6 ms·

Hm this is interesting. I have been alarm clock-free for many years now. Lately I find that my sleep is segmented; I was wondering if it's a bad thing. I ge

by chubot 14y ago

Hm this is interesting. I have been alarm clock-free for many years now. Lately I find that my sleep is segmented; I was wondering if it's a bad thing. I generally sleep from 3am to 8am or so, and then I wake up, eat an apple, and read the Internet. And then I sleep from 9am to 11am again. It's been pretty consistent for awhile. It seems to be the pattern of 2 REM cycles and then 1, since I believe people generally get 3 in a night. It's perhaps not the same thing, since it seems unrelated to daylight. It may be related to information retention. I generally wake up and write some notes about what I thought about during my sleep (lately I find that my dreams are almost like thinking). And then I do some googling related to those topics. And then I go back to sleep and retain it. Another thing that's interesting about sleep is that humans have a dimorphism between early birds and night owls. I read a hypothesis that it's because it maintains the property that some members of a group are a awake at all times, e.g. to guard against predators and so forth.

matiasb 14y ago
where did you read about that hypothesis? sounds interesting
- chubot 14y ago
  I thought I had read it on Hacker News like a year ago or something. But I just spent 5 minutes Googling, and I can't find it now! argh. Keywords were variations of "early late risers dimorphism predators". I will look a little more later.
  - babuskov 14y ago
    Here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620742 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620742
    - chubot 14y ago
      I don't see anything there related to the hypothesis that some people are early risers and others late risers so that someone is awake at all times. It seems to be the source of this segmented sleeping phenomena, which is different although very interesting too.
WA 14y ago
I wonder if this hypothesis is true. I wouldn't call myself an early bird. However, when I was on Hawaii for vacation, I slept in a tent and I was tired around 8pm, because it got dark at 6pm and I didn't have more than a small flash light. You can't do much without light and it starts to feel like "late night" if you're in the dark for a couple hours already, even though it was only 8pm. Back at home, I go to sleep around 12 or 1am.
- pmjordan 14y ago
  Yeah, I've noticed the same in Southern Africa. By 8-9pm I was always totally ready to go to sleep, and I'd actually be pretty happy to get up at 4:30~5:00am. Although we had artificial lighting, it was fairly low-wattage incandescent. During the day, the sunshine was intense (being near-vertical due to borderline-tropical latitude), which probably helped to contrast day & night too. I should probably live somewhere like that with less reliance on artificial light. I felt so much better being able to just go to sleep and pass out pretty much immediately, and actually felt refreshed and ready to face the day in the morning. That said, I rather appreciate the comforts of highly developed countries…
  - the_economist 14y ago
    Our relationships with the sun are deeply disturbed and this is likely responsible for many ailments, mental and physical, that we suffer from. Our circadian rhythms are regulated by sunlight. More specifically, the pineal gland in the brain suppresses melatonin when the retina is exposed to natural sunlight. This allows for a huge melatonin surge at night, putting you to sleep and telling the body to perform its nighttime functions. When you aren't exposed to natural light during the day, your pineal brands produce melatonin when they should not be doing so, leading to all sorts of problems. To make matters worse, even looking at the sun through a window won't work; enough spectrum is blocked that melatonin production continues. tl;dr; If you want to optimize health and sleep, work outside (in the shade) as often as possible.
    - keithpeter 14y ago
Aardwolf 14y ago
I'm one of those night owls. I'm pretty sure that if I lived millenia ago, I would have enjoyed sitting by the fire with the other night owls, guarding the camp, while the early birds are already fast asleep.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  I do that now, only the fire has been replaced by the warm[1] glow of my laptop and the people next to me are scattered worldwide. 1. Warm thanks to f.lux.

by chubot 14y ago

matiasb 14y ago

where did you read about that hypothesis? sounds interesting

chubot 14y ago
I thought I had read it on Hacker News like a year ago or something. But I just spent 5 minutes Googling, and I can't find it now! argh. Keywords were variations of "early late risers dimorphism predators". I will look a little more later.
- babuskov 14y ago
  Here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620742 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620742
  - chubot 14y ago
    I don't see anything there related to the hypothesis that some people are early risers and others late risers so that someone is awake at all times. It seems to be the source of this segmented sleeping phenomena, which is different although very interesting too.

WA 14y ago

I wonder if this hypothesis is true. I wouldn't call myself an early bird. However, when I was on Hawaii for vacation, I slept in a tent and I was tired around 8pm, because it got dark at 6pm and I didn't have more than a small flash light. You can't do much without light and it starts to feel like "late night" if you're in the dark for a couple hours already, even though it was only 8pm. Back at home, I go to sleep around 12 or 1am.

pmjordan 14y ago
Yeah, I've noticed the same in Southern Africa. By 8-9pm I was always totally ready to go to sleep, and I'd actually be pretty happy to get up at 4:30~5:00am. Although we had artificial lighting, it was fairly low-wattage incandescent. During the day, the sunshine was intense (being near-vertical due to borderline-tropical latitude), which probably helped to contrast day & night too. I should probably live somewhere like that with less reliance on artificial light. I felt so much better being able to just go to sleep and pass out pretty much immediately, and actually felt refreshed and ready to face the day in the morning. That said, I rather appreciate the comforts of highly developed countries…
- the_economist 14y ago
  Our relationships with the sun are deeply disturbed and this is likely responsible for many ailments, mental and physical, that we suffer from. Our circadian rhythms are regulated by sunlight. More specifically, the pineal gland in the brain suppresses melatonin when the retina is exposed to natural sunlight. This allows for a huge melatonin surge at night, putting you to sleep and telling the body to perform its nighttime functions. When you aren't exposed to natural light during the day, your pineal brands produce melatonin when they should not be doing so, leading to all sorts of problems. To make matters worse, even looking at the sun through a window won't work; enough spectrum is blocked that melatonin production continues. tl;dr; If you want to optimize health and sleep, work outside (in the shade) as often as possible.
  - keithpeter 14y ago

Aardwolf 14y ago

I'm one of those night owls. I'm pretty sure that if I lived millenia ago, I would have enjoyed sitting by the fire with the other night owls, guarding the camp, while the early birds are already fast asleep.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
I do that now, only the fire has been replaced by the warm[1] glow of my laptop and the people next to me are scattered worldwide. 1. Warm thanks to f.lux.