ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jessa Gamble - Writer
Jessa Gamble writes about sleep and time, showing how our internal body clock struggles against our always-on global culture.

Why you should listen

Jessa Gamble is an award-winning writer from Oxford, who lives in the Canadian Subarctic. Now that humanity has spread right to the Earth's poles and adopted a 24-hour business day, Gamble argues that our internal clocks struggle against our urban schedules. Her work documents the rituals surrounding daily rhythms, which along with local languages and beliefs are losing their rich global diversity and succumbing to a kind of circadian imperialism.

A dynamic new voice in popular science, Gamble was awarded a 2007 Science in Society journalism award from the Canadian Science Writers Association for her first-person account of daily life at the Eureka High Arctic Weather Station. She is the author of Siesta and The Midnight Sun: How We Measure and Experience Time.

More profile about the speaker
Jessa Gamble | Speaker | TED.com
TEDGlobal 2010

Jessa Gamble: Our natural sleep cycle is nothing like what we do now

Jessa Gamble: Nosso ciclo natural de sono

Filmed:
3,071,823 views

No mundo de hoje, ao equilibrar escola, trabalho, filhos e mais, a maioria de nós pode somente sonhar com as oito horas de sono recomendadas. Examinando a ciência por trás do nosso relógio interno, Jessa Gamble revela o surpreendente e essencial programa de descanço que deveríamos observar.
- Writer
Jessa Gamble writes about sleep and time, showing how our internal body clock struggles against our always-on global culture. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:16
Let's start with day and night.
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Vamos começar com o dia e noite.
00:18
Life evolved under conditions
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A vida se desenvolveu sob condições
00:20
of light and darkness,
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de luz e escuridão,
00:22
light and then darkness.
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luz e escuridão.
00:24
And so plants and animals
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Então plantas e animais
00:26
developed their own internal clocks
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desenvolveram seus própios relógios internos
00:28
so that they would be ready for these changes in light.
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para que estivessem prontos para estas mudanças de luminosidade.
00:30
These are chemical clocks,
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Estes são relógios químicos,
00:32
and they're found in every known being that has two or more cells
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e são encontrados em todos os seres conhecidos que têm duas ou mais células
00:35
and in some that only have one cell.
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e em alguns com apenas uma célula.
00:38
I'll give you an example --
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Te darei um exemplo.
00:40
if you take a horseshoe crab off the beach,
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Se você pegar um caranguejo-ferradura na praia,
00:42
and you fly it all the way across the continent,
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e levá-lo para o outro lado do continente,
00:44
and you drop it into a sloped cage,
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e soltá-lo em uma gaiola inclinada,
00:47
it will scramble up the floor of the cage
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ele irá subir a inclinação da gaiola
00:49
as the tide is rising
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enquanto a maré sobe
00:51
on its home shores,
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nas sua praia de origem,
00:53
and it'll skitter down again right as the water is receding
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e ele vai deslizar de novo assim que a água estiver recuando,
00:55
thousands of miles away.
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a milhares de quilômetros de distância.
00:58
It'll do this for weeks,
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Ele fará isso por semanas,
01:00
until it kind of gradually loses the plot.
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até gradualmente perder a vontade.
01:03
And it's incredible to watch,
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E é incrível assistir,
01:05
but there's nothing psychic or paranormal going on;
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mas não há nada psíquico ou paranormal acontecendo;
01:07
it's simply that these crabs have internal cycles
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é que simplesmente estes caranguejos têm ciclos internos
01:10
that correspond, usually, with what's going on around it.
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que correspondem, normalmente, com o que está acontecendo em volta dele.
01:15
So, we have this ability as well.
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Então, temos essa habilidade também.
01:17
And in humans, we call it the "body clock."
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E nos humanos, chamamos isto de relógio biológico
01:20
You can see this most clearly when you take away someone's watch
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Você pode ver isso mais claramente quando tira o relógio de uma pessoa
01:23
and you shut them into a bunker, deep underground,
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e você a tranca numa casamata, subterrânea,
01:26
for a couple of months. (Laughter)
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por dois meses.
01:28
People actually volunteer for this,
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Alguns até são voluntários para isso
01:30
and they usually come out
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e eles saem na verdade
01:32
kind of raving about their productive time in the hole.
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impressionados com a sua produtividade no buraco.
01:34
So, no matter how atypical these subjects would have to be,
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Então, não importa o quão atípico estes sujeitos tem que ser,
01:37
they all show the same thing.
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todos eles mostram a mesma coisa.
01:39
They get up just a little bit later every day -- say 15 minutes or so --
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Eles acordam um pouco mais tarde todos os dias - por volta de15 minutos -
01:42
and they kind of drift all the way around the clock like this
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e ficam flutuando em volta do relógio assim
01:45
over the course of the weeks.
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durante três semanas.
01:47
And so, in this way we know that they are working on their own internal clocks,
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Portanto, dessa forma, sabemos que estão trabalhando através de seus próprios relógios biológicos,
01:50
rather than somehow sensing the day outside.
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e não ao sentir o dia lá fora.
01:54
So fine, we have a body clock,
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Certo, então temos um relógio biológico,
01:56
and it turns out that it's incredibly important in our lives.
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e por acaso, ele é incrivelmente importante nas nossas vidas.
01:59
It's a huge driver for culture
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É uma enorme determinante cultural,
02:01
and I think that it's the most underrated force on our behavior.
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e acredito ser a força mais subestimada de nosso comportamento.
02:07
We evolved as a species near the equator,
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Nós evoluímos como espécie perto do equador,
02:09
and so we're very well-equipped
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e estamos bem equipados
02:11
to deal with 12 hours of daylight
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para lidarmos com 12 horas de luz
02:13
and 12 hours of darkness.
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e 12 horas de escuridão.
02:15
But of course, we've spread to every corner of the globe
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Mas, claro, nós nos espalhamos por todos os cantos do globo,
02:17
and in Arctic Canada, where I live,
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e no Ártico Canadense, onde eu moro,
02:19
we have perpetual daylight in summer
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temos luz perpétua no verão
02:21
and 24 hours of darkness in winter.
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e 24 horas de escuridão no inverno.
02:24
So the culture, the northern aboriginal culture,
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Assim a cultura, a cultura indígena do norte,
02:27
traditionally has been highly seasonal.
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tradicionalmente tem sido altamente sazonal.
02:29
In winter, there's a lot of sleeping going on;
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No inverno, se dorme muito.
02:32
you enjoy your family life inside.
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Você desfruta da sua família em casa.
02:34
And in summer, it's almost manic hunting
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E no verão, é quase uma caça louca
02:37
and working activity very long hours,
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e atividade por horas muito longas,
02:39
very active.
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muita atividade.
02:42
So, what would our natural rhythm look like?
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Então, como seria o nosso ritmo natural?
02:44
What would our sleeping patterns be
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Quais seriam nossos padrões de sono
02:47
in the sort of ideal sense?
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no sentido ideal?
02:50
Well, it turns out
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Bem, acontece
02:52
that when people are living
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que, quando as pessoas vivem
02:54
without any sort of artificial light at all,
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sem qualquer tipo de luz artificial,
02:56
they sleep twice every night.
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elas dormem duas vezes por noite.
02:58
They go to bed around 8:00 p.m.
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Elas vão dormir às 20:00 horas.
03:00
until midnight
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até meia noite
03:02
and then again, they sleep
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e voltam a dormir
03:04
from about 2:00 a.m. until sunrise.
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das 2:00 até o amanhecer
03:07
And in-between, they have a couple of hours
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E no meio tempo, têm duas horas
03:09
of sort of meditative quiet in bed.
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de um silêncio meditativo na cama.
03:12
And during this time,
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E durante esse tempo,
03:14
there's a surge of prolactin,
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há um aumento da prolactina,
03:16
the likes of which a modern day never sees.
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coisa que não se vivencia em um dia moderno.
03:19
The people in these studies
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As pessoas nesses estudos
03:21
report feeling so awake during the daytime,
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dizem estarem tão acordadas durante o dia,
03:23
that they realize
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que percebem
03:25
they're experiencing true wakefulness
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que estão vivenciando um verdadeiro estado de vigília
03:27
for the first time in their lives.
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pela primeira vez em suas vidas.
03:29
So, cut to the modern day.
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Então, direto aos dias de hoje.
03:31
We're living in a culture of jet lag,
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Estamos vivendo uma cultura de jet lag,
03:33
global travel,
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viagens globais,
03:35
24-hour business,
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negócios 24 horas
03:38
shift work.
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trabalho em turnos.
03:41
And you know, our modern ways
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E você sabe, nosso jeito moderno
03:43
of doing things
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de fazer as coisas
03:45
have their advantages,
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tem suas vantagens,
03:47
but I believe we should understand the costs.
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mas eu acredito que devemos entender os custos.
03:50
Thank you.
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Obrigada.
03:52
(Applause)
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(aplausos)
Translated by Belucio Haibara
Reviewed by Luiz Mello

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jessa Gamble - Writer
Jessa Gamble writes about sleep and time, showing how our internal body clock struggles against our always-on global culture.

Why you should listen

Jessa Gamble is an award-winning writer from Oxford, who lives in the Canadian Subarctic. Now that humanity has spread right to the Earth's poles and adopted a 24-hour business day, Gamble argues that our internal clocks struggle against our urban schedules. Her work documents the rituals surrounding daily rhythms, which along with local languages and beliefs are losing their rich global diversity and succumbing to a kind of circadian imperialism.

A dynamic new voice in popular science, Gamble was awarded a 2007 Science in Society journalism award from the Canadian Science Writers Association for her first-person account of daily life at the Eureka High Arctic Weather Station. She is the author of Siesta and The Midnight Sun: How We Measure and Experience Time.

More profile about the speaker
Jessa Gamble | Speaker | TED.com