Our standard of monophasic sleep during the night is often considered the norm by physicians (Steger & Brunt, 2003). However, historically and internationally it is the exception. In addition to our monophasic culture of sleep, there is the siesta-culture and the napping-culture.
In a siesta-culture in addition to the sleep during the night a further rest period is established in the early afternoon. Not everybody sleeps but the social life comes to a stop. An example is Spain and several South American countries that hold a siesta for a few hours after a long lunch. This way, for one the human biorhythm is taken into account and also the midday heat is being avoided. The siesta is bound to the noon time and is traditionally only held at that particular time. However, globalization and the use of modern technology are showing their effects. The number of people napping is constantly decreasing due to changed work rules and the use of air conditioners (Booth, 2011).
In China napping is even established in the constitution. In article 49 of the Constitution from 1950 the Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong established the right of the working people to hold on to rest (De Mente, 1994). After Mao’s death, however, it was considered as a symbol of traditional Chinese culture as well as a sign of economic backwardness. Napping is still a daily activity in rural areas but in the cities the capitalism has turned people away from it. Taiwan has the same cultural roots but with a different political development: a very aggressive approach to the afternoon naps. Staring in elementary school after lunch and even in the work force at the desk people doze for about 10 minutes (Moore, 2007).
The siesta which is firmly bound to the noon time...
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Moore, L. (2007, March 18). The Afternoon Nap Attack. U.S.News. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070318/26nap.htm
Steger, B. & Brunt, L. (2003). Night-time and sleep in Asia and the West: exploring the dark side of life. New York, NY: Routleg Curzon.
Stone, K. L.; Ewing, S. K.; Ensrud, K. E.; Redline, S.; Bauer, D. C.; Cauley, J. A.; Hillier, T. A.; & Cummings, S. R. (2009). Self-reported sleep and nap habits and risk of mortality in a large cohort of older women. The Journal of American Geriatrics Society, 57(4), 604-611.
Tamaki, M.; Shirota, A.; Tanaka, H.; Hayashi, M.; & Hori, T. (1999). Effects of a daytime nap in the aged. Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 53, 273-275.
Winterman, D. (2007, November 28). Are you getting enough? BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7114661.stm
It is generally understood that getting enough sleep plays an important factor as people go through their day to day lives, nevertheless many people do not rank sleep as one of their top priorities. In many cases, people prefer to use the time spent on getting the proper amount of sleep on other activities such as finishing a report for work or doing some last minute studying for a midterm. However, reducing the amount of sleep one gets not only affects one’s academic performance, but their physical health as well.
Wilson, J.F. (2005). Is sleep the new vital sign? Annals of Internal Medicine, 142 (10), 877-880.
Famous and successful people like Albert Einstein and Da Vinci took naps regularly! Without his naps, Da Vinci might have never had enough energy to paint the Mona Lisa, or Albert Einstein might have never become one of the smartest people in the world. After reading what you just read above, you might feel like you should start taking naps too. However, why should someone take naps? Here is a situation: did your doctor ever recommend you to get some more rest during the night? No doubt, you obviously thought about it for a while. Regrettably, here is the problem: can you fit some more time in your schedule so that you could sleep more or do you seek an alternate way? Unfortunately, many people don’t sleep enough during the night, because of
Chronic sleep loss is becoming more common in modern culture and less restricted to sleep-deprived diseases such as insomnia. Suggested to be the result of a number car, industrial, medical, and other occupational accidents, sleep deprivation is beginning to be recognized as a public concern. As a result, the Centers for Disease Control
Sleep deprivation is increasingly recognized as a worldwide public health concern as researchers found that lack of sleep impairs human functioning[2]. The majority of individuals was found to be sleep deprived as they are forced to restrain their sleeping hours to compensate increasing working hours, especially individuals whose professions’ is in line with healthcare, security and transportation sectors as they are often required to be on duty even at night [1]. Regardless of whether the individual was totally or partially sleep deprived, it was proven that both had adverse effects on the human body[3]. Further studies revealed that sleep deprivation affected ones’ cognitive and motor performance as well as mood[2].
Wells, Mary Ellen, and Bradley V. Vaughn. "Poor Sleep Challenging The Health Of A Nation." Neurodiagnostic Journal 52.3 (2012): 233-249. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 May 2014.
Sleepiness, whether due to sleep apnea, heavy snoring, idiopathic hypersomnolence, narcolepsy or insomnia from any number of sleep-related disorders, threatens millions of Americans' health and economic security (1). Perhaps somewhat most concerning of these disorders are those that allow sleep without having any control over when it happens-idiopathic hypersomnolence and narcolepsy. The two are closely related in that both cause individuals to fall asleep without such control, yet narcolepsy occurs without any dreaming during naps (2). For years, narcoleptic people have been falling asleep in corners, concerned, as they have given numerous attempts to try to stay focused and awake. But besides the excessive fatigue that people experience, there surely must be more that can be associated with causing such sleepiness among people at an uncontrolled level. There might especially not be a reason involving the I-function of the brain, as people are not aware of when necessarily they will fall into their deep sleep.
Heart disease: The Nurses’ Health Study proved that women who slept 9-11 hours per night were 38% more likely to have coronary heart disease as compares to women who slept 8 hours.
To sleep an individual usually requires relaxed skeletal muscles in their posture (sleep. 2014). Also according to the many research done by United States, United Kingdom and Australia (sleep. 2014) a person usually needs to sleep for a certain amount of time depending on if it is a weekday or weeknight. Adults are supposed to sleep between ‘6 to 9 hours per night’ (sleep. 2014). However, according to sleep polls that had been undertaken by United States in 2009 and in 1998, 6 hours per night sleeping had increased from ‘12 percent in 1998 to 20 percent in 2009’(sleep. 20149. REM decreases after a night of sleep for ‘100 minute’ every night (MARZANO et al, 2010). On the other hand, there had been a decrease during the same period when the poll was created to see the average of individuals sleep for 8 hours’ (sleep.2014). For 8 hours there had decrease from ‘35 percent of people to 28 percent (sleep. 2014). In the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, adults have an average less than 7 hours of sleep per night during weekdays, which is not enough due to the amount of work they have during the day and can lead to disorders.
Milner, C. E., Cote, K. A. (2008). Benefits of napping in healthy adults: Impact of nap length, time of day, age, and experience with napping. Journal of Sleep Research, 18(2), 272-281
sleep in America and its effects on performance. The articles gave different types of results from different kinds of data with different degrees of definiteness. In spite of their differences, both articles showed that lack of sleep is a cause for decreased performance and a detriment to a productive and healthy lifestyle.
Important public policy issues have arisen in our modern 24-hour society, where it is crucial to weigh the value of sleep versus wakefulness. Scientific knowledge about sleep is currently insufficient to resolve the political and academic debates raging about how much and when people should sleep. These issues affect almost everybody, from the shift worker to the international traveler, from the physician to the policy maker, from the anthropologist to the student preparing for an exam.
...an, L., Nadaraja, D., Onen, F., & Richards, K. C. (2011). Perceived effectiveness of diverse sleep treatments in older adults. Journal Of The American Geriatrics Society, 59(2), 297-303. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2010.03247.x
Tsui, Y., & Wing, Y. (2009). A study on the sleep patterns and problems of university business students in Hong Kong. Journal of American College Health, 58(2), 167-176.
Wells, M., & Vaughn, B. V. (2012). Poor Sleep Challenging the Health of a Nation. Neurodiagnostic Journal,52(3), 233-249.