The article also posed that the rise of the modern work day, along with artificial illumination technology, herded most cultures in the developing world toward 8-hour monophasic sleep schedules at night. To further support this, research discussed the benefits of brief naps as well as their cultural prevalence.
Short naps of around 5 to 15 minutes were reviewed as beneficial and associated with better cognitive function, as were naps of longer than 30 minutes.
However, the review did note that more studies were needed at a deeper level. Conversely, other studies one in , one in show that napping particularly in younger children may not be the best for rest quality or cognitive development, especially if it affects nighttime sleeping. In adults, napping can be associated with or increase the risk of poor sleep patterns or sleep deprivation. If regular sleep deprivation occurs, this increases the probability of:. Biphasic sleep schedules provide an alternative to the typical monophasic schedule.
Many people report that segmented sleep really works wonders for them. Science, along with a look at historical and ancestral sleeping patterns, shows that there could be benefits. It could help you get more done in a day without compromising restfulness. For some, it may even improve wakefulness, alertness, and cognitive function. However, research is still lacking in this. If they interest you, give them a try with the approval of your physician.
Getting adequate sleep can help a number of health conditions, including bipolar disorder. Here are tips to get the shut-eye you need to manage your…. By blocking blue light in the evening, you can prevent the disruption in the natural sleep-wake cycle caused by artificial lighting and electronics.
Magnesium has become a popular sleep aid. Learn the effects of magnesium on the body, particularly on the processes that promote sleep. Experts say you can prepare for the end of daylight saving time for days in advance.
And, as with other body functions, sleep has patterns. Some sleep patterns mean a person will sleep once per day while others mean they sleep at intervals. However, the pattern that is most common in a population may or may not be the healthiest option for people.
This inconsistency means some individuals report that they are not getting enough sleep, irrespective of the number of hours they have per night. People have an internal circadian rhythm, a routine of biological and behavioral processes that roughly occur every day over a hour cycle. Despite this, what is the correct time for a person to sleep per night? In this article, we learn more about the three types of sleep patterns that are most common. These sleep patterns are described below.
There is, however, discussion that this has not always been the case. Some argue that since the advent of electricity and increased exposure to bright light, melatonin levels are decreasing, as they would if a person were exposed to sunlight. Those who practice biphasic sleep typically sleep for a long duration at night, for hours, and have a shorter period of sleep or siesta during the day.
The shorter period of rest typically lasts 30 minutes and gives an energy boost to finish the day. However, a siesta can last for longer, perhaps 90 minutes. An extended siesta of 90 minutes allows a person to have one complete cycle of sleep. Some say that biphasic sleep is a healthier sleep pattern than a monophasic pattern, and some countries have adopted a biphasic sleep pattern as the normal one. A growing body of evidence from both science and history suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.
In the early s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month. It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep. Though sleep scientists were impressed by the study, among the general public the idea that we must sleep for eight consecutive hours persists.
In , historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks.
His book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, unearths more than references to a segmented sleeping pattern - in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer's Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria. Much like the experience of Wehr's subjects, these references describe a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep.
During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps. And these hours weren't entirely solitary - people often chatted to bed-fellows or had sex.
A doctor's manual from 16th Century France even advised couples that the best time to conceive was not at the end of a long day's labour but "after the first sleep", when "they have more enjoyment" and "do it better". Ekirch found that references to the first and second sleep started to disappear during the late 17th Century.
This started among the urban upper classes in northern Europe and over the course of the next years filtered down to the rest of Western society. By the s the idea of a first and second sleep had receded entirely from our social consciousness. He attributes the initial shift to improvements in street lighting, domestic lighting and a surge in coffee houses - which were sometimes open all night.
0コメント