70% of 84 hunter-gatherers studied in 2013 slept less than 7 hours per day, with 46% sleeping less than 6 hours.
Does this really count all sleep time (including naps) or only night sleep? It sounds strange if it counts all sleep time. At least in conjunction with the claim that hunter-gatherers “worked” fewer hours than modern humans (I, of course, assume that modern hunter-gatherers have a life similar to ancient ones). In addition, there doesn’t seem to be much to do when it is dark -even when you have fire-; it is very unlikely not to fall asleep if you are in any way not well rested, no?
If the studies include naps, it points to me to something I have thought a bit about: sleep and idle-resting/some-kind-of-meditation may have non-trivial overlap. If hunter-gatherers can spend enough idle time during the day, this effectively would decrease their need for sleep. So, even if they had the opportunity to easily sleep longer, they wouldn’t. Modern life effectively brings idle time close to zero, so it would be no wonder why we need more sleep. Is there any data on sleep time for different kind of meditators?
Another explanation could be that modern life implies a much intensive use of our brain, we’d need to think much more than hunter-gatherers. In my experience, when I don’t think much I really don’t have a problem sleeping less than usual (although I cannot recall if I feel sleepy anyway or not). And when I need to really think hard I do need more sleep than usual (actually, when I started to study in the uni I was not able to go to bed early -external forces + lack of willpower- and it went pretty bad until I decided not to take any class before 10h). Does that sound plausible?
Does this really count all sleep time (including naps) or only night sleep? It sounds strange if it counts all sleep time. At least in conjunction with the claim that hunter-gatherers “worked” fewer hours than modern humans (I, of course, assume that modern hunter-gatherers have a life similar to ancient ones). In addition, there doesn’t seem to be much to do when it is dark -even when you have fire-; it is very unlikely not to fall asleep if you are in any way not well rested, no?
If the studies include naps, it points to me to something I have thought a bit about: sleep and idle-resting/some-kind-of-meditation may have non-trivial overlap. If hunter-gatherers can spend enough idle time during the day, this effectively would decrease their need for sleep. So, even if they had the opportunity to easily sleep longer, they wouldn’t. Modern life effectively brings idle time close to zero, so it would be no wonder why we need more sleep. Is there any data on sleep time for different kind of meditators?
Another explanation could be that modern life implies a much intensive use of our brain, we’d need to think much more than hunter-gatherers. In my experience, when I don’t think much I really don’t have a problem sleeping less than usual (although I cannot recall if I feel sleepy anyway or not). And when I need to really think hard I do need more sleep than usual (actually, when I started to study in the uni I was not able to go to bed early -external forces + lack of willpower- and it went pretty bad until I decided not to take any class before 10h). Does that sound plausible?