Tag Archives: research

When I can’t sleep

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Saguaro across the street on the nature’s preserve.

If I wake up in the middle of the night, I often turn on a podcast or a radio station and find myself falling back to sleep quickly.

Last night I listened to someone talking about circadian rhythms and something they called “midnight brain.” I fell asleep so of course I only remember a little bit. They were talking about how more crimes happen late at night.

I read an article today on Healthline called Why the Human Mind Is ‘Not Designed’ to Stay Awake Past Midnight.

Here’s an excerpt:

Most people have been tempted to stay up late at some point in their lives. Others may have to work late, often past midnight, due to the nature of their job.

But a new research review, recently published in the journal Frontiers in Network Psychology, suggests that staying awake past midnight may have implications that stem beyond needing an extra cup of coffee the next day. In fact, the study authors suggest that the mind simply isn’t “designed” to be awake into the wee hours of the night.

While prior studies have explored the effects of sleep deprivation on cognition, the new research focuses more specifically on what happens to the human brain when it’s awake past midnight.

The resulting “Mind After Midnight” hypothesis states that the mind isn’t set up to operate as it does in the daytime, and as a result, we’re more likely to make impulsive and even “risky” decisions.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-the-human-mind-is-not-designed-to-stay-awake-past-midnight

The authors of the study said these four things can happen to those staying up past midnight:

  • suicide and self-harm
  • engaging in violent behaviors
  • use of alcohol and illicit substances
  • higher food intake

The article also mentioned that some people are night owls and are more creative at night. They don’t experience any of the downsides most people do.

My husband has said for years that nothing good happens late at night. I stayed up late as a teenager. Friends and I would try to stay up until the birds sang. It was a badge of honor.

But the older I get, the earlier I fall asleep. In fact, I go to bed so early it causes me to wake up in the middle of the night!

What are your thoughts about circadian rhythms and midnight brain? Are you an early to bed early to rise? Or are you a night owl?

Something to scratch your head about…

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Cat watching a bunny out the window
Free from boarding while we were in Utah, Olive is enjoying the wildlife view out the window.
FYI, this photo has nothing to do with the story below.

I read an article today called Anthropologists Call for an End to Classifying Human Remains by Gender and Ancestry by Jonathan Turley. Here’s a link to Turley’s extensive bio.

Here’s the first paragraph of the article. If this interests you, please click the link above to read the entire story.

There is an interesting controversy brewing in anthropology departments where professors have called for researchers to stop identifying ancient human remains by biological gender because they cannot gauge how a person identified at that the time. Other scholars are calling for researchers to stop identifying race as a practice because it fuels white supremacy.  One of the academics objecting to this effort to stop gender identifications, San Jose State archaeology Professor Elizabeth Weiss, is currently  suing her school. Weiss maintains that she was barred from access to the human remains collection due to her opposition to the repatriation of human remains. The school objected that she posted a picture holding a skull from the collection on social media, expressing how she was “so happy to be back with some old friends.”

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/07/18/anthropologists-call-for-an-end-of-classifying-human-remains-by-gender-and-ancestry/

Here’s another quote from the article:

Graduate students like Emma Palladino have objected  that “the archaeologists who find your bones one day will assign you the same gender as you had at birth, so regardless of whether you transition, you can’t escape your assigned sex.”

What are your thoughts about no longer identifying remains as male or female? Do you think that it will impede or help scientific study? Why?