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Nightly 8-Hour Sleep Isn't a Rule. It's a Myth - and a scam



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Nightly 8-Hour Sleep Isn't a Rule. It's a Myth - and a scam

Old 05-11-2017, 02:53 PM
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Nightly 8-Hour Sleep Isn't a Rule. It's a Myth - and a scam

History yields valuable insights regarding sleep. According to some recent research, until the age of electricity many people slept in two segments. They would wake up in the night for an hour or two, then return to sleep for another block of time. “The dominant pattern of sleep, arguably since time immemorial, was biphasic,” says Roger Ekirch, a sleep historian at Virginia Tech University and author of At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past. "Humans slept in two four-hour blocks, which were separated by a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night lasting an hour or more. During this time, some might stay in bed, pray, think about their dreams or talk with their spouses. Others might get up and do tasks or even visit neighbors before going back to sleep.”

References to “first sleep” or “deep sleep,” and “second sleep” or “morning sleep” abound in historical legal depositions, works of literature, and other pre-Industrial era archival documents. Gradually, during the 19th century, references to segmented sleep disappeared, Ekirch says, "and now people call it insomnia.”

Find more : the myth of the 8 hour sleep - Google Search


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Old 05-11-2017, 03:01 PM
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And PS

I am not trolling this forum saying anyone's distress over sleep is not real, I am just pointing some stuff out. I believed all that fake science that is used to sell insomnia and drugs and found out what addiction is in the process. Insomnia was my original complaint that got me caught up in psychiatry and pill addiction .
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Old 05-11-2017, 08:35 PM
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I have read about first and second sleep as well, BetterNow.
Part of it was, I think, that people went to bed when it got dark, slept for a while, woke, stayed up, then went back down.
I hear you. As I have aged, sleep proves problematical at times.
But, don't want to take anything beyond the OTC stuff, and not much of that.
Fortunately, I am no longer working.
I can usually nap in the afternoon if I have had a bad night.
Slept incredibly well when I was younger.
Sigh.
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Old 05-11-2017, 08:41 PM
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I've read about it too.
Populations sleep patterns change over time.

Our cavemen ancestors probably slept all night because it was dangerous outside.

Our pre industrial forebears appear to have had a more segmented sleep pattern that presumably best suited their agarian lifestyle.

Since then industralisation and the advent of things like electricity have changed our sleeping habits further.

We can argue whether thats a good thing or not - but I wouldn't call 8 hour sleep a myth... and certainly not a scam :

D
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Old 07-21-2017, 03:09 PM
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Yes. I recently discovered that some people only need 4/5 hours of sleep and are refreshed and fine. I'm trying to work with that and get up after 5 hrs. or so. I don't seem to be tired or weird or anything. I think my worrying about it was worse than the lack of sleep. I do have concern about not dreaming though. Studies seem to show that we need to dream.
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Old 09-18-2017, 02:31 PM
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I started the graveyard shift today so my new norm is going to be sleeping 5-6 hours then getting up at 1 am and having a nap when I get home at 10. Today alone has felt like the looooooongest day ever! I already started work early but 1 am is a whole new world. I'm going to make sure I still get some exercise every day and eat healthy just to try to minimize the strain on my body. Thankfully I don't drink anymore.... it would have broken me to be trying to manage that while working these crazy hours. I'd be coming home and cracking open a beer at 10 am and going into work hungover in the middle of the night.
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