Maybe You Don't Need 8 Hours of Sleep After All (theatlantic.com)

schwit1 writes: You've heard of the Paleo diet, but the next big thing in health may well be the Paleo sleep schedule. A UCLA researcher studied three hunter-gatherer and hunter-farmer groups -- the Hadza in Tanzania, San in Namibia, and Tsimane in Bolivia, "who live roughly the same lifestyle humans did in the Paleolithic," as NPR reports -- and determined our ancient ancestors may not have slept nearly as much we thought, and may have actually slept less than modern Westerners. "People like to complain that modern life is ruining sleep, but they're just saying: Kids today!" Jerome Siegel tells the Atlantic . "It's a perennial complaint but you need data to know if it's true." Siegel found that members of the three aforementioned groups sleep between 5.7 hours and 7.1 hours per night. That's less than is recommended for our health, yet the groups seemed very healthy indeed. (And if you're feeling insomniac, some earlier Slashdot stories about sleep are also pretty thought-provoking.)

Comments

Depends

[nospam007]

"Tanzania, San in Namibia, and Tsimane in Bolivia"

If I would live on or near the equator, where the sun goes up at 4:30 I'd get up early as well.

People living more to the North or South may have to stay in bed for much longer.

Re:Depends

[Anonymous Coward]

But, when quantified over a meaningful time span, which is worse? At the age of 60, if you sleep for 8 hours a day, you'll have slept for 20 years. Do you enjoy those extra years more than you regret the damage done? Quantify that if you want to make an authoritative statement.

Re:Depends

[Anonymous Coward]

I would also suspect that due to the increased use of our brains for more complex tasks puts more stress on that system. That could require more down time than a tribal hunter/gatherer.

I would imagine hunter/gather tribes solve more complex tasks in a day than the average citizen of a modern Western country--their survival depends on it whereas most of us can smoke weed and drink booze all day knowing we'll still be able to find our next meal easily enough. Reading about the Kardashians, posting on facebook, and watching reality TV isn't exactly intellectually stimulating.

Re:Depends

[leftover]

This was my thought as well. Sleep is when you process all the unresolved bullshit from the day. Paleo times were far more grounded in reality so very little bs to process. Time was better spent looking for food.

Re:Depends

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is widely accepted on some anecdotal level. On many occasions I've succumbed to a long and restful sleep numbering up to 12 hours if it's been an especially busy and mentally strenuous week - even if I've been getting my recommended 8 hours throughout. Speculation: The body

P.S. I'm new to slashdot and I don't have much technical or scientific cred. What kind of ettiquette can I practice so I don't ruffle any feathers? Besides R'ingTFA. I've posted anonymously a few times and got downvoted in rather short order. I like being able to talk to people with experience in tech and science sectors, though.

Re:Depends

[martin-boundary]

That's not answering the question at all. Let me use a peeing analogy (w00t!).

TFA: Humans can probably get by on less than two piss breaks a day!

You: But [CITATION] says humans need to pee!

Me: What gives? Here's an analogy...

The point of the analogy is that individuals can train themselves to pee once a day at most, without ill effects. They can also train themselves to not have stage fright, so that what "normally" takes a few minutes can be done in much less time, with deliberate practice. Some people have stronger bladders, and you can trin yourself to have a strong bladder.

Humans practice things all the time. Athletes show what the human body is capable of, through deliberately programmed activities. When compared to the average joe, that can seem amazing.

There's no reason to believe that 8 hours sleep (say) is required, just because lots of people end up sleeping around that long. It's plausible that people who are "fit" in the sleep sense can do in 4 hours all that you or I could do in 8 because we're not sleeping fit, and it's plausible that people can train themselves to achieve more of their sleep activities in less time, without ill effects.

Most biological models of the body are one size fits all. At best, they represent an idealized average body, which is great, but doesn't answer what's *possible*. For that, we need to learn how to *train* people to sleep more efficiently.

5.7-7.1 hours of DEEP SLEEP.

[denzacar]

They sleep 7-8.5 hours a day, have long siestas and take naps.
NPR article's author misunderstood the original article due to ignorance of the topic he chose to write about.

The team asked 94 people from these groups to wear Actiwatch-2 devices, which automatically recorded their activity and ambient-light levels.
The data revealed that these groups all sleep for nightly blocks of 6.9 and 8.5 hours, and they spend at least 5.7 to 7.1 hours of those soundly asleep.
That's no more than what Westerners who have worn the same watches get; if anything, it's slightly less.

Re:"You've heard of the Paleo diet"

[microTodd]

Why is it silly shit? Because you haven't heard of it? Because hipsters like it? Does that make it bad? Hipsters like exercising, too. So exercise is bad? Google something like "interval training" and you'll probably get lots of marketing crap. That doesn't mean that running wind sprints is bad.

Dude, just because you, with your all-knowing all-knowingness, haven't heard of something doesn't mean its silly and its shit.

You wanna know what paleo really is, if you take away the marketing name? Stop eating shit. Don't eat convenience foods, don't eat junk food with sugar and HFCS and other crap. Eat meat and vegetables. Does that sound like shit to you? To eat healthier?

I guess what bothers me is that this single quote dismissing a way to eat better and improve your health makes a single remark and its somehow insightful. Especially when several other Slashdot articles actually encourage this type of eating. An alternative approach is to actually research something better than a glance at a Google search, and maybe consider that someone out there knows more than you on a topic. Especially when that topic can improve your life and the lives of other people around you.