and anxiety of the modern worker I would care to guess and even planned activity vacations.

[FindersKeepers]

For years, I thought I was weird for getting up at 3 AM. I actually used to love it when the babies were little because I could get up at night without seeming odd.

One day (or, maybe night) a few years ago, I decided that if my body woke up, it was done sleeping. Now, I get up at 3 AM and I don't feel the least bit guilty about it. A few of us (who will remain nameless) are here at that time. LOL

[Abby08]

In my experience one has the worst sleep when you know you need to get up early and be somewhere or do something important. It is stress and anxiety of the modern worker I would care to guess and even planned activity vacations.

That's me. When I know I have to get up at a certain for an early appointment or, because we need to get an early start going somewhere, that's when I toss and turn all night and, end up getting only a couple hours of real sleep.

[carolina73]

Once I get up then I am up. My sleep is a one hump camel.

But I can imagine the dark with little to do but read, would have made a huge difference in what time you go to bed and would cause that first wake up.

There was no damn Gutfeld show to keep people awake.

[Abby08]

Once I get up then I am up. My sleep is a one hump camel.

But I can imagine the dark with little to do but read, would have made a huge difference in what time you go to bed and would cause that first wake up.

There was no damn Gutfeld show to keep people awake.

I sleep a lot better if the TV is on, I sleep on the couch just fine, it's when I turn off the TV and go to bed, that I'm wide awake.

[carolina73]

For years, I thought I was weird for getting up at 3 AM. I actually used to love it when the babies were little because I could get up at night without seeming odd.

One day (or, maybe night) a few years ago, I decided that if my body woke up, it was done sleeping. Now, I get up at 3 AM and I don't feel the least bit guilty about it. A few of us (who will remain nameless) are here at that time. LOL

I get almost all my work done between 5 and 10 AM. Then it is mostly phone calls.