Sleep (To Be Retitled When I Think of A Better One - Note That I Am Posting This at 2:30 AM)

Interesting. I believe in general inducing some stress every now and then is a good thing, so I can see that acute sleep deprivation occasionally might not be harmful.

I've slept around 6 hours per night the last decade with no bad effects as far as I can tell.

One thing to note about the article is that the author's correlation between depression and sleep is based on bipolar patients - people with unipolar depression normally sleep less when they are depressed.

The myth of the eight-hour sleep

Sleeping in one eight-hour chunk is a very recent phenomenon, and lying awake at night could be good for you, according to scientists and historians.

www.bbc.com

Segmented Sleep in Preindustrial Societies

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphasic_and_polyphasic_sleep#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DBiphasic_sleep_%28or_diphasic%2C_bifurcated%2Cof_sleep_within_24_hours.?wprov=sfla1

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sleepl…-may-be-natural

Cassius this is a great topic and worthy of investigation and discussion. The particular article you referenced, and its author, are not however, a very good sources of information. The article is littered with many bits of accurate information and truths, but also... lots of unsupported assertions, interesting anecdotal evidence, conflations, stretched analogies, etc. Debunking all those would take gobs of time. However, the article does stir up thought and offers interesting insights. I've occasionally had trouble sleeping through a "full night" and have read some about this stuff over the years, including about the 2 segment night sleep idea and historical sleep pattern changes that Don's article refers to. Also about people / groups / cultures that employ daytime napping, and there is little doubt in my mind that sleeping 8 hours straight per night (or 7-9 as Guzey usually refers to) is not set in stone. I found that once I stopped worrying about it on those occasions when I woke up in the middle of the night or had other "variations", I really didn't have any further troubles. Sleep varies over time, within one's personal experience, and between different people. That's OK. Figure out what works for you.

Quote from Cassius

I didn't take the time to research him other than in the most cursory way

What?!? At 2:30 AM you should be getting out all your research tools and begin the analyzing!

I can't think of any Epicurean references offhand, but as I recall Marcus Aurelius wrote a passage about dragging his butt out of bed in the morning. Surely other ancient writers addressed sleep as well in some fashion?

First of all you must trust your own sense of bodily feeling, for if you disregard what you feel, how will you know what you should do? (What is the Epicurean saying on this?)

So then the question is: How does your body feel? If your body feels okay then no problem.

But if the body feels bad...then over the long term, feelings of tireness in the body are going to have detrimental health affects. And I have researched this...there are some studies that say poor sleep quality affects brain health.

Every person will have their unique situation to deal with...

Here are some possible causes:

1) Noisy sleep environment, uncomfortable bed/room temperature, or too much ambient room light during the night

2) Emotional worries over problems, life decisions, or unfinished work

3) Napping during the day - this perpetuates the night time sleep problems

4) Going to bed too early or having inconsistent bedtimes

5) Too much blue light from computer screens or tv screens in the evening hours

6) Not getting adequate bodily movement (exercise)

I have quite a bit of experience with sleep deprivation. For myself: generally one or two nights of poor sleep are okay for me, if they are then followed by a few nights of better sleep...as long as my body can recover. But when longer stretches of poor sleep occur, I notice that it is harder for me to want to exercise and I all eat more calories due to carb cravings. For me it can be environmental noise which wakes me, or emotional stress wakes me sometimes when nights are quiet. Then when it is a combination of these two problems it can be a real problem. I once went through a two week stretch of poor sleep...and my body felt very ill from lack of sleep.

Human beings were originally hunters and gatherers on the move and at some point the psyche might benefit from moving to a new environment. One way to deal with this without actually moving is to rearrange the bedroom layout and to see in what ways it can be made to be more cozy (and also the entire house to remove clutter and improve comfort).

I've read that there shouldn't be bookshelves or tv's (nor computers) in the bedroom -- it should be designed and maintained for sleep only, so no other activities (other than sex) should occur in the bedroom. Also that means it might be good to find a comfortable place other than the bedroom for middle of the night reading.

When awake in the middle of the night do relaxing things, sit still and breath calmly.

Eat a very small middle of the night snack - something with carbs - bread, cereal, or yogurt.

Journaling in the middle of the night can be a way to deal with worries over problems or unfinished work - write it all out and/or make lists - then close the notebook and say "Okay I can set this aside now since I've written it all out and can put it out of my mind. I take a vacation from it now. I will come back to it tomorrow."

After you set down your notebook... Do slow deep breathing while laying still in bed...that has a certain quality of a slow rise and fall (it has a sound quality of air flow which could be described as the sound of air when a child is slowly swinging up and down on a swing-set). In some cases even if you are awake, this kind of laying still in bed and deep breathing can be restorative.

I just found this interesting article...which says: "Take sleep problems seriously" as poor sleep quality could lead to future depression:

Quote

Take sleep problems seriously.

You should tell your doctor if you:

• have trouble falling or staying asleep
• feel tired during the day
• have physical pain, discomfort or other complaints (for instance, signs of obstructive sleep apnea or pauses in breathing at night) that prevent you from getting a good night’s sleep

Treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices for apnea can restore good sleep, helping you sidestep related conditions like depression. (People with sleep apnea have a fivefold higher risk of depression.)

Depression and Sleep: Understanding the Connection

People with insomnia have a higher risk of depression. On the other hand, depression can trigger sleep problems. Knowing the connection between depression and…

www.hopkinsmedicine.org

Another thing to consider when discussing how many hours of sleep are necessary is to clarify whether you're talking about time in bed or time actually asleep. It's not unusual to be awake for ten percent (give or take depending on age and other factors) of the hours in bed. Much of this time is such short interruptions that you're barely, or not, aware of it, though it also includes getting up to use the bathroom and falling right back to sleep &c.

Unfortunately, none of us may be "average." So I think that Kalosyni is right: we need to pay attention to our own (possibly variable) rhythms. My wife is sure that I operate on something like a 23 hour cycle, and so adherence to clock-time doesn't work for me. Sometimes I'm up till the wee hours; sometimes I'm in bed at "dark-thirty." It's a bit like my ADHD: I've learned that the worst I can do is fight it. Following nature is also following my own nature, as best I can.

Oh, and I do like naps!

Quote from Godfrey

as I recall Marcus Aurelius wrote a passage about dragging his butt out of bed in the morning.

Ah yes. But my pleasure-loving self enjoys those long, half-asleep morning-moments. (The Epicurean versus the Stoic?)

As Theodore Roethke wrote:

"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow."

(Funny how that line is embedded in my memory ... )

I haven’t slept in or slept more than 6.5 hours max in the last 6 years or so. Between my job that vacillates between day shift and night shift, kids and just the fact that I don’t fall asleep right away and I am thinking about the sword of Damocles that will always fall on me from various corners of my life instead of sleeping. I do miss the days of a solid “lay in” after 10 hours. But circumstances change, but this is a personal hope for me to get back into a more restful rhythm.

There are techniques, such as journaling or making a checklist sometime before going to bed, that encourage a brain dump to help clear the mind.

Sometimes of late I think of my coming night's sleep as a delicious, nourishing meal to enjoy.

"The sword of Damocles" is a great description of what I faced a decade or so ago, for a decade or so. Thanks for that Matt ! At times I regret that I didn't have the benefit of Epicurean philosophy back then and was obsessed with the "sword".