Friday 30 December 2011

Are you sleeping comfortably?


I came a cross a really interesting article that I thought I would share with you.

How often do we moan about sleeping? I often see many Facebook status' saying that people haven't slept well or that they just are not sleeping. Don't get me wrong I am just as bad, and will often do the same.

So what is our obsession with sleeping well?

I use to think it was down to the commitment that we have, commitment to be a parent; you're up all day running around after your children, is tiring, you need to sleep well to manage it the next day. Or take work as an example, working 10-12 hours a day and then again knowing that you have to do the same tomorrow on limited sleep is a nightmare!

What if then you work part-time and you're a parent and a husband/wife and you have other duties on top. Well, I am sure we can at some point relate to that.

So, is sleeping well a modern thing?

It must be, we all go out and make sure we buy comfy mattresses, which usually suit our life style, be it hard mattresses, soft, body shaping or even the latest spring memory foamed. With all this modern advances we must be counter reacting to the normal life style that we are creating for ourselves, could even say living comfortably to our means and lifestyle.

Realistically, thousands of years ago, people weren't sleeping on mattresses before they went out and worked on the field or cared for their family!

Or so we would have thought!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111208-oldest-mattress-africa-archaeology-science/

According to this article a 77,000 year old Mattress has been discovered, showing that they cleverly worked out specific layers of plants and materials to for a 12 inch (30 cm) mattress to sleep on and to top it off, they were also concerned about bedbugs!! As it appears the top layers were specific plants that kept away Ants, flies and mosquitoes  (and I would assume other bugs)

It really isn't a surprise though when you think about how many animals build nests, even some closer related species like chimps and gorillas who build nests for sleeping comforts. But still, reading the article still impressed me.

It really got me thinking how in some ways our long lost ancestors must have dreamt of a good night sleep just as much as we do! And they survived to hunt and fish another day, then so shall we!!

Now stop hogging my Mammoth blanket and let me get some sleep!

1 comment:

  1. Wow, that's interesting. I hadn't thought of sleep in that way, that our ancestors thought of it too. I'm a terrible sleeper, but I've come to accept that :)

    Sarah Allen
    (my creative writing blog)

    ReplyDelete

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