Pre-Industrial

What I found very interesting about this article was that after all the research they did the results still concluded that even with society being so industrialized our sleep patterns haven’t been too greatly affected where they would be deemed not normal. I think that is just crazy, I mean the majority of the hunter-gatherers don’t take naps, they wake up early (some even before sunrise I mean what is that?), and they don’t even have a word for insomnia. Granted they technically still get just as much sleep on average compared to a person who gets adequate amounts of sleep while living in an industrialized society, which may be a factor as to why the results were the way they were.

It was cool to see how temperature and light plays a role in our sleep as well. I will admit that I have heard before that it is harder for you to go to sleep with lights on or while on your phone or let’s say binge watching your favorite show on Netflix right before bed… you know just some examples, not that any of us smart college students would ever do that. But honestly, I find that for me I have to have my laptop or TV on at the lowest volume, it is so hard for me to sleep in complete darkness. But as far as temperature goes I am right with them. The article stated that the hunter-gatherers would likely fall asleep around the time when the temperature dropped at night, I am the same way at home we set the temperature at 72 degrees at night and I still keep my ceiling fan on high to prevent waking up in the middle of the night in a sweat. I prefer to be colder at nights it makes it a lot easier to fall asleep.

I think this article really puts our way of life in perspective. Society is always telling us that the advancement in technology is so great for our future, that it makes things so much better and so much easier for us, and in many ways it is. But after reading this article although the results were way less extreme than I thought they were going to be it still begs the question, is all this technology the best for us? I mean we can already see a growing dependence on it now within the different generations and how it is handicapping us mentally, this article really points out that it might not be in the general public’s best interest health wise either. 

Exercise

In the Exercise article what I liked about the article kind of goes along with what we were talking about in class as far as zoning in on what the experimenters want when it comes to participants as well as focusing on those who have problems with their sleeping habits as compared to those who get adequate amounts of sleep every night. Also another thing that I found interesting is that the experimenters choose to focus on those who are older (55+ years old) rather than college aged participants whose day to day is more stressful on average than a person in their upper 50’s (to a point). I like this because these participants have a clear pattern of some sort of sleep disorder that would be clearly impacted by a change in amount of physical activity performed making this experiment pretty straight forward, theoretically.

What I didn’t really like is that basically in the middle or close to the end of the experiment they were thinking they needed to throw out “17 participant nights” because of technical difficulties like a weak battery which is definitely something that should have been checked prior to the start of the experiment, well given that the participants were instructed to charge them which isn’t clearly stated in the Methods section. But luckily they only had to eliminate one of the participants’ score.

This article, I feel, is relatable to the general public in the sense that we all know someone in the age range of the participants and will one day become this age whether we like it or not and that is the time where physical activity is a must in order to remain healthy physically and in order to gain the best amount of sleep possible so that we are working with all our faculties. I definitely understand what these people go through because almost every night I find myself waking up around the same time once or twice in the middle of the night, tossing and turning, I just seem to easily fall out of my deep sleep. And on the occasion where I work out I do find it easier to fall asleep probably because I’m so tired I can’t bear to move. But we all need exercise in our daily lives to keep us fit in every aspect.

Effects of Caffeine

I choose the Caffeine Effects… article as my secondary article and I found the study pretty interesting because I never really realized that caffeine could have such adverse effects on sleep even when taken as far as 6 hours prior to bedtime. As an occasional coffee drinker and a self-proclaimed “chocoholic” this article really opened my eyes to some of the reasons why I probably haven’t been getting a full night of rest. I notice that I am constantly waking up between 3 and 4 am almost every night and after reading this article I can understand what might be part of the problem.

Some things I found strange is that they let the participants consume caffeine, other than the pill that was given, throughout the day. It kind of made me wonder like wouldn’t the extra amount of caffeine skew the data? The article even stated that that caffeine has a “high variability in the elimination half-life” I would just assume that it would be difficult to tell if the data collected was solely based from the caffeine pill or have the trace amount of excess caffeine included from earlier that day. Something else I am not too sure on is what “latency” of sleep is, my guess is that it is the length at which you are able to stay asleep but I am not sure. Another thing would be the “Latin Square Design”, this method of testing was also used in the primary article I had to read, Tennis, where they briefly explained what the set up was but I am still not 100% clear on the concept.

The article affects the public in a major way, an easy example and probably a personal one would be us as college students. Some of us could never fathom making it through the day let alone to our first class without a couple cups of coffee or a few shots of espresso throughout the day. And this cycle of caffeine intake lasts all day when projects and homework start to pile up and we must work long nights and we definitely lose countless hours of sleep because of it. This article also affects your everyday working man (or woman) when deadlines need to be met, papers need to be graded, or you just need that extra boost to help you have enough energy after work to play with your children. Caffeine is in our everyday lives and is something that most can’t live without, the article is a good read for everyone, it definitely gives you something to think about and maybe even consider changing some habits.