TEDGlobal 2010
Jessa Gamble: Our natural sleep cycle is nothing like what we do now
Jessa Gamble: El cicle natural del son
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En el món actual, amb l'escola, la feina, els nens i altres coses, la majoria de nosaltres l'únic que vol són les vuit hores de son recomanades. Estudiant la ciència subjacent al rellotge intern del nostre cos, Jessa Gamble revel·la el programa de descans, important i sorprenent alhora, que hauríem de seguir.
Jessa Gamble - Writer
Jessa Gamble writes about sleep and time, showing how our internal body clock struggles against our always-on global culture. Full bio
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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Comencem amb el día i la nit.
00:18
Life evolved under conditions
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La vida va evolucionar en condicions
00:20
of light and darkness,
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de llum i foscor,
00:22
light and then darkness.
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llum i després foscor.
00:24
And so plants and animals
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Després les plantes i els animals
00:26
developed their own internal clocks
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van desenvolupar rellotges interns
00:28
so that they would be ready for these changes in light.
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per ajustar-se a aquests canvis d'il·luminació.
00:30
These are chemical clocks,
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Són rellotges químics
00:32
and they're found in every known being that has two or more cells
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i són presents en tots els éssers coneguts de dues o més cèl·lules
00:35
and in some that only have one cell.
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i en alguns éssers unicel·lulars.
00:38
I'll give you an example --
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Us posaré un exemple.
00:40
if you take a horseshoe crab off the beach,
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Si traiem un cranc de la platja,
00:42
and you fly it all the way across the continent,
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el duem a l'altre extrem del continent,
00:44
and you drop it into a sloped cage,
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i el posem dins una gàbia amb pendent,
00:47
it will scramble up the floor of the cage
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s'enfilarà a la part alta (del fons) de la gàbia
00:49
as the tide is rising
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quan pugi la marea
00:51
on its home shores,
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a les costes del lloc del qual prové
00:53
and it'll skitter down again right as the water is receding
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i baixarà novament quan la marea baixi
00:55
thousands of miles away.
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a milers de quilòmetres de distància.
00:58
It'll do this for weeks,
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Ho farà durant setmanes,
01:00
until it kind of gradually loses the plot.
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fins que, a poc a poc, perdi el ritme.
01:03
And it's incredible to watch,
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És increïble de veure
01:05
but there's nothing psychic or paranormal going on;
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però no succeeix res psíquic o paranormal,
01:07
it's simply that these crabs have internal cycles
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simplement aquests crancs tenen cicles iterns
01:10
that correspond, usually, with what's going on around it.
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que coincideixen, generalment, amb allò que passa al seu voltant.
01:15
So, we have this ability as well.
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Nosaltres també tenim aquesta capacitat.
01:17
And in humans, we call it the "body clock."
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En el cas dels humans se'n diu rellotge corporal.
01:20
You can see this most clearly when you take away someone's watch
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Es pot veure més clarament si li traiem a algú el rellotge
01:23
and you shut them into a bunker, deep underground,
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i el tanquem en un búnquer sota terra
01:26
for a couple of months. (Laughter)
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durant un parell de mesos.
01:28
People actually volunteer for this,
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Les persones s'ofereixen voluntàries
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and they usually come out
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i generalment en surten
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kind of raving about their productive time in the hole.
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desvariant sobre el temps útil al forat.
01:34
So, no matter how atypical these subjects would have to be,
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Així, sense importar la raresa dels individus,
01:37
they all show the same thing.
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tots mostren el mateix.
01:39
They get up just a little bit later every day -- say 15 minutes or so --
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Es lleven una mica més tard cada dia, al voltant de 15 minuts,
01:42
and they kind of drift all the way around the clock like this
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i desvien el seu cicle biològic
01:45
over the course of the weeks.
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durant setmanes
01:47
And so, in this way we know that they are working on their own internal clocks,
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D'aquesta manera, sabem que es guien pels seus rellotges interns,
01:50
rather than somehow sensing the day outside.
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en lloc d'experimentar el dia que fa afora.
01:54
So fine, we have a body clock,
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Així, doncs, tenim un rellotge corporal
01:56
and it turns out that it's incredibly important in our lives.
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i resulta que es summament important a les nostres vides.
01:59
It's a huge driver for culture
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És un gran motor de la cultura,
02:01
and I think that it's the most underrated force on our behavior.
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i penso que és la força més subestimada del comportament.
02:07
We evolved as a species near the equator,
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Vam evolucionar com a espècie a prop de l'equador,
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and so we're very well-equipped
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i és per això que estem ben equipats
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to deal with 12 hours of daylight
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per fer front a 12 hores de llum
02:13
and 12 hours of darkness.
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i 12 de foscor.
02:15
But of course, we've spread to every corner of the globe
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Però, és clar, ens hem escampat per tot el planeta
02:17
and in Arctic Canada, where I live,
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i a l'Àrtic canadenc, on visc jo,
02:19
we have perpetual daylight in summer
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tenim llum perpètua a l'estiu
02:21
and 24 hours of darkness in winter.
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i 24 hores de foscor a l'hivern.
02:24
So the culture, the northern aboriginal culture,
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Així, la cultura aborigen del nord
02:27
traditionally has been highly seasonal.
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tradicionalment ha estat molt estacional.
02:29
In winter, there's a lot of sleeping going on;
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A l'hivern dormen molt.
02:32
you enjoy your family life inside.
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Gaudeixen, a casa, de la vida familiar.
02:34
And in summer, it's almost manic hunting
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I a l'estiu hi ha una activitat frenètica
02:37
and working activity very long hours,
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i feina durant moltes hores,
02:39
very active.
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frenètic.
02:42
So, what would our natural rhythm look like?
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Com seria el nostre ritme natural?
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What would our sleeping patterns be
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Quins serien els patrons del son
02:47
in the sort of ideal sense?
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en un sentit ideal?
02:50
Well, it turns out
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Doncs resulta que
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that when people are living
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quan les persones viuen
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without any sort of artificial light at all,
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sense llum artificial de cap mena
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they sleep twice every night.
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dormen el doble a la nit.
02:58
They go to bed around 8:00 p.m.
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Se'n van a dormir pel volts de les 8 de la nit
03:00
until midnight
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fins a mitjanit
03:02
and then again, they sleep
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i després dormen una altra vegada
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from about 2:00 a.m. until sunrise.
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des de les 2 fins a punta de dia.
03:07
And in-between, they have a couple of hours
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I, entre mig, tenen un parell d'hores
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of sort of meditative quiet in bed.
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de tranquil·la meditació al llit.
03:12
And during this time,
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I durant aquest temps
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there's a surge of prolactin,
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es dóna un augment de la prolactina,
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the likes of which a modern day never sees.
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cosa que no veiem avui dia.
03:19
The people in these studies
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La gent d'aquests estudis
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report feeling so awake during the daytime,
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diu que es sent tan desperta durant el dia
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that they realize
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que s'adona
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they're experiencing true wakefulness
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que han viscut una vigília verdadera
03:27
for the first time in their lives.
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per primer cop a la vida.
03:29
So, cut to the modern day.
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Tornem a l'actualitat.
03:31
We're living in a culture of jet lag,
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Vivim la cultura del jet lag,
03:33
global travel,
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dels viatges pel món,
03:35
24-hour business,
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dels negocis de 24 hores,
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shift work.
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de les feien a torns.
03:41
And you know, our modern ways
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La forma moderna
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of doing things
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de fer les coses
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have their advantages,
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té avantatges
03:47
but I believe we should understand the costs.
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però penso que hauríem d'entendre'n el preu.
03:50
Thank you.
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Gràcies.
03:52
(Applause)
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(Aplaudiments)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jessa Gamble - WriterJessa 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.
Jessa Gamble | Speaker | TED.com