AHS16 - Ancestral Health Symposium 2016

Contemporary sleep patterns and priorities in industrialized nations exhibit a high level of discord from those of hunter-gatherer populations. Inadequate sleep increases risks of cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease, diabetes and obesity, with one recent study demonstrating that a single night of lost sleep is more metabolically damaging than six month of a high-fat Western diet. Approximately two thirds of Americans consistently sleep less than the gold standard 8 hours per night, sleep being increasingly deemed lower priority than productivity as evidenced by common idioms such as “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. With the stark decline in average sleep duration over the last 50 years, two questions arise: What are the long-term public health implications of our modern disdain for sleep? How can hunter-gatherer sleep patterns in addition to physiologic insight inform sleep goals and guidelines? Key aspects of ancestral sleep will be discussed, including: duration, quality, consistency, seasonal variation, circadian synchronicity, and sleep hygiene.