2021-22
Ming Fei Li is a recipient of the NSERC fellowship!
NOVEMBER 18, 2022 | Join us as we congratulate PhD Candidate Ming Fei Li for being awarded the prestigious NSERC fellowship!
See also: Twitter Announcement @_TheSHEL_
Evolution Didn’t Wire Us for Eight Hours of Sleep
MAY 1, 2022 | Research has shown that people in nonindustrial societies—the closest thing to the kind of setting our species evolved in—average less than seven hours a night, says David Samson, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. That’s a surprising number when you consider our closest animal relatives. Humans sleep less than any ape, monkey, or lemur that scientists have studied.
Full article: The Atlantic
2020-21
COVID-19 nightmares: U of T researchers on how ‘coronaworries’ affect your sleep
OCTOBER 25, 2020 | From Italy to the United States, researchers all over the world sought to understand the effects of COVID-19 on dreams, including a team at the University of Toronto. Graduate students Leela McKinnon, Erica Kilius, and Noor Abbas at UTM, alongside anthropologist David Samson, studied COVID-19 dreams among U of T’s student population from June to September.
Full article: The Varsity
Anxiety about COVID-19 is following us into our dreams, say researchers
OCTOBER 10, 2020 | New research from the University of Toronto suggests the uncertainty and anxiety of the COVID-19 era is showing up in our dream lives.
Full article: CBC News
Strange dreams during COVID-19? You're not alone, U of T researchers say
SEPTEMBER 30, 2020 | Researchers from the University of Toronto are attempting to peer into our unconscious minds to better understand the relationship between dreams and waking life – particularly during a stressful global event like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Full article: UofT News
'Great apes' nests improved their cognition — and shaped human dwellings'
AUGUST 29, 2020 | David Samson is an anthropologist at the University of Toronto. Samson spoke to Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke about the nests great apes make, why these are so significant in human evolutionary history — and how these face dangers now.
Full article: Times of India
Sleep struggles: pandemic could impact body’s fear response, cause poor sleep
APRIL 20, 2020 | “When fear becomes chronic, you have a mismatch scenario (regarding) your perception of fear, and that creates an inability to fall asleep. With COVID-19, the threat isn’t actually a lion or a rival group seeking to take your resources, it’s invisible. And humans simply aren’t very well-evolved to fight off invisible enemies."
Full article: CTV News
Social distancing shows us why the nuclear family doesn’t work
APRIL 15, 2020 | Humans evolved to live in groups usually no smaller than 15 to 25 adults and their offspring. But over the past century — and especially since the end of the Second World War — we've been dividing ourselves into smaller and smaller households, with the nuclear family prized as the family unit of choice. "And it simply doesn't work."
Full article: Toronto Star
How to keep COVID-19 stress from ruining your sleep
APRIL 05, 2020 | The strains of worry and upended routine during the COVID-19 crisis aren't exactly helping people sleep well at night. It turns out that disrupted sleep in times of crisis has deep roots.
Full article: CBC
Up All Night: Tips for resting easy in uncertain times
MARCH 23, 2020 | Tossing and turning at night? You’re not alone. U of T Mississauga anthropologist and sleep expert David Samson explains why we experience insomnia, how sleep helps boost physical and emotional health, and offers tips for a better night’s rest in uncertain times.
Full article: UTM News
2018-19
Why Am I So Tired All the Time?
NOVEMBER 01, 2018 | The typical sleep schedule for humans in WEIRD countries (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) is wildly different than it was throughout the rest of human history.
Full article: GQ Magazine
What I learned by living without artificial light
APRIL 25, 2018 | We spend a third of our lives either sleeping… or trying to get to sleep. But in the world of 24/7 living and artificial light, our sleep is increasingly under threat. Many of us don’t get the recommended seven to nine hours we need each night and struggle to get up in the mornings – especially on work days. But it isn’t only our quantity of sleep that’s affected.
Full article: BBC Future
How Human Sleep Differs From Other Primates, and What It Means for Our Health
MARCH 14, 2018 | An investigation of primate sleep patterns finds that humans are apparent outliers. We sleep shorter, yet often deeper, than our closest animal relatives.
Full article: Seeker
2016-17
Having trouble sleeping? Blame evolution, study says
AUGUST 03, 2017 | It turns out you can probably thank your ancient ancestors for that bad night’s rest. A new study led by University of Toronto professor David Samson has found that our sleeping patterns — including the sudden changes in them that we worry about — could be led by survival techniques meant to protect ourselves against nocturnal threats.
Full article: Toronto Star
Grandma's insomnia might be a product of evolution
JULY 14, 2017 | If your sleep is getting worse with age, evolution might be to blame. Humans' age-specific sleep patterns may have evolved to protect mixed-age groups from potential danger in the night. And in this scenario, the elderly members of these groups may have drawn the short straw—their restless sleep made them perfect for the night watch.
Full article: Popular Science
Living Another Day, Thanks to Grandparents Who Couldn’t Sleep
JULY 13, 2017 | You may not look forward to sleeping less as you get older. But maybe it wouldn’t seem as bad if you knew it once played an important role in human survival. A new study, published Tuesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that the way sleep patterns change with age may be an evolutionary adaptation that helped our ancestors survive the night.
Full article: The New York Times
Lark or night owl? Blame your ancestors
JULY 12, 2017 | Anthropologists monitored sleep in the Hadza people of Tanzania who still live a hunter-gatherer existence. "Out of some 200 hours for the entire study, for only 18 minutes were they actually all sleeping synchronously," said lead researcher Dr David Samson of the University of Toronto, Canada.
Full article: BBC News
Restless development: bad sleep may be evolutionary survival tool, study finds
JULY 12, 2017 | Poor sleep is often regarded as a modern affliction linked to our sedentary lifestyles, electric lighting and smartphones on the bedside table. However, new research suggests that fitful sleep could be an ancient survival mechanism designed to guard against nocturnal threats.
Full article: The Guardian
Revealed: Why we lose sleep as we grow older
JULY 12, 2017 | A good night's sleep becomes more elusive with age, but what older people label as insomnia may actually be an evolutionary survival trait that helped keep their ancestors alive.
Full article: Telegraph (UK)
Sleeping less in old age may be adaptation to survive in wild
JULY 12, 2017 | Many dangers stalk the bushlands of Tanzania while members of the Hadza people sleep, yet no one keeps watch. There is no need because it seems that natural variation in sleep means there’s rarely a moment when someone isn’t alert enough to raise the alarm.
Full article: New Scientist
Early birds, night owls and wakeful elderly people - why we sleep when we do
JULY 11, 2017 | For more than four years, Ms Yeomans has had a strict sleep regime of going to bed at 8.30pm for a 3.50am start at the track. According to new research, Ms Yeomans' natural affection for early mornings can be traced back to evolution.
Full article: The Sydney Morning Herald
Live-in grandparents helped human ancestors get a safer night's sleep
JULY 11, 2017 | A study of modern hunter-gatherers in Tanzania finds that, for people who live in groups, differences in sleep patterns commonly associated with age help ensure that at least one person is awake at all times.
Full article: Duke Today
Sleep Elusive? New Study Shows There’s a Reason for That
JULY 11, 2017 | It seems to be one of the great tragedies of human life. As we get older, the less sleep we need. It turns out there might be a reason for our aging sleeping problems that go beyond our traditional understanding.
Full article: UNLV News
Trouble Sleeping? Restless Nights Evolved From Ancestors Avoiding Dangers
JULY 11, 2017 | New research suggests that age-related sleep disorders are maybe not disorders at all but instead are legacies of our evolutionary past, when they were beneficial.
Full article: Seeker
People Who Live Without Screens Don't Sleep Any Better Than The Rest Of Us
FEBRUARY 27, 2017 | Sleep experts are quick to blame bright street lights, TVs and the ever-distracting smartphone as the reasons why nearly one-third of U.S. adults don’t clock enough sleep on a regular basis. But a new study published in the journal Human Biology this month suggests that even without distractions from artificial light sources and other modern technology, human sleep patterns can still be far from ideal.
Full article: Huffington Post
People far from urban lights, bright screens still skimp on sleep
FEBRUARY 16, 2017 | Screen time before bed can mess with your sleep. But people without TV and laptops skimp on sleep too, researchers say. A Duke University study of people living without electricity or artificial light in a remote farming village in Madagascar finds they get shorter, poorer sleep than people in the U.S. or Europe.
Full article: Duke Today
Snooze patterns vary across cultures, opening eyes to evolution of sleep
JANUARY 27, 2017 | Amount, timing of sleep is less important for health than sticking to routine.
Full article: Science News
Why humans need less sleep than any other primate
JANUARY 21, 2016 | Most of us feel like we need more sleep, but as a species we have actually evolved to sleep less than our ape and monkey relatives. Could that be the key to our success?
Full article: BBC Earth
2015 & prior
How climbing down from trees let humans finally get a good night’s sleep
DECEMBER 18, 2015 | Millions of years ago, when we were shorter and hairier and, well, let’s just say it, not too far removed from chimps, a night of uninterrupted sleep was impossible to come by.
Full article: The Washington Post
Down From the Trees, Humans Finally Got a Decent Night’s Sleep
DECEMBER 17, 2015 | Over the past few million years, the ancestors of modern humans became dramatically different from other primates. Our forebears began walking upright, and they lost much of their body hair; they gained precision-grip fingers and developed gigantic brains. But early humans also may have evolved a less obvious but equally important advantage: a peculiar sleep pattern.
Full article: The New York Times
Humans Sleep Less Than Closely-Related Mammals
DECEMBER 15, 2015 | Even if you’re managing to get eight hours of sleep every night, you’re still sleeping way less than gray mouse lemurs or African green monkeys. That’s according to a new study by Duke University researchers which found that humans tended to have much shorter and more efficient sleep cycles than other mammals.
Full article: Time
Learn the Secrets of Ape’s Sleeping Habits
APRIL 16, 2015 | Like many distinct differences between apes and other primates, sleeping behavior has attracted the attention of researchers hoping to understand how humans and apes have evolved to be so intelligent. We know, for example, that chimpanzees are remarkably selective about where they nest. Researchers based at Duke University and Indiana University watched orangutans and baboons sleeping in captivity in an attempt to learn more.
Full article: Smithsonian
Apes reveal secrets to good sleep
APRIL 15, 2015 | Watching an orangutan sleep is like watching a giant, orange baby slumbering sweetly. Watching a baboon sleep is more like watching a small bitter paranoid person desperately trying to get some shut eye. This begs an important question: why does an orangutan sleep so soundly, whereas its primate relative, the baboon, suffers a fretful night’s rest?
Full article: BBC Earth
Chimps Are Particular About Where They Rest
APRIL 21, 2014 | Chimpanzees select firm, resilient wood to make their daily beds in trees, according to a new study in PLOS One. The researchers found that wild chimps at the Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve in Uganda used Cynometra alexandri, or Ugandan ironwood, in 73.6 percent of their nests, even though it constituted only 9.6 percent of trees in the study area. Weaving a bed from high-quality wood allows the chimps to safely rest in a prone position.
Full article: The New York Times
Chimpanzees Make Beds That Offer Them Best Night's Sleep
APRIL 18, 2014 | Chimpanzees choose tree branches that give them the most firm and stable place to sleep, a new study says. Chimpanzees build their beds—called nests—in tree canopies using branches that they harvest from specific tree species. They spend about eight to nine hours a night on these platforms. But until the recent study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists didn't know how they selected the building materials.
Full article: National Geographic