Eight hours of sleep. Six hours of sleep. Seven hours of sleep. It seems like every year we see a study that claims that some amount of hours is better than another. The Wall Street Journal collects together a few studies that show data suggests that seven hours might be the sweet spot these days.
Picture: epSos.de/Flickr
The Wall Street Journal looked at a few different studies. Here’s a summation of just a few of them:
“The lowest mortality and morbidity is with seven hours,” said Shawn Youngstedt, a professor in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation at Arizona State University Phoenix. “Eight hours or more has consistently been shown to be hazardous,” says Dr. Youngstedt, who researches the effects of oversleeping…
…Daniel F. Kripke, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego, tracked over a six-year period data on 1.1 million people who participated in a large cancer study. People who reported they slept 6.5 to 7.4 hours had a lower mortality rate than those with shorter or longer sleep. The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2002, controlled for 32 health factors, including medications…
…A study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience last year used data from users of the cognitive-training website Lumosity. Researchers looked at the self-reported sleeping habits of about 160,000 users who took spatial-memory and matching tests and about 127,000 users who took an arithmetic test. They found that cognitive performance increased as people got more sleep, reaching a peak at seven hours before starting to decline.
That said, as with most of these kinds of things, it’s not an exact science. But you can figure out your own perfect sleep schedule if you’re willing to take the time to experiment on yourself:
Experts say people should be able to figure out their optimal amount of sleep in a trial of three days to a week, ideally while on vacation. Don’t use an alarm clock. Go to sleep when you get tired. Avoid too much caffeine or alcohol. And stay off electronic devices a couple of hours before going to bed. During the trial, track your sleep with a diary or a device that records your actual sleep time. If you feel refreshed and awake during the day, you’ve probably discovered your optimal sleep time.
As we’ve pointed out before, it’s about figuring out what works for you. Experts currently recommend anywhere between six and nine hours of sleep, so, for now, you’ll want to shoot for somewhere in that range, preferably closer to the seven-hour mark.
Why Seven Hours of Sleep Might Be Better Than Eight [The Wall Street Journal]
Comments
9 responses to “Research Shows That Seven Hours Of Sleep Might Be The Sweet Spot”
I’m averaging that much and it doesn’t feel like enough to me
My coffee in the morning begs to differ.
If ‘yer only getting it in one to two hour stretches, does it count if you ad ’em togeter..? 🙂
Like in polyphasic sleeping?
4 hours a night for the past 9 years and i feel great!
I’ve found that 7 hours is my sweet spot, as long as I read for an hour before bed (no looking at screens!). Eight hours feels like too much and six hours, while doable, feels a little bit off.
I try to go for a lot but I seem to be stuck at 5..
woooo is me..
How you feel when you wake up is meant to be determined by the sleep cycles which are about 90 minutes according to sleepyti.me with about 14 minutes time to go to sleep. If you are aiming for about 8 hours then either 7 hours 30 mins or 9 hours would match the sleep cycle.
I think it’s important to find the duration of your own sleep cycle. For me it’s almost exactly 1.5 hours, so 7.5 hours (5 sleep cycles) is the best for me.
Here’s something nobody has thought of
MAYBE IT’S DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE!!
Stop trying to one size fits all everything!
Reductionalism can often lead to a point where it is of no value to anyone
I know I need 8
“Enough” sleep is the amount you need to not be sleepy the next day. Like shoe sizes, sleep needs vary by person–there are size 4 feet and there are size 12 feet. Like the size of your feet, your sleep needs appear to be something you’re born with and can’t change substantially, no matter how much you try and what sort of tricks you play. Some people “need” only 4 hours sleep (VERY rare indeed) and some people need upwards of 12 hours in 24 to not be sleepy the next day. Irrespective of sleep needs, Kripke’s studies do though suggest that people who report that they regularly sleep less than 6.5 or more than 7.5 hrs have a higher mortality rate than those who report sleeping 6.5-7.5 hrs — all other things being equal and controlled for, as best you can in a large scale epidemiological study…
This supposition correlates sleep with mortality.
For me, I would ask what people are doing in their lives which causes their body to require less or more than the 7 hour/night sweet spot – and assess if it’s these factors which are affecting mortality rates.
Sleep amounts may only be an effective indicator of other health factors which do correlate closely with mortality.
“stay off electronic devices a couple of hours before going to bed” – what am I supposed to do to stay awake for those couple of hours without electronics?!