Sleep timing and duration in indigenous villages with and without electric lighting on Tanna Island, Vanuatu.

ABSTRACT: It has been hypothesized that sleep in the industrialized world is in chronic deficit, due in part to evening light exposure, which delays sleep onset and truncates sleep depending on morning work or school schedules. If so, societies without electricity may sleep longer. However, recent studies of hunter-gatherers and pastoralists living traditional lifestyles without electricity report short sleep compared to industrialized population norms. To further explore the impact of lifestyles and electrification on sleep, we measured sleep by actigraphy in indigenous Melanesians on Tanna Island, Vanuatu, who live traditional subsistence horticultural lifestyles, in villages either with or without access to electricity. Sleep duration was long and efficiency low in both groups, compared to averag

SUBMITTER: Smit AN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6872597 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature