You may have always heard of a theory about sleep called – “A full 8 hours of sleep a day is quality sleep.”
However, “8 hours of sleep” is probably a luxury for most people.
So we began to envy the ancients: no lights and TV, no cell phones and computers, in addition to sleep at night there is nothing to do. However, have you ever thought: the ancients really sleep long? Must sleep for 8 hours a day? How long do you really need to sleep a day?
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The movie “Silver Ghost” live-action version
Can our ancestors sleep the full 8 hours?
In 2017 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) did a study on sleep. Researchers went to the countries of Tanzania, Namibia and Bolivia to look at the local hunting/picking tribes. These tribal people live in the most similar environment and state to our ancestors that can be found.
These hunting / harvesting tribesmen in their lifetime will not see will disturb our rest of the cell phone, television, etc.. Two of these tribes are located in Africa, thousands of kilometers apart, while the third tribe was the first to migrate out of Africa and then across the Asian continent. Despite the distance between these three tribes, their inhabitants sleep very close to each other every night: an average of 6.5 hours. ①
For the primitive people, who were even older, there was no heating in winter, no air conditioning in summer, and they had to be constantly on guard against wild animals and enemies, living in a very harsh and difficult environment, and their sleep time might even be less than 6 hours. This shows that our ancestors sleep time is not only not longer than modern people, and even worse than some modern people.
And in ancient times, the ancients were generally a shift day will go to bed, which is now 7-9 pm. Ancient emperors generally five nights into the court, then generally four nights to get up, which is now 1-3:00 in the middle of the night. In addition to the long distance, traffic inconvenience, many officials even need to get up in the middle of the night to catch the road, so it is also difficult to sleep a full 8 hours.
Therefore, trying to get a full 8 hours of sleep has actually always been a luxury.
The “8 hours of sleep” is actually a pat on the head to come up with
So why there is a “full 8 hours of sleep” theory, the earliest is actually and “eight hours of work” together with the proposed.
In “Capital”, it was written that long working hours were basically the norm in all capitalist countries in the West at that time. At that time, it was common for workers to work 10-11 hours a day, and there was no double day off. The long working hours seriously deprived workers of sleep and rest, and work accidents due to fatigue often occurred. Workers in Europe and America had to struggle hard for decades to get the 9 to 5, double-holiday week they have today. The slogan of the workers at that time was “eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure, and eight hours of sleep”, which we can call “888 working hours” for short. ②
Thus, the 8-hour sleep theory was born.
One-size-fits-all “8 hours of sleep” is not good!
A simple, brutal, one-size-fits-all “8-hour sleep theory” will only lead to sleep anxiety. The 8-hour sleep theory was scientifically challenged by Nick Littlehales, the former president of the British Sleep Association, who wrote a book called “The Sleep Revolution”. ③
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Nick Littlehales is also a sports sleep coach and was the first to introduce a sleep restoration room to the Manchester United team. He provided United’s athletes with the most scientific sleep advice and guidance to ensure they could repair themselves during sleep and maximize their human physical performance. The results were truly amazing, when that Manchester United team went on to conquer the city and get 3 straight Premier League titles. The achievement of Beckham, Giggs, Gary Neville, these superstars. In the book he points out that the pursuit of 8 hours of sleep is not good!
1) Everyone needs a different amount of sleep, and there can be a big difference between individuals.
Too much sleep or too little sleep is counterproductive, and a one-size-fits-all “8 hours of sleep” theory will make many people uncomfortable.
2) The quality of sleep should be measured by the number of sleep cycles slept, and there is no point in sticking to “8 hours of sleep”.
Nick Littlehales explains that a sleep cycle is 90 minutes, and in 90 minutes, we go through several stages of sleep: non-eye movement sleep, eye movement sleep, and rapid eye movement sleep, and this process is like going down a staircase.
90 minutes is the basic unit for us to calculate sleep time, we don’t say we slept a few hours and minutes, but how many sleep cycles we slept, the body fully repair and sleep, all according to the cycle.
3) The rigid arrangement of sleeping 8 hours a night is impractical.
In life, we will always run into overtime, parties or other ad hoc affairs, and it is difficult for us to get a full 8 hours of sleep every night. The rigid arrangement of 8 hours per night, which we can hardly achieve, will only make us more and more frustrated. ③
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10 common sense about sleep that
Many people don’t know!
Nick Littlehales also summarized several common sense about sleep in “The Sleep Revolution”, which can help people sleep better if they understand it. ③
- Follow the circadian rhythm to make us sleep better.
The so-called circadian rhythm is to a specific period of time we will naturally want to do something. The body starts to secrete melatonin at 9pm to give us the urge to sleep, and we sleep the deepest at 1-2am. Another graph shows that from the moment we wake up early in the morning, we have three peaks of sleep demand: 1-3pm, 5-7pm in the evening, and after 11pm.
- Genetics determines whether we are early or late sleepers.
There are early risers and late sleepers. Early risers are used to get up in the morning and late risers are usually a little later, but according to the circadian pattern, the best time to get up for both types is no more than 2 hours. We can find our own most suitable waking time point by trying.
- Set your own wake up and bed time scientifically.
Starting from the time you set to wake up, the number of sleep cycles you need, and extrapolating backwards is the bedtime. For example, your most appropriate sleep cycle is 5, to get up at 7:00, then you must sleep at 11:30 pm.
- It is best to plan the total number of sleep cycles by week.
For example, if you want 5 sleep cycles per day, a week is 35, 30-35 will not have much impact. Usually not enough sleep at night, many people will have the psychological pressure to make up for it during the day. But as long as you do not break the habitual sleep cycle for 3 days in a row, then the impact is not much, our body will have a strong regulatory ability.
- Bath before going to bed to dim the lights to help enter sleep faster.
For example, you can simulate the natural environment. Take a warm bath before going to bed, so that the body raises a degree or two before going to sleep, simulating the process from warm to cool. Let the bedroom lights are darker than the living room, simulating the process from light to dim. It is also important to turn off most distracting blue light electronic devices – this tends to make the mind awake and less likely to fall asleep.
- Use the baby sleep position to get better quality sleep.
The body lies on its side, lying to the side of its non-dominant hand (habitual right hand, lying on the left, habitual left hand lying on the right), knees slightly bent, arms placed in front of the chest, gently folded together, neck, head and hips to form a smooth straight line. This sleeping posture will make you feel more secure, but also be able to improve the snoring situation.
- The process of waking up after sleep is also very important.
Wake up with natural light (or with the help of a natural light wake up lamp) and be careful not to sit up immediately when you hear the alarm clock or open your phone immediately. Getting up quickly with nervous tension can do great harm to your body and mind. Get up with a slower pace to start a day without panic.
- What if I miss bedtime?
Social, busy work makes it inevitable that our bedtime will be interrupted in some way. The right thing to do is to wait for the next full sleep cycle before going to bed. For example, in the example above, if you didn’t go to bed at 10:30 sharp because of special circumstances, go back to bed at almost 12:00. The effect is better than going straight to sleep.
- Do not easily break the wake up time even on weekends.
Many people will have the idea of catching up on sleep on the weekend, there is no excuse for this, otherwise life would be too difficult. But for the continuity of the sleep cycle, you can choose a more sensible approach. Still wake up at a set time, get up for a short while, have breakfast, and then go back to catch up on sleep, so that you can continue to function as a sleep cycle, but also give yourself a timely break.
- Use catch-up sleep techniques to gain efficient energy recovery.
According to the circadian rhythm, preferably at 1-3 p.m., and suboptimally at 5-7 p.m., we can set a rest period of about 30 minutes, not necessarily to fall asleep, even if we rest with our eyes closed. This is a short time to supplement last night’s lack of sleep, while eliminating brain fatigue and getting your body back on top.
Reference.
①2017 BBC The Surprising Theory You Didn’t Know About Sleep (Jason G. Goodman)
②2019-05-01 Surge News “The Hard Journey of Western Workers Fighting for the Eight-Hour Workday in the Nineteenth Century” (Xu Xiaofei)
③June 2017 Beijing Union Publishing Company The Sleep Revolution (Nick Littlehales)
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