Don't know why this made the news, it was done on only 8 couples over only eight days, hardly statisticaly sound.

I liked the headline on the beeb website yesterday though that it' drains mens brains'!?!

Wow, that's pretty ridiculous. I've got a vagina and sleeping with another person, no matter who it is, disturbs my sleep. Ugh.

whoops I meant 10 days not 8.

I don't have a vagina, and I'm reasonably confident I would sleep deeper with a bed maate.

Making sweeping generalizations about all men and all women based on an eight-participant study is scandalously absurd.

Cheers,

TH

Yep. It seems this study is anecdotal confirmation bias rather than a real study. BTW -- how do these results suggest that women are better at coping with broken sleep? If anything it suggests that women simply are less often woken, which would suggest quite the opposite of what Dr. Stanley says. But then, Dr. Stanley doesn't seem to know what he's talking about: "Historically, we have never been meant to sleep in the same bed as each other. It is a bizarre thing to do." Hunh? IIRC, historically, people loaded up many to a bed, 'cause bedding was too expensive. Where does this guy get his history? 1950s TV shows?

That being said (and flame away) -- I've noticed this myself: I sleep less soundly when sharing a bed but my gf sleeps more soundly.

But I don't think it has to do with women being pre-programmed to cope better with broken sleep but rather (1) I personally require a lot more sleep than most and (2) when I get suck in an odd position, which is more likely to happen when sharing a bed, I am more likely to wake up from it than the gf.

Oddly, even though I wake up more often in the night when I share a bed, I also feel more rested the next day ... which I attribute to cuddling lowering stress hormones.

I don't have a vagina, and I'm reasonably confident I would sleep deeper with a bed maate.

Quite right. Horses for courses and all that.

Although in other discussions you have seemed willing to accept sweeping generalizations.

I'm with DAS on this one.

Personally I sleep more poorly when I sleep with my special lady friend, but she sleeps quite soundly.

There might be something to this study.

Well, okay, you're not privy to all the new shit, so uh, you know, but that's what you pay me for.

The "study" had a sample size of 8. "The New Scientist" isn't a peer-reviewed journal, as I understand it. Anecdotal confirmation of bias is about right, though I'm at least interested by the stress hormone and cognitive tests.

As for me, personally, I suffer from very bad insomnia when I'm not staying with my SO -- but I'm also not woken up by the cat.

but I'm also not woken up by the cat.

Not that this is particularly relevant but...

You couldn't have a cat more annoying than mine. If I go downstairs for a post-midnight glass of water he becomes glued to me, obsessed with sleeping on my head whilst batting me in the face. He'll sit there for exactly 20 minutes after I turn out the light and then becomes obsessed with escaping the bedroom at all costs.

I usually sleep much better than my fella because I am apparently quite the snorer and sheet-stealer. I grab the edge and then keep rolling over throughout the night so that I am wrapped in a cocoon and he is left bare and shivering. It's been okay lately though because it's so damn hot.

And I agree that the greatest stealer of sleep is the cat. My two kitties start howling for their food at 5 in the morning until I either make it (they don't do well health-wise with commerical cat food so I have to make it from scratch every time) or lock them in the bathroom so I can snatch another hour of uninterrupted sleep. In the winter they also like to sleep on my head.

I grab the edge and then keep rolling over throughout the night so that I am wrapped in a cocoon and he is left bare and shivering.

When I was a kid, and my brother and I would double up in a bed to save the parents money while traveling, my brother was the same way. Additionally, by rolling over, he would darn near knock me off the edge of the bed.

I do research studies. This is much, much too small a sample to suggest anything other than "more study is needed".

DAS, I'm the female version of your brother. I crowd in bed too and have knocked somebody out of bed before. I am horrible to sleep with, but thankfully the poor dears keep trying.

Well, anecdotally, I sleep WAY less soundly with someone else in my bed. If we've been sleeping together every night for a while (say, a couple months) then it starts approaching the sound sleep I'd get alone. The last person I was with, though, slept really well whenever I was there (except when I'd stretch out in my sleep and leave him a section about a foot wide to wedge into).

The BBC article on this said that a woman's menstrual cycle might disturb her sleep! As if Pleistocene Woman had to keep getting up to change her Pleistocene Tampon.

Hm. How many women get woken up by cramping, though? I've been woken up by shifting weight on an injury and by gastrointestinal difficulties, so although I don't have any studies on hand, I don't find it implausible.

If I don't time my ibuprofen doses just right, the pain of cramps will wake me up.

I'm sure Pleistocene Woman had to keep getting up to change her Pleistocene Leaves, or Pleistocene Bits of Hide.

"...women are pre-programmed to cope better with broken sleep."

Not true in our house. We have year-old twin boys, and I take all of the night-shift duties, simply because if her sleep is broken she's dead on her feet the nest day.

"...women are pre-programmed to cope better with broken sleep."

Not true in our house. We have year-old twin boys, and I take all of the night-shift duties, simply because if my wife's sleep is broken she's dead on her feet the nest day.

Crucially, pre-existing decisions and dominant ideas and mindsets are the forgotten drivers. What shapes present decisions more than the decisions that have preceded them and the intellectual architecture of those that make them? But precedent and ideology are rarely, if ever, mentioned in terms of the future.

Pre-existing decisions, such as those which have resulted in the houses, shopping malls, roads and industrial sheds already built, are significant determinants of the future look and feel of the city, narrowing the range of alternative choices, for good and for bad. The future, longerterm plans of cities, such as the expansion of airports, land-use decisions and tourism developments, also tell us now what cities will be.

The shape, style and form of the future city is in essence embedded in the laws, regulation, codes and guidelines of the present. A simple way to assess whether such decisions were right is to ask some simple questions: Does this building or structure say ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Does it feel right emotionally? Is it good enough for my city? Once standards are raised in these kinds of ways, it is possible to bring in a language of city-making long lost. Beauty can be demanded from a shed, a mall or an industrial estate, let alone a residential apartment block.