Stone Age mattresses, alcohol and pillow favourites - five sleep episodes
23.8.2024
Translation: machine translated
Did you know that homo sapiens burnt their mattresses? Or did you realise that you don't sleep any better after a glass of wine in the evening? After reading my article, you will know this and three other sleep facts.
The average person spends just under eight hours a day sleeping. Mostly in bed. With an average life expectancy of 80 years, that's around 24 years. Random fact: Horses get by on just two hours of sleep a day. So there's no question that sleep plays an important role for us humans - and our customers are buying more and more products designed to promote good sleep.
If you're not in the mood to buy, you can read five little sleep stories here instead.
The Stone Age man slept on a mattress
A few years ago, researchers in South Africa found the remains of a sleeping camp from the Stone Age. This early form of mattress is 77,000 years old and is early evidence that mankind has long appreciated the value of a comfortable bed.
The special thing about the find in South Africa is that Homo sapiens not only moulded twigs, leaves and grasses into a mattress. It also incorporated shredded leaves from a certain laurel tree. These released chemicals that repelled insects. If my colleague Lorenz Keller had known this, he wouldn't have had to use a special vacuum cleaner to get rid of the mites in his modern mattress.
The Stone Age people also went to the trouble of making a proper mattress because they had got into the habit of always sleeping in the same bed. Around 75,000 years ago, this was one of the evolutionary steps by which humans emancipated themselves from their fellow mammals. Some monkey species also build nests in trees. However, they build them again and again (and therefore do not have to worry about bedbugs). Anthropologists have also discovered that the people of that time simply burnt their mattresses at some point - the most effective way to dispose of a sleeping surface infested with bugs.
A little tip at this point: Don't do this with today's mattresses. They contain polyurethane foams, springs and all kinds of plastics that need to be properly recycled.
Clear winner in the pillow format
Mr and Mrs Swiss prefer to sleep on a pillow measuring 50 x 70 centimetres. This is shown by the analyses of the colleague who keeps an eye on sales figures. Well over half of all the pillows we sell are in this format. This is probably also due to the fact that 50 x 70 centimetres is the "international standard size" for pillows, which is available in almost every country in the world.
Pillows measuring 40 x 60 centimetres are also popular. And in German-speaking Switzerland, the square pillow with sides measuring 65 centimetres. In Germany, people apparently also like to rest their heads on a square pillow. Here, however, the 80 x 80 centimetre pillow is the "standard pillow". Bed linen sets almost always include a cover in this size. In Switzerland, this varies from canton to canton. Well, not quite. But bed linen sets in this country do in fact contain pillows of different sizes - little sign of standardisation.
The brain's rubbish disposal system works during sleep
While you sleep, the brain's glymphatic system works hard to remove waste products. Scientists have already found clear evidence that this cleansing could help prevent diseases such as Alzheimer's. In experiments, it was found that the activity of the waste removal system functions up to 95 per cent less well when we are awake.
Those who sleep too little or too poorly therefore promote Messie-like conditions in their brain. Sayings such as "I can sleep when I'm dead" are therefore not evidence of a potent manager, but rather of someone who does not sufficiently recognise the importance of sleep. Or of a horse that - see above - gets by on just two hours of sleep.
Even students who try to cram the material the night before an exam are not doing themselves any favours. Without deep sleep, the brain can hardly store new information in long-term memory.
Guidebooks
Sleep - The elixir of life
German, Prof Dr med Clemens Heiser, Prof. Dr Ulrich Sommer, 2024
Myth of the "nightcap"
If you have trouble falling asleep because your mind is racing, you might treat yourself to a glass of [insert alcoholic drink] in the evening. This is culturally widely accepted in our society and even has its own term as a "nightcap". (Although there are also non-alcoholic variants.) Alcohol is actually a sedative and generally has a relaxing effect. This can make it easier to fall asleep and you may even feel like you're sleeping better.
However, this is a misconception: studies have shown that after a relatively good first half of the night, the second half is really rough - in a negative way.
In a normal night, we go through four different sleep phases: Falling asleep phase, light sleep, deep sleep and REM sleep with dream phase, some of which are repeated. If you go to bed drunk, you skip the first two phases and sleep like a rock straight away. This deep sleep phase lasts longer for drunks. This is at the expense of the REM phases, which are then shorter and, above all, more restless. The result: you wake up more often, sweat more and dream less relaxed and restful dreams. The body is busy processing the alcohol. Many people wake up because they have to go to the toilet. It is not uncommon for a diversion to the kitchen to fight the "alcohol burn" with a glass of water.
Snoring is a problem, not an advantage
Men (especially) need to be very strong now! Because no, snoring is not an evolutionary advantage. If you disturb your partner's sleep, for example, you can't sugarcoat it. Snoring is - at least according to all previous findings - a sign of health problems. Various factors are responsible for night-time noise: narrow airways, enlarged tonsils, deviated nasal septum, cigarette and alcohol consumption or obesity. This can block the airflow in the upper airways during sleep and the tissue begins to vibrate. An entire industry is trying to reduce the associated noise with gadgets, remedies and methods. Our colleague Patrick Vogt has tried out a few and has already talked a lot about them here in the magazine.
Back to the theory that snoring might have some benefit after all. There are two theories on this, although they are highly speculative. Firstly, the snoring member of a social group could indicate a health problem, which would make the others more supportive. Secondly, one might wonder whether a group snoring away in the wild might have been less likely to be attacked by predators in the past, as a sleep researcher from Erlangen once put it. Not so much because the sabre-toothed tigers and co. feared the snoring itself, but rather because it made the presence of humans and therefore a potential danger to them more recognisable.
Paul Niquette's theory goes one step further. He published an article in 1996 and explained that snoring even attracted wild animals. Because it is mainly older men who snore, they have become prime prey. The younger members of the group would have had a better chance of survival as a result. However, no one in the scientific community has yet seriously investigated the question in depth. So it remains more of an intellectual gimmick that the internet may keep forever on a website with a 90s design.
No matter why you're interested in good sleep - you're not alone. Our colleague Daniel Borchers has analysed the figures from the shop and found that sales of sleep therapy devices have skyrocketed, especially in the last three years. You can find the article here:
Header image: Shutterstock
Martin Jungfer
Head of Content
Martin.Jungfer@digitecgalaxus.chJournalist since 1997. Stopovers in Franconia (or the Franken region), Lake Constance, Obwalden, Nidwalden and Zurich. Father since 2014. Expert in editorial organisation and motivation. Focus on sustainability, home office tools, beautiful things for the home, creative toys and sports equipment.