board77

So what do you think it is?

Well, looking through this thread it looks like it always happens around this time of year and then takes care of itself. So, no need to worry, I'll just wait it out.

Perhaps the change in daylight mimics changing time zones, so I'm getting "jetlagged" without actually travelling?

Some sort of evolutionary leftover for hibernation perhaps?

I understood each of those individual words, but the filtration emphasis morphed the tome in an antiphonal fashion.

Deepak Chopra, is that you?

What? That makes perfect sense, doesn't it?



Our ancestors hibernated (maybe). You get tired this time of year or wake up a lot at weird hours or something. Your brain is remembering its long ago past of hibernation.

?
I got nothing.

Okay, now I understand.

Do we know that our ancestors hibernated? I assumed that hibernation developed after species moved away from the equator to regions that have winters where food is not available. Since we're a fairly recent import from Africa, did we have time to develop hibernation, and then abandon it?

This is all speculation on my part. If any scientists are reading this, feel free to jump in and set us straight!

I don't think humans -or primates in general - are set up to hibernate. It's a very specialized and prolonged physiological state, and only some mammals can do it. It's been a long time since I studied this material (way back in some college course on environmental adaptations), but we evolved in Africa, where food, etc. is available year-round and there's pretty much no point to hibernation.

Doesn't mean we don't get sleepier in the winter, but that's different.

Edit: I was curious where mammals in general first evolved - looks like it was in the north.
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/s ... e-mammals/

Quote:

Based on the known fossil record, scientists believed that the ancestors of mammals alive today emerged in the north, and then migrated south, all the way to Antarctica and Australia, as land bridges episodically developed between the continents.

And it looks like a couple of primates (all lemurs in Madagascar) do hibernate - though a little differently than animals in cold climates. Apparently, they live in a climate where their usual food and water sources are in short supply for several months. http://today.duke.edu/2013/05/hibernation

Humans have never hibernated, as far as anyone knows. And we've only lived at latitude for tens of thousands of years*, which is not long enough to develop any serious adaptations to it. Some populations do seem to have a few less-than-serious adaptations to the seasons, though. SAD and manic depression are both over-represented in northern ethnic groups, for example, and both are speculated to be either incomplete adaptations to daylength fluctuation or cases where an emerging adaptation goes wrong due to (e.g.) poor interaction with another trait or too much of a good thing.

Whether any of that has any relevance to fall-onset insomnia is another question. But given that night eventually gets to be something like 16 hours long at thoroughly-inhabited latitudes, maybe people start to shift to a "two sleeps" pattern as winter approaches?

*Though it's entirely possible that the first H. sapiens to settle the north could have picked up some adaptive genes from Neanderthals, who'd been living there for hundreds of thousands of years.

I wonder how my summer S.A.D. works in that theory? Days too long!!! Far too hot!! Can't stand it!!!

Dave LF wrote:

And we've only lived at latitude for tens of thousands of years*, which is not long enough to develop any serious adaptations to it.

Or probably any reason to (at least in reference to hibernation). Tool use and/or moving seasonally seem like better options, if possible. Hibernation involves a big trade-off - you're essentially vulnerable and had better have an excellent hiding place while you do it. Plus, you lose energy stores/weight during hibernation. And you're giving up months of activity, which for humans also includes things like acquiring and retaining power/status, and reproduction (assuming that wasn't seasonal for our distant ancestors).


Maria, I don't know, but I feel the same way about hot summers. Especially the muggy ones. Fall is such a relief. And I love cool, or even cold temps for sleeping - provided I have a warm comforter, of course.

Oh, goodness. I was joking! I don't have enough extra brain power to give serious thought to any damn thing these days!

(But the background info is interesting, of course. Thanks.)

What, you thought people here won't use your post as an excuse for geeking out?
Sometimes I think I'd be on board with hibernation. But nah, life is short enough already.

I should've expected it, but I wasn't being the least bit serious, really. I was thinking hibernation in a non-literal way.



Literalists!

*snerk* I once wrote a novel that involved a group of mooses. It wasn't a major plot point, but they let slip to their kids that mooses are a hibernating species, just to get five or six months of peace and quiet. They weren't even the main characters, they sort of sat on the sidelines and observed my great-grandmother making a mess of things.

Hadn't thought of that book in years, but all this talk of hibernation made me think of it out of the blue...

Gotta love a post that begins with "I once wrote a novel."

It would be even more impressive if I started it with "I once wrote a best-selling novel that is about to be made into a movie starring Nathan Fillion as Samuel and Frelga as Eleanor".

The other day, I read that supplementing with Magnesium can help with sleep. I'm gonna give that a try...

I've been in autumn-onset insomnia mode for the last couple weeks, but last night some dam must have broken because I essentially passed out at 7:30 and slept through to morning. And now I feel great! You don't fully realize how much sleeplessness has eaten away at you until you finally get some rest and can see the difference. I'm lucky last night was one where I could afford to go to bed early, though I'm sure knowing it was was a factor in why it happened.

ETA: Now that I have a Fitbit, I can add a little more data to this discussion. In addition to having a much larger number of measurable "awake/restless" periods during the night the past few weeks, my heart rate hasn't been falling as low during sleep as it did during the summer.

In a weird little coincidence, after bumping this thread this morning, I came across an article arguing that human responses to seasonal light levels are probably inherited from Neanderthals, who'd been living at high latitude for millions of years when modern humans first encountered them:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/world ... djLM4GcRK/
I speculated about that very thing in this thread 2 years ago...

I really have to credit this thread with cluing me in to the fact that this happens every year at the start of October