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- Rather than thinking of nature and nurture as absolute determinants of our behavior, itβs more appropriate to think of any individual behavior or social form as existing on a continuum between nature and nurture. That is, everything is somewhat natural and somewhat cultural (and sometimes, what we say is natural is actually cultural). Sleep is a great example of this: yes, we all have a natural, physiological urge to sleep, but how each person β and each society β organizes sleep varies, based on cultural norms and individual preferences. For some, this can mean nightly, consolidated sleep in an eight-hour chunk; for others, it might mean biphasic sleep β breaking sleep into two (or more) blocks of sleep, arranged throughout the 24-hour day. So our sleep styles might have developed out of evolutionary selection. Or it might be a little more complicated.
thenewgreen · 4298 days ago · link ·
The author makes mention that currently different cultures approach sleep differently. I don't doubt this but I wonder how large this variance is? Is it noticeably different from one society to the next? I've traveled a bit but I haven't noticed anything too substantial. Does anybody have instances where they've witnessed this?
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When I was doing research in China, the lab would basically shut down for 2 hours every midday. People would eat for between 30 minutes to an hour, and then sleep the rest of the time.
I'm not very good at naps, so I'd get a lot of reading done. I don't know if it's culture or nature, but I work best with one 7 hour sleep each cycle.
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thenewgreen · 4298 days ago · link ·
I'm the same way. 7-8 for me is ideal but for the last 19 months it's been more like 5-6 hours a night. I've adjusted though and I don't think my waking hours suffer much for the missing 1-2 hours. I wonder if we could be awake longer but we sleep out of desire more than necessity. We don't "need" 7 hours of sleep we just "want" it.