How Much Sleep Do You Need?
The word of the day is that adults need eight hours of sleep per night. But is that the case for everyone?
Sleep researchers answer with a resounding no.
Peter Hauri, Ph.D., in the book No More Sleepless Nights, says that while different individuals have very different sleep needs, the amount remains amazingly constant for each person. He tells the story of a 70-year-old nurse who slept only one hour each night, took no naps during the day, and said that she never felt tired In fact, she said she didn't understand why other people wasted so much time in bed She had averaged the same amount of sleep each night since she was a child
Other people may need 9, JO or even 11 hours of sleep per night. There is no norm. Studies demonstrate that people perform just as well cognitively if they are sleep deprived, says German Nino-Murcia, MD. What happens is that people start to demonstrate intellectual problems when they are worried about how little they sleep. If you think you will be impaired, you will be. If you sleep for 90 minutes and when you wake up I tell you that you have slept for eight hours, you will feel great. But if you sleep for eight hours and I wake you up and tell you that you have only slept for 45 minutes, you will feel exhausted