Solar-based sleep patterns compared to modern norms

When I was younger I hated siestas because I had energy and everything was closed, you couldn't do anything in those hours. It felt like a waste. In fact I think that sports clubs, book clubs and similar things are not as important here as in other countries of Europe (at least from my perspective, no data) because people don't have time. After siesta, stores open and you have to do your chores, giving you no time to have a leisure activity (other than going to the bar and drink, that is).

And if you work keep in mind the shift is 8 hours, so how do you fit siesta in it? A way is to start working early and having lunch very late, working like 7-15. Some government offices and factories work this way. Some people like this schedule but waking up so early, specially during winter I think defeats the point of siesta, as you're probably damaging your body in the morning. Other like me have a split schedule with lunch in the middle, more similar to Europe but the problem is that you leave later. Because at some jobs the mandatory stop is 2 hours.

Now, schools have also different schedules to fit better into their parents schedules and there's been an infinite discussion about which one is better for children. The reality is that is a mess. If we could work less than 8 hours, it would be much better but 8 hours plus siesta is difficult to put up with.

> An unbroken eight hours of sleep did not always fit with the cycles of the sky above and sleep was therefore rhythmically polyphasic.

I tend to disagree. There is serious literature suggesting this, but to my knowledge no concrete evidence confirms it. In fact the industrial age did not arrive uniformly to all societies on Earth. We should have seen polyphasic sleep practice long ago in non-industrialized nations. Anyone aware of anything like this?

By contrast, my observation is that MOST of the world's population still works from about an hour after dawn until early afternoon, or sometimes until dusk, depending on their age, job, station in life and the general level of resources they have versus what they need. And they probably always did.

I could get inflammatory and say that functional members of society are being discriminated against in this way, or flip it around, stating that any disadvantage that requires you interacting with public services is systemically pushing you away from meaningful employment.

Researchers who lived in African tribes that are _really_ following the "old ways" found that tribespeople followed all kinds of sleep schedules. Somebody was up at almost _all_ times, including the middle of the night.

This makes total sense: you want at least somebody to be awake at all times to raise the alarm if a pride of lions happens to wander close by.

By doing the "split day" you just switch to another fixed pattern.

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