I had an interesting conversation with Dr. George today. I was asking his opinion on polyphasic sleeping (essentially, sleeping 2 hours awake 6 hours, three times per day). Our conversation shifted slightly to various sleep studies he'd been involved in during his career.
One study was especially interesting to me. Basically, study participants had to live in an clock-free and artificial light-free environment (including electronic devices that emit light, like computers). With their functioning hours limited largely to daylight time only, the study hoped to determine what our natural sleep needs were when we weren't fighting them.
Two conclusions Dr. George shared with me from the study struck me as particularly interesting:
1. Most study volunteers naturally settled into an 8-10 hour sleep time that became part of a 25 hour day. Though our sun's orbit gives us a 24 hour day, our body clocks seem to want to add an hour to each day. For example, if a study participant went to sleep at 9pm on one night, s/he would want to go to sleep at 10pm the next night, 11pm the night after, etc.
2. People with bipolar disorder (not me, my depression is unipolar) were the only group that did not develop any pattern for their sleep. They may be awake for 36 hours straight, sleep for 4 hours, be awake for 2 hours, then sleep for 2 days, or any random sleep/wake pattern. Dr. George indicated that there was some thought that the gene for bipolar disorder may be on the same gene as the one for sleep patterns. He said that he felt that one of the most important things a person with bipolar disorder can do is to self-regulate their sleep patterns, using sleep aids if needed to insure that 8-10 hours of sleep are achieved each night.
I enjoyed my week with Dr. George. I suspect I could pick his brain for hours and continue to be both amused and educated.
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