Art of Manliness Podcast #115: The Slumbering Masses With Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer

Originally published May 2015. Show notes: https://ift.tt/2LnLMFM Sometimes when I’m lying in my bed falling asleep, a thought will come across my mind: at this moment tens of millions of people are going completely unconscious and immobile and having crazy hallucinations. Because if you think about it, that’s what happens when you fall asleep. And you pretty much go to sleep whenever everybody in your timezone or near your timezone goes to sleep too. But my guest on today’s podcast argues that we take our current sleep schedule for granted. In fact, it wasn’t until about the middle of the 19th century that what we consider “normal sleep” — sleeping in one big chunk of time between the hours of 10 PM and 8 AM — even became a thing. What caused us to get on this “consolidated” sleep schedule, what was it like before, and what implications does it have for work and relationships? Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California Santa Cruz and the author of the book The Slumbering Masses: Sleep, Medicine and Modern American Life. Today on the podcast Dr. Wolf-Meyer and I discuss the anthropology of sleep. Show Highlights What sleep was like before the 19th century The role Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison played in today’s sleeping schedule Why insomnia isn’t so much a sleep disorder as a social disorder How our American sleep and work schedule has spread to Europe and around the world How our sleep/work schedule drives the coffee/energy drink market What you can do if your personal sleep schedule doesn’t jive with society’s sleep schedule And much more! Follow us! https://ift.tt/1FOPIX2 http://twitter.com/artofmanliness https://ift.tt/YAd15k https://ift.tt/1DUJeqE