Two fire-spitting cobras were said to guard the gates of each hour of the underworld, and Wadjet and the rearing cobra (uraeus) were also sometimes referenced as wnwt from their role protecting the dead through these gates. The Egyptian word for astronomer, used as a synonym for priest, was wnwty, "one of the wnwt", as it were "one of the hours". The earliest forms of wnwt include one or three stars, with the later solar hours including the determinative hieroglyph for "sun". East Asia
Ancient China divided its day into 100 "marks" (Chinese: 刻, oc *kʰək, p kè) running from midnight to midnight. The system is said to have been used since remote antiquity, credited to the legendary Yellow Emperor, but is first attested in Han-era water clocks and in the 2nd-century history of that dynasty. It was measured with sundials and water clocks. Into the Eastern Han, the Chinese measured their day schematically, adding the 20-ke difference between the solstices evenly throughout the year, one every nine days. During the night, time was more commonly reckoned during the night by the "watches" (Chinese: 更, oc *kæŋ, p gēng) of the guard, which were reckoned as a fifth of the time from sunset to sunrise.Imperial China continued to use ke and geng but also began to divide the day into 12 "double hours" (t 時, s 时, oc *də, p shí, lit. "time[s]") named after the earthly branches and sometimes also known by the name of the corresponding animal of the Chinese zodiac.
Daridorexant has also been found to improve daytime functioning at a dose of 50 mg but not at 25 mg. It is the first insomnia medication to have been evaluated and shown effectiveness in improving not only nighttime symptoms but also daytime functioning.Network meta-analyses have assessed the sleep-promoting effects of orexin receptor antagonists and have compared them between one another as well as to other sleep aids including benzodiazepines, Z-drugs, antihistamines, sedative antidepressants (e.g., trazodone, doxepin, amitriptyline, mirtazapine), and melatonin receptor agonists. A major systematic review and network meta-analysis of insomnia medications published in 2022 found that daridorexant had an effect size (standardized mean difference (SMD)) against placebo for treatment of insomnia at 4 weeks of 0.23 (95% CI –0.01 to 0.48). This was similar to but numerically lower than the effect sizes at 4 weeks for suvorexant (SMD 0.31, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.62) and lemborexant (SMD 0.36, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.63). Benzodiazepines and Z-drugs generally showed larger effect sizes than orexin receptor antagonists (e.g., SMDs of 0.45 to 0.83). The review concluded on the basis of daridorexants small effect size that it did not show an overall material benefit in the treatment of insomnia. Conversely, it concluded that lemborexant—as well as the Z-drug eszopiclone—had the best profiles overall in terms of efficacy, tolerability, and acceptability among all of the assessed insomnia medications.Orexin receptor antagonists are not used as first-line treatments for insomnia due to their costs and concerns about possible misuse liability.