Sleepy Time

Was going through - at a leisurely pace -  a web site
for young people on the functioning of the brain, when I
came across some interesting findings. I haver long suspected
that eight hours of sleep per night is an artificial figure, some sort
of average. The data below concords with that in the most dramatic fashion.

The surprising thing is the extent to which the data shows sleep to be
age related. Not sleep recommended, but the actuals of sleep reported.
People my age are getting six hours a night; that's it, that's all. How odd.

An interesting piece by the BBC tells us that, in pre-modern times, people
enjoyed a first and second sleep, each of approximately four hours, with one
hour or two of wakefulness between the two. The wisdom of this approach
seems to have been lost. One is either a go getter who sleeps four, or a neurotic
with insomnia episodes.

There are really two kinds of sleep to keep track of: deep sleep, in which
short-term memories get transferred to long-term; memories are lost if this fails to
happen. And then REM sleep (rapid eye movement) where emotional work gets done;
without REM sleep - where stress hormones get turned of - the genes for
cancer and diabetes might well get solicited.

For the curious, it is true Barack Obama makes do on six hours per night or less.
Margaret Thatcher used to sleep four, as did Winston Churchill during the war.
Donald Trump claimed in 2012 he slept 3, to remain competitive.


https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/sleep.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24444634
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22084671

                                                             *   *   *