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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.)
"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.
Ok, so paleolithic-people in a paleolithic environment need 5.7 to 7.1 hours of sleep/night. What about modern people in a modern environment? As humans, we’re not all that different, but our daily lives are very different. We get less exercise, we eat completely different foods, many jobs are primarily mental. And we hold more rigid daily schedules. I think that MAYBE could require more sleep.
I've read quite a bit about how hunter gatherers sleep. Because of predators and other dangers, at any given point during the night, someone is usually awake. The teens stay up late, the old people wake up early, and then there are women with children that are up at odd hours with the baby. This works out so that there is always someone watching the tribe or village.
The big difference between Westerners and hunter gatherers is that if they get tired during the day, they can take a nap. We can't do that. In fact, there are a lot of places, Mexico, for instance, that let people sleep an hour or so in the afternoon.
It doesn't matter how much sleep I get, about 2:00ish, I get sleepy, just like a lot of people in the rest of the world. The difference is, a fair amount of the rest of the world can actually go to sleep.
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And odd sleeping patterns did carry over into the Western world, too. It's called segmented sleep and there are tons of old books that mention it. What we are doing now came about as a result of the industrial age, when we started to have to work 8 - 10 hour shifts.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...
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your life expectancy goes up with age because that evidence of you being healthy. IE if you have a 1 year and his 81 year grandfather the one with the best chance to live to 82 is the grandfather since he's already lived 81 years. The grandchild might die from childhood cancer, being self destructive in his teens/twenties. etc.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Me too. There's nothing like a full belly from a fresh kill that knocks me out during the heat of the day.
Oh, you probably meant something heated in the microwave. Yeah, that too I guess. ;-)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Go on a multi day adventure where you are required to be up and moving at all hours. I can and have pushed my body and to function on 2-3 hours of sleep every twelve hours. With out a solid bout of REM sleep though I start acting funny.
If you want deep complex thoughts, if you use your mind more than your body, then you need more sleep. Indian vision quests basically take you on a lucid dream. First you exhaust your body, and then you take a mild psychotropic drug. Your sub conscience "dream mind" fully takes over.
If you study the sleep and eating patterns I the various religions you see a similar pattern.
The subconscious mind does the complex problem solving for us by continually testing every idea including the strange ones. That is why dreams get weird. However once it comes up with the correct answer it uses dreams to upload that to your waking mind.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
And maybe if I eat enough cabbage and beans and put a funnel in my butt I can fart my way into low Earth orbit.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I doubt that the Hadza in Tanzania, San in Namibia, and Tsimane in Bolivia, "who live roughly the same lifestyle humans did in the Paleolithic" probably did little with abstract thought and have little complex technologies to deal with as compared to modern people. As a result I am sure they need less sleep.
There's also evidence that our "natural" sleep pattern is two segments per night: first a "deep" sleep, followed by a midnight wakeful period called a "watch" (or "vigil" in Latin), and then a second sleep segment in the wee hours before dawn. This pattern was interrupted by the spread of artificial lighting technology in recent centuries, which allowed people to stay up and be productive when it would otherwise have been too dark. Apparently the practice of sleeping through the night in one go is a fairly recent development.
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No, no I haven't, because that's silly hipster shit. I googled it, and a bunch of marketing crap came up. I wonder if that has anything to do with it being as stupid as it sounds.
I'd like to caution the reader to take TFA with a grain of salt, lest they decide to use it as an excuse to feel better about getting less than the recommended 7.5-8 hours of sleep. Specifically, I'd like to note the following:
1. The study in question concerns the sleep requirements of people who have a lifestyle incomparable to yours.
2. The sleep pattern in TFA for a primitive society is different not only from yours, but also from what appears to have been the natural tendency for pre-industrial civilization (at least I Europe) for quite a few centuries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
3. The study does not and is unable to take into account any of the very long-term effects of less sleep, in terms of possible influences on old-age brain diseases such as Alzheimers or other dementias. A primitive forager doesn't usually live to an age where such things are an issue. The physiological evidence, though, ought to make you pause and think about the fact that you need enough deep sleep in order to allow microchannels in your brain to expand and allow increased flow of cerebrospinal fluid to wash away harmful metabolic byproducts. There's more to sleep than, as was fashionable to think for a while, consolidation of memories into long-term storage. See http://www.sciencemag.org/cont... and several related papers.
** Having compete sleep cycles is more important than the exact time. If you look at various somnograms, you can see that the average sleep cycle (down to the deepest sleep stage then I again into REM) is around 90 minutes long, except the first sleep cycle of the night which is closer to 120 minutes (the 8 hour recommendation corresponds to five sleep cycles). It's worth making sure your alarm is set such that it doesn't wake you during a deep sleep stage of a cycle, because you'll wake feeling worse than even if you had woken up earlier at the end of the previous sleep cycle (during REM). This is why a half hour offset from your usual alarm time in either direction can potentially make a huge difference.
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I've always gone to bed when I feel tired and ready, and woken up when I wake up.
I'm pretty good at 5 hours a night. I wake up, feel rested, ready to diem the carpe.
Other people might just need more, some less.
Nothing to lose sleep over, that's for certain.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The article talks about the customary "8 hours of sleep at night" not being required based on paleolithic evidence, and I'll accept the results of their study on face value. However, that does not necessarily mean that we don't need 6-9 hours (varies by person) of sleep per day. Our current sleeping patterns are very much based upon the demands of the modern industrial world where you wake up, go to work, put in your 8-10 hours of labor, go home, and go to bed. Prior to that, sleeping patterns were much more flexible; medieval sleep, for instance, was broken up into two parts with people waking up ~2am and doing minor chores, meals and familial interactions before tucking in again until dawn. Cultures from equatorial regions were infamous for their mid-afternoon "siesta" periods when little work would get done and many would rest or even nap out the hottest parts of the day. Edison was reputed to sleep 8 hours a day, albeit broken up into numerous half-hour catnaps (his employees were expected to remain awake throughout their shift, of course). Great apes are known to be partially active through the night, but they also rest and nap throughout the day.
I'm sure people can get by quite well on 5 hours of sleep at night... if you change the rest of your life to make up for the lack. But if you are otherwise maintaining an modern, industrial lifestyle then you are going to have a hard time at it.
(Besides, what's wrong with 8 hours sleep at night? Is it because we are allowing our employers to push us so hard that our paid-for 8-hours labor is stretching out to 10 or 12 hours per day that we need to make up the deficit by cutting it out of our sleep period? Maybe instead of risking our health with a "paleo sleep schedule" we ought to be pushing back at over-zealous bosses who seem to have a problem letting go the leash at 5PM)
who live roughly the same lifestyle humans did in the Paleolithic
Anthropologists have been telling us for nearly a century that we were fruit eaters before the Neolithic era, yet few are willing to listen (ask a dietitian or nutritionist and they'll equate "Paleo" with a diet high in animal protein). There isn't even consensus regarding our diet during the Paleolithic... and diet would have greatly determined lifestyle; therefore, the above statement is passing off mere conjecture as fact...
I don't need it, I just want it.
lose != loose
My wife snores so loud earplugs don't help, so I need to get blackout drunk, sleeping pills, and melatonin to make it through the night. I need 6 hours of rest and an additional 2 to help recover, plus coffee in the morning to get over the haze.
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.
In other words, you get as much sleep as your body needs. Then you wake up.
Throw out your alarm clock. You'll quickly discover how much sleep you need.
Added benefit, you'll go to bed earlier and watch less TV/interwebs.
And then it sets around 6 PM. All year round.
They have nearly no fluctuation of daylight time - unlike most of the rest of the world where daylight regularly lasts for two thirds of day for some parts of the year, same as darkness during other parts of the year.
On top of that - they are FUCKIN HUNTER GATHERERS who are up until 9 AM - then sit in the shade.
If you had a siesta every day from 9:00 until 15:00, you too could sleep... hold on... 7-8.5 hours? What?
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.
While they nap "only" for "7 percent of winter days and 22 percent of summer ones."
Oh... someone at NPR doesn't understand the concept of deep sleep vs. light sleep and thinks all sleep is just sleep.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
you need 6 or 7.5 or 9 based on REM cycles. 8 is most likely a convenient rounding of the mean of the most common waking times, 7.5 and 9. Nobody wants to print 8.25 in a story.
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Bathing or showering can also be harmful. Every time you clean your skin, you are eroding one protective sheet of your skin. Add chemicals on top of that! Isn't the real world scary?
some folks need less sleep to get the same amount of rest. Can we _please_ stop acting like they are the norm? The 1%ers have been doing this for ages as an excuse to get the working class to work harder for less. At least as far back as the invention of artificial light and we when we use to call those shmuks "Puritans".
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This should be the obvious and logical take-away from this.
I had an old co-worker who slept 4 hours a day, he was even tested by multiple colleges in sleep studies. He won the genetic lotto for only needing 4 hours.
Really helped his chosen career as a DBA/Engineer, he would always do the maintenance windows for the dba work and still be in before everyone.
Crazy, guy was in his late 50's when I worked with him.
Myself, Body likes around 7-8, but 9 or so when I'm really exhausted. When I was in my prime, 6 hours good to go, but I tended to sleep 12 on weekends to catch up on the sleep debt.
I've always thought about trying segmented sleep so you could get the "Waking hour" aka creative hours. When you would wake up early and work on something, then catch a couple hours sleep after. I use to wake up work on a project for couple hours, super creative and fast. Miss those days when I had time to do that. Maybe when I retire.
I dont think there is a complete science to sleep, too many factors.
Even if we're mostly genetically the same, changes between the way we live and the way our paleo-ancestors lived make attempts to clone their diet and lifestyles bizarre at best and at worst harmful and not healthful. The paleo lifestyle is perfect for those who have to kill for their breakfast.
This is just my opinion.
Now, that disclaimer having been made: I'm going to tell you exactly, precisely, how much sleep you need every night.
You need exactly, precisely as much sleep as you need to sleep. If we could live in a world where you never had an alarm clock waking you up, and went to sleep when you wanted to go to sleep, allowing you to wake up naturally, you'd get exactly, precisely as much sleep as your body needed, every single night.
Saying 'you need eight hours sleep a night!' is like saying 'you need to drink at least eight glasses of water per day!'; it's hand-waving, it's one-size-fits-all, it's an over-simplification, and it's fundamentally flawed.
Unfortunately we live in a world where, unless you're independently wealthy and don't need to live on someone elses' imposed schedule, you need to get up at a specific time of the morning, and hustle to get to work on time. So in the end, it is what it is, and you get as much sleep as you can; maybe it's enough for you, maybe it's not. For me, anything less than six hours on a regular basis, and I start running into trouble, and if I'm sleeping more than 9 hours a night on a regular basis, I don't seem to have any energy and have problems getting moving once I'm out of bed. As described above, YMMV.
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Are they sure about that?
Have gnu, will travel.
For the Hadza in Tanzania: Average age at death is about 21. Life expectancy is about 33.
The reporting of this research seems to misinterpret the results a bit. It's important to keep in mind that North American studies are based on self-reporting, and it has been demonstrated that people self-report time in bed, rather than actual sleeping time.
Thus, the main result of the study is that Americans and hunter-gatherers sleep about the same on average, and that the amount of actual sleep associated with negative health outcomes in North America is less than 4 - 6 hours per night (as opposed to 7 - 8 hours).
The study also shows that technology and modern lifestyles do not, on average, disrupt North American sleep cycles. Further, the study indicates that humans do not naturally sleep according to dark and light, but rather to the ambient temperature. Finally, it suggests that humans may not naturally engage in biphasic sleep, although this could be because of the daily temperature cycles in East Africa and the Southern Andes.
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how shocking that the corporate media (which is funded by ads bought by big corporations that buy labor from us) is now telling us that we get PLENTY of sleep. What a shocker. And this happens after a bunch of evidence is showing us that mankind in earlier times got lots more sleep. And of course I will be the only person in the world to point this out.
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How does that change if you remove those who die before their fifth birthday? The infant mortality rate is almost certainly high, and that's going to lower the average age at death.
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To feel good (as in not miserable) I need eleven hours sleep. It has a pretty terrible effect on my life and I have to work part-time, which is unfortunate because there aren't any well paid part time jobs. I can reduce my sleep to 8-9 hours if I sleep for 6-7 hours at night and get an extra two hour nap during the dame. Unfortunately getting that two hour nap is very hard because it's impossible to get to sleep when you know it's essential that you get to sleep. I gave up with the two hour nap approach because 80% of the time I wouldn't get to sleep. It would be great if I could feel good with just eight hours. I'd have a lot more free time and could become a more productive member of society.
It is true that the speed of Earth's rotation is decreasing, but ever so sightly. I'm not sure how much sleep you achieved last night but it couldn't have been very much if you think that a faster rotation results in a longer day.
I believe that is why there's a big difference between average age at death and life expectancy. Reference here.
Just because hunter-gatherers may not have slept much, that doesn't necessarily mean it's "good for you". They also got a lot of snake bites. Does that mean snake bites are good for you?
Table-ized A.I.
Modern life sucks so much, lets go back to the caves. Cave life was so much more healthy, beside you die with 40, but hey, this is so much closer to what we where.
I really don't understand our urgent need to try to mimic the lifestyles of people that commonly lived only to their mid-30s, maybe 40s.
-Styopa
Stop with the Paleo nonsense. That's all it is...nonsense. The Paleo diet is totally lacking any scientific backing and so does this. Even if ancient people didn't sleep as much that doesn't mean it was healthy. Modern nutrition has allowed people to reach their maximum height and strength. If you want to live like an ancient person have fun being 4 foot 10 and 70 pounds.
Time makes more converts than reason
I'll keep that in mind in case I ever join a paleolithic hunter gatherer society. Until then, I need my sleep.
I suspect these people sleep more deeply due to more rigorous exercise, and probably also catnap during the day.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
They study doesn't mention how much time was spent working. If they worked only 6 hours a day for example, that could explain why didn't need as much sleep. Where modern humans work 8+ hours a day, their bodies need more time to recharge.
As a man disabled by sleep dysregulation who is well aware of the consequences of his choices, as well as which contributing factors are legitimately out of my control, I can tell you exactly the difference between ourselves and paleolithic man. Paleo guy wasn't so goddamn fat he needs a machine to keep from choking to death on his own throat at night. He also didn't have anything particularly interesting to do after it got dark except fuck, which is pretty draining if you're doing it right.
How many squirrels you caught with bare hands?
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http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/05...
Though the reviewers did find that six or less hours of sleep was associated with a 12% increased risk of death, they also found a 30% increase linked with nine or more hours. It is unclear why the newspapers all focused on the risks of less sleep.
And there are causality and correlation risks with the data tho-- you may not be sleeping much because you are sick already. You may be sleeping too much because you are sick already.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"who live roughly the same lifestyle humans did in the Paleolithic,"
So, if we knew, without room for arguing, how people "lived in the Paleolithic" - even if approximate - why is it then even necessary to study other contemporary groups to see how people lived in the Paleo?
The problem is that if you want to tell a modern industrialized Westerner that they should "do X like group Y" (where X may be eating, sleeping, exercising, socializing or whatever other activity, and Y may be any group from our own time or the past), then it doesn't really makes much sense unless those westerners also adopt the exact same lifestyle, locale, and probably even genetic makeup. (Which may not all be bad, by the way - except for the gene part, that would be a bit extreme and counter-productive for my tastes.) But that's just my oh-so-humble opinion.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
The idea is basically that,despite all evidence to the contrary, stone age people actually lived longer than we do now and the reason is their diet. So if you "eat like a caveman" you'll be way healthier.
Wait a second here... Is this a joke or not?
</lolz>
some time ago I was worried at how I can get only 4 hr and then stay up til 3 am again. this has been going on all year for me. "man ima be so tired tonite" ... nope.
Perhaps they're healthier and need less sleep because they are very physically active? I mean if they're doing the hunter-gatherer thing they're working their butts off for at least 8 of those waking hours every day. Maybe if we in America got more exercise we wouldn't have the issue where we need more sleep.
The Palaeolithic era ended 10k years ago.
Get as much sleep as you want, use sleepbot and/or fitbit to measure it and add your own quality ratings, grab the data and run it through R to plot a histogram for yourself. It's more scientific than assuming the past should dictate such things as "people may be meant to sleep".
FWIW I enjoy 7.2hr on average. Over 8 is nice but tends to be met by a sub-average duration the next night to compensate.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
How does one know which article to believe?: http://www.newser.com/story/21... http://www.newser.com/story/20...