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Sleep ' hygiene' and 'black time.'

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Imperfect27 Wed 04-Oct-17 07:13:16

I had a discussion with a consultant psychiatrist about 'sleep hygiene' (trying to support son who has hyper-somnia at present) and he said that in African cultures, they tend not to be bound by the clock as we are in Western European culture. Therefore things can happen on a 'When they need to happen' basis and this is true for some appointments, church services and the like and daily routines. Whilst we can fixate on a clock- regulated '3 meals a day' routine, this idea of 'black time' as it is known, means people are liberated from a restrictive / narrow way of ordering life.

I see the value of it in helping me not to fret if DS1 sleeps from, say 3 a.m. - 2 p.m. and misses breakfast and lunch at regular times, but also think we are too culturally bound by the clock for our work and our play in this country for this theory to hold over time.

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vampirequeen Thu 05-Oct-17 09:36:32

Generally speaking I need a lot of sleep but not so that it affects my day to day life. However every so often I suffer from an acute attack of hypersomnia. These attacks come out of the blue with about an hour warning. Warning signs are tingling lips, slowing down etc. I call it 'shut down' because that's what it feels like. I then sleep for 22+ hours a day for the next two or three days. DH makes sure I drink every few hours though tbh I don't remember him doing it most of the time. I hate needing so much sleep and resent losing days of my life to shut downs.

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GracesGranMK2 Thu 05-Oct-17 15:30:05

Living by the clock was very much a Victorian change to our society and was part of industrialisation. It wasn't like that before so could well not be like that again. Hopefully, as we move into a new phase, what we will measure is necessary tasks not the time we appear to be doing them.

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