A quantitative study of sleep patterns in three pre-industrial societies implies that our natural sleep duration is close to seven hours, and that sleep cycles are determined by environmental temperature as well as the light–dark cycle.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
References
Yetish, G. et al. Curr. Biol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.09.046 (2015).
Roenneberg, T. Nature 498, 427–428 (2013).
Skeldon, A. C., Derks, G. & Dijk, D.-J. Sleep Med. Rev. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2015.05.011 (2015).
Santhi, N. et al. J. Pineal Res. 53, 47–59 (2012).
Czeisler, C. A. Nature 497, S13 (2013).
de la Iglesia, H. O. et al. J. Biol. Rhythms 30, 342–350 (2015).
Moreno, C. R. C. et al. Sci. Rep. 5, 14074 (2015).
Wright, K. P. Jr et al. Curr. Biol. 23, 1554–1558 (2013).
van der Vinne, V. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 15256–15260 (2014).
Daan, S., Honma, S. & Honma, K. J. Biol. Rhythms 28, 403–411 (2013).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Related links
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dijk, DJ., Skeldon, A. Human sleep before the industrial era. Nature 527, 176–177 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/527176a
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/527176a
- Springer Nature Limited