Kushi Week #13 – Western History of Capitalism, Industrialization, And Sleep
The emergence of capitalism enabled the industrialization of the west during the late 19th century. Industrialization transformed western economies and societies from being focused on agriculture and the cottage method to a reliance on manufacturing using the factory method, or mechanized methods of mass production. Under capitalism, business owners and entrepreneurs organized labor centrally into factories, finding any and every way to maximize their own profit. Children and adults alike were shuttled into factories to make a living, artisans and guilds were unemployed and dismantled, and the cottage system was brought to an end. Essentially, the world as it was known before industrialization was irreversibly changed.
And sleep was also affected by this transition. Before industrialization, the socially accepted sleep schedule was biphasic — sleep was split into two segments. The first sleep would take place between 9:00 to 12:00, followed by a short waking period, and the second sleep would take place between 2:00 and the morning. Evidence for this sleep schedule presents itself in references to the “first sleep” and “second sleep” in medieval, pre-industrial (as well as some post-industrial) texts such as court depositions, literature, letters, diaries, medical textbooks, and philosophical writings, as well as in ethnographic evidence from the late 19th century. But this sleep schedule was not limited only to the West — there is considerable evidence for the practice of this around the world in records such as colonial accounts and the aforementioned ethnographic evidence.
There were even social norms around sleeping. People slept communally, with family members, friends, servants, and even strangers (if traveling) so these strict social conventions included avoiding physical contact or fidgeting and having designated sleeping positions. The waking period that was situated in between the first and second sleeps was called the “watch,” and this time was used for a wide range of activities, such as laboring, praying, socializing, and committing crimes.
But humans are not the only species to practice this. Ring-tailed lemurs are cathemeral (awake at night and during the day), and their sleeping habits closely resemble those of pre-industrial humans. The observation that double sleeping was natural for some primates led to the hypothesis that this might be the way humans evolved to sleep as well, and so a study was done. A sleep scientist took 15 men as his subjects, shortened their hours of daylight from 16 hours to 10, confined them to a bedroom with no lights or windows, and recorded their sleep patterns. Initially, the men all slept through the night, but after four weeks, their sleeping patterns were transformed. Now, they slept in 2 halves punctuated by a waking period of 1-2 hours — the biphasic sleep schedule practiced before industrialization. Measurements of their melatonin showed that their circadian rhythms had adjusted, meaning that their sleep was altered on a biological level.
Hi Kushi! Your analysis on how sleep was affected by industrialization was interesting because I’ve never thought about the biological effects of industrialization. It’s not surprising that humans used to participate in biphasic sleep when you consider that many mammals, such as dogs, cats, birds, and some species of monkeys follow biphasic and polyphasic sleep trends. Industrialization not only altered society, but our biological systems and circadian rhythms as well. Industrialization has changed our lifestyles in numerous ways, such as leading to a more sedentary lifestyle because physical labor, such as farming and constructing, are not as valued in industrial society. The rise of importing and exporting also makes humans more susceptible to more microbiomes than they used to be, and this has influenced our immune systems and overall health significantly. Moreover, the increase in processed food and materials has decreases the quality of the everyday materials we use and the food we consume, which leads people to wonder whether society has taken industrialization too far. Regardless, industrialization also has many positive effects, and although our sleep schedules may have changed, this change has not caused any major issues in health thus far.
ReplyDeleteHi Kushi! I find it fascinating that people slept in such odd patterns in a time relatively not long ago in the mid 1700s and that the only reason they changed is because of changing working conditions (conditions that are still in place today). Industrialization and urbanization quite literally altered human society's sleep schedule in such a significant way that looking back on the two phases schedule, it seems extremely out of the ordinary. I thought it was really interesting how you connected two seemingly unlike ideas and related them to each other by a means not often thought about. I also found it interesting that pre-industrialization humans slept in the same patterns as certain types of lemurs. It's a seemingly random fact, but it does show that these sleeping patterns aren't as ridiculous as they may initially seem to be. I thought your blog was really insightful on a topic I had never previously considered before. Great job!
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