A lot of people in the global North and the West like to problematize their sleep,” he says. But maybe insomnia, for example, is really hypervigilance — an evolutionary superpower. “Likely that was really adaptive when our ancestors were sleeping in the savannah.” It’s been two years since I worked with her, and Megan is now a healthy happy nine-year-old girl. She breathes through her nose and her mouth is always closed at rest. She may need braces in the future, but if she does, it will be a simple and easy process. She’ll grow into an adult with healthy facial and airway development, optimal jaw size, and a beautiful, wide smile and straight teeth. We feel a difference in temperature at night as we adjust to our surroundings. It is also common for people to sleep in cooler rooms. The idea is that damaged nerves may interpret the temperature change as pain or tingling, increasing the sense of numbness. Samson calls this discrepancy the human sleep paradox. “How is this possible, that we’re sleeping the least out of any primate?” he says. Sleep is known to be important for our memory, immune function, and other aspects of health. A predictive model of primate sleep based on factors such as body mass, brain size, and diet concluded that humans ought to sleep about nine and a half hours out of every 24, not seven. “Something weird is going on,” Samson says.

Now, I'm going through the process of trying out different CPAP machines and masks, as well as mandibular advancement devices. Despite the doctors warning that I could die from low O2 levels, I'm having a terrible time adjusting to CPAP. Hopefully, I'll be able to correct my issues with a dental device. If not, I'll have no choice but to use CPAP. If you have a herniated disc, pinched spinal nerve, or a degeneration of the disc, you may not be able to sleep on the floor. It is not entirely clear what scientific evidence supports this claim, but it is critical to consider the pros and cons of sleeping on the ground before making an informed decision. How Do You Choose The Best Sleeping Position And Why Does It Matter? Now that you are aware of these symptoms, you can look for them in yourself or your child. You can get started by doing the following: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. Chimps sleep about nine and a half hours out of every 24. Cotton-top tamarins sleep about 13. Three-striped night monkeys are technically nocturnal, though, really, they’re hardly ever awake—they sleep for 17 hours a day. Teeth and braces : If your mouth is open, your braces will take longer and your treatment will be much more challenging for your orthodontist. The spaces between your teeth will be more difficult to close and the stability of the alignment of your teeth will be compromised once your braces are removed. This means you are likely to experience orthodontic relapse and you may need braces again in the future. How much we sleep is a different question, of course, from how much we wish we slept. Samson and others asked Hadza study participants how they felt about their own sleep. Out of 37 people, 35 said they slept “just enough,” the team reported in 2017. The average amount they slept in that study was about 6.25 hours a night. But they awoke frequently, needing more than 9 hours in bed to get those 6.25 hours of shut-eye. On dry nights, the San hunter-gatherers of Namibia often sleep under the stars. They have no electric lights or new Netflix releases keeping them awake. Yet when they rise in the morning, they haven’t gotten any more hours of sleep than a typical Western city dweller who stayed up doomscrolling on their smartphone.

There could be many causes of sleep breathing issues: from craniofacial developmental deficiencies to excess weight and allergies. Every body is different. The Doctor goes over basic at-home diagnoses, then helps the reader navigate the confusing world of professional diagnosis, treatment and even insurance coverage. Humans may have unusual sleep patterns for a primate, but we’re far from the weirdest sleepers in the animal kingdom. Research by Samson and others in primates and nonindustrial human populations has revealed the various ways that human sleep is unusual. We spend fewer hours asleep than our nearest relatives, and more of our night in the phase of sleep known as rapid eye movement, or REM. The reasons for our strange sleep habits are still up for debate but can likely be found in the story of how we became human. Speech : When children have an open mouth, they are more likely to struggle with certain speech sounds. The most commonly associated speech problem is a lisp, or the inability to say “S” sounds correctly. Speech is affected because when you have an open mouth, you also have what we refer to as a “tongue thrust swallowing pattern.” This type of swallowing pattern causes the tongue to protrude, or push forward during speaking and swallowing.

Gandhi Yetish, a human evolutionary ecologist and anthropologist at UCLA, has also spent time with the Hadza, as well as the Tsimane in Bolivia and the San in Namibia. In a 2015 paper, he and other researchers assessed sleep across all three groups and found that it averaged between only 5.7 and 7.1 hours.

A lot of people in the global North and the West like to problematize their sleep,” he says. But maybe insomnia, for example, is really hypervigilance—an evolutionary superpower. “Likely that was really adaptive when our ancestors were sleeping in the savanna.” Our ancestors transitioned out of the trees to live on the ground, and at some point started sleeping there too. This meant giving up all the perks of arboreal sleep, including relative safety from predators such as lions.Most people don’t realize that mouth breathing is a complex health concern. As a myofunctional therapist, I hear stories like this all the time. It makes sense that the threat of predators may have led humans to sleep less than tree-living primates, says Isabella Capellini, an evolutionary ecologist at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. In a 2008 study, she and her colleagues found that mammals at greater risk of predation sleep less, on average. By contrast, a 2016 study of almost 500 people in Chicago found they spent nearly all of their time in bed actually asleep, and got at least as much total sleep as the Hadza. Yet almost 87 percent of respondents in a 2020 survey of US adults said that on at least one day per week, they didn’t feel rested.

Look for a section titled "Sleep Duration" or something similar. This is where you will record the number of hours you slept. Since it is an 8-hour sleep form, write the number "8" in this section. Samson calls this discrepancy the human sleep paradox. “How is this possible, that we’re sleeping the least out of any primate?” he says. Sleep is known to be important for our memory, immune function and other aspects of health. A predictive model of primate sleep based on factors such as body mass, brain size and diet concluded that humans ought to sleep about 9.5 hours out of every 24, not seven. “Something weird is going on,” Samson says. The scientific literature and public health information is obsessed with the amount of sleep we get. Some forms may include spaces to indicate the actual time you went to bed and woke up. Enter the corresponding times in these sections. For example, if you went to bed at 10 PM and woke up at 6 AM, write these times accordingly.Facial growth and development : It’s important to realize that growth is a very powerful force. A child with an open mouth will very likely grow into an adult with flatter facial features, less prominent cheekbones, a longer face, droopier eyes and lower facial muscle tone, a narrower palate, and even a smaller lower jaw in most cases. By closing the mouth and breathing through the nose, these negative growth patterns can be prevented.