BBC NEWS: The myth of the eight-hour sleep

Just thinking about this, and it seems to me that segmented sleep as "normal" would apply only to those whose patterns of sleep prove adequate for maintenance of health, well-being, and functionality. Where we run into trouble is trying to make sense of fitting dysfunctional sleep into the same discussion. There's big difference between waking up once or twice a night and waking up dozens of times or never reaching deep or REM sleep. That isn't normal no matter the era or person's place of origin.

My takeaway from the article is to relax about not sleeping 8 hours without an occassional waking, and I'm fine with that as long as each segment is substantial and in the morning I am able to wake up without great distress.

What the article doesn't discuss is age, and how it relates to sleep.

Can I have 4, 2 hour sleeps instead. Does anyone sleep to order? I get nowhere near 8 hours sleep and I can tell you this that by Tea time I will be nodding in my chair at some point, question is, is it OSA or old age or lack of 8 hours sleep? My oximeter readings stated no events last night and 5 hours 28 minutes sleep. This 8 hour myth doesnt exsists in this day and age, the world would grind to a halt ask your president or our PM if they get 8 hours and watch them laugh at you.

Im not knocking the story as I found it very interesting but the reality of it is very different.

We should not obsess over needing uninterrupted sleep. It is the overall quality and the total duration that matters.

I like this idea since it frees me from the anxiety people feel when waking up in the middle of the night.

Perhaps if people went to sleep earlier, they would greatly increase the chances of getting enough sleep.

For those who did not read the article closely, here is the exact pattern they describe:
"...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."

Gazhacks wrote:Can I have 4, 2 hour sleeps instead. Does anyone sleep to order? I get nowhere near 8 hours sleep and I can tell you this that by Tea time I will be nodding in my chair at some point, question is, is it OSA or old age or lack of 8 hours sleep? My oximeter readings stated no events last night and 5 hours 28 minutes sleep. This 8 hour myth doesnt exsists in this day and age, the world would grind to a halt ask your president or our PM if they get 8 hours and watch them laugh at you.

Tea time.

You probably have never considered what quantity of caffeine is in black tea and you probably have never considered how even small quantities of caffeine stay in the body a very long time and seriously interfere with proper sleep.

Hey: Kramer tried it on an episode of Seinfeld, and it didn't work for him! Good enough for me....

Sheriff

LOL, I could never say that. My daughter loved her sleep. I could count on 8 straight hours of sleep from the time she was 6 weeks old just about every night unless she was ill. I always said, it was lucky I didn't have a second child. The second would never be as good as the first one I was blessed with. Of course, there were other issues but she did let me sleep at night.

kteague wrote:Tattooyu, look at your little man!!! Feels like we're watching him grow up. Parents of young children certainly don't get 8 straight hours of sleep, do they?!

.

I'd seen another similar article about a month ago, though I cannot place it now. Plus, The New York Times published something similar without the literary references back in March, 2006: Sleep Disorder? Wake Up and Smell the Savanna.

Both my parents used to sleep in two blocks. Dad would actually get up around 2 or 3 am and read for a couple hours, then go back to bed. After Dad passed, Mom still does the same. Two of my brothers are the same way, so they tell me.

The thing neither article discusses, though is that there are actually three standard periods of sleep: daytime siesta, nighttime first sleep and nighttime second sleep. If I'm not mistaken, many towns in the Mediterranean still have a cultural tradition of siesta.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Nap ... hort_Sleep
http://www.siestaawareness.org/pages/siesta-facts.php

So don't feel like you're 'non-standard' if you don't sleep solid through the night. We're all non-standard, eh? If you can't sleep through the night, why not try something different? Wake up and do something for an hour, then go back to bed. Big deal. You'd have been tossing and turning in the bed anyway right? And @Gazhacks, perhaps your desire to sleep at tea is because you didn't get your required siesta. Why not give it a go?

Naps are good.