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Response to Shining evolutionary light on human sleep and sleep disorders
Rest acts as a restorative agent that reinstates energy, improving memory among other
benefits. People are advised that healthy sleep is one that lasts up to eight hours a day. This is
referred to as monophasic sleep. However, the post-industrial man has come up with different
sleep patterns to enable the achievement of maximum productivity in a day. Hence, through
the evaluation of evolutionary perspectives taking into consideration tradeoff between sleep
and other activities that are essential in gaining knowledge on the aspect of sleep and the
disorders affecting its prudence in sustaining healthy living, the connection between the post-
industrial man and sleep patterns can be extrapolated.
While I was reading the article Shining evolutionary light on human sleep and sleep
disorders by Nunn, et al, I was aware of the importance that sleep plays in the daily life. The
article aims at determining the reasons behind the human sleep and the implications of sleep
on their health across different physiological and cognitive mechanisms. In achieving this
objective, Nunn, et al focus their analysis on the evolutionary perspective of sleep and its
relationship with various tradeoffs that affect its effectiveness. Hence, the article explores
different studies, and their findings on the context of primate and human sleep comparison.
From the article, it can be identified that the different tradeoffs that the post-industrial man has
employed in limiting monophasic sleep with the intention of achieving productivity, are traced
to their ancestral primitive origins.
According to the article’s premise, there have been notable variations in sleep patterns
across human history, as early as from our primate ancestors. Majority of primates are
considered to be arboreal, thus, their nocturnal way of life coupled with solidarity identify the
nature of the human ancestral primate. The primates according to the article’s findings,
produced offspring that developed in a fixed site for sleeping. However, as a result of
transformations attributed to evolution, the primates grew in size and thus abandoned their
fixed points of sleeping. While they found other sleeping sites on trees, challenges such as
falling during sleep caused a reason to identify better sleeping sites. As a result, through the
desire for self-preservation, the human ancestors evolved over time and with them, sleeping
sites and patterns also transgressed.
Subsequently, the article indicates that tradeoffs between sleep and other fitness
relevant activities, for instance, responsibility to offspring, and genetic pleiotropic effects the
ability to sleep as well as other interconnected physiological functions also play a role in
facilitating sleeping analysis through evolutionary perspectives. Additionally, according to Nunn
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et al, in their article, an increase in the understanding and realization of the interconnection
between sleep and several other physiological and cognitive functions indicate that sleep
comprises of numerous benefits such as enabling a body’s growth and repair. Many people
don't believe in polyphasic sleep. First, they think monophasic sleep has been the natural
pattern since ancient times, a sleep pattern summarized by numerous people in practice.
Breaking the pattern affects human health. Second, in their opinion, through the type of sleep
people can take part in other activities, such as to study and work at the expense of their
health. Therefore, through evolutionary perspectives, sleep disorders have are traced to
ancient human ancestors, and solutions such as evolutionary medicine enable the
understanding of sleep patterns, the challenges involved, and suitable methods of alleviating
the issue.