The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

LydiaJ

GDB2222 wrote: »

Not as big as the day you were born.

Indeed, but I don't remember that one!

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

That's my house.
I mostly sit in the darkness, as there's just me and I know where everything is so there's nothing to trip over. I'll only flick on a light if I'm doing something specific like putting the kettle on...

I was reading something recently (might have been by Bill Bryson) about how we used to have two sleeps per night (the big sleep and the little sleep). People would go to sleep when it went dark (since lighting was expensive ) and when they woke up in the night they'd have already put all their furniture like chairs against the walls so they wouldn't bump into things when they went for a drink or a snack, then back to bed for a nap until the sun came up.


:bdaycake:
Happy Birthday Sue!

Jackmydad

zagubov wrote: »

I was reading something recently (might have been by Bill Bryson) about how we used to have two sleeps per night (the big sleep and the little sleep). People would go to sleep when it went dark (since lighting was expensive ) and when they woke up in the night they'd have already put all their furniture like chairs against the walls so they wouldn't bump into things when they went for a drink or a snack, then back to bed for a nap until the sun came up.


:bdaycake:
Happy Birthday Sue!

I never knew that. Thanks.
There's a bit about it here
https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again
I worked shifts, and sometimes used to have a sleep for a couple of hours in the afternoon.
I nearly always felt rough after, sort of "out of sync" although less tired.
When I think back to that several years of shift work, 35 years ago now, it has a certain almost dreamlike quality that's hard to describe. Funnily working days earlier and after doesn't.+

LydiaJ

While it's true that our society went through a period when most people did the "two sleeps with an awake bit in the middle of the night" thing, it doesn't seem to have happened in any other cultures. Matthew Walker (author of the amazing book "Why we sleep" and sleep scientist with decades of experience) feels that this was a bit of an aberration. A short nap after lunch, OTOH, is common in many cultures, and research on Greek villages looking at when they gave up siesta culture at different times over the 20th century links not having an afternoon nap with a significant decrease in life expectancy.

(The book is absolutely fascinating, backed up by loads of data from reputable scientists doing well designed research studies. Any NP who are remotely interested in sleep would probably enjoy it.)

ivyleaf

Thank you Lydia! I must see if the library has that book in stock atm.

silvercar

I would have thought that houses would have been cold in the middle of the night, enough reason to stay wrapped up in bed.

Jackmydad

PasturesNew wrote: »

Maybe they got up to check the fire was still going/top it up ... so might as well sit around and enjoy it

Could well have done. Old houses with thick stone walls have a high thermal inertia as well. Once they're warm they stay warm for ages

Cakeguts

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yes, two sleeps was the norm. And it's my norm too (currently 2.50 and I'm sitting here with a coffee having "got up/given up" and watching a programme about pyramids on Channel 5 )
https://www.my5.tv/ancient-mysteries/season-3/episode-2-2

Many people, years ago, would get up in the middle of the night and do some work, or sit and chat as a family, too.

It was only industrialisation that changed it.

And the electric light bulb and gas lighting. The bit in the middle of the night as I understand it were called the watching hours.



From reading about this years and years ago somewhere can't remember where the theory was that before the invention of the electric light bulb and gas lighting people went to bed when it got dark and got up when it got light. So in the winter in the UK that meant going to bed at about 4pm and getting up when it got light at about 8 am. They wouldn't sleep for all of that length of time so there were several hours when they were awake in the night.



This changed once people could make enough light at night to not have to go to bed as soon as it got dark. So 1000s of years of doing one thing and a couple of hundred if that of doing something else. Is it surprising that the human body hasn't caught up yet?

Cakeguts

I have managed to recycle a really nice 3/4 size violin which will be donated to a musical charity. That is the good news.



The bad news is that I am getting very tired of people who want to impose their opinions on climate change onto me. I have much more immediate things that they could be doing if they had time to stop trying to impose their opinions on me which is wasted time anyway because I like to make up my own mind not be dictated too and told that my opinion is wrong because it is different to theirs.



What I want is more supported housing for young and even older disabled people who still live with their parents because there isn't enough of the right sort of supported social housing for them to move into. If those who have time to keep telling me that their opinion of everything is more important then mine could instead apply their time to something more useful I feel that the world would be a much better place.

GDB2222

As I'm getting on a bit, I thought that I ought to prepare a bucket list of things to do before I die. I hate to say this, but there's very little I can think of to put on the list. Is this just me being very, very dull and unadventurous?

Or am I very complacent? Perhaps, I ought to devote myself to some major endeavour in my later years?

Any ideas, please?