Name: Fact or Fiction: Do you really need eight hours of sleep a night?
Uploaded: 2023-01-13
Duration: 4 min 34 s
Description: Conventional wisdom dictates you should always aim for eight hours of sleep a night. Is that fact or fiction? Sleep scientist Dr. Rebecca Robbins explains the thinking behind the eight-hour sleep recommendation, and offers tips for people struggling with sleep.

Conventional wisdom dictates you should always aim for eight hours of sleep a night. Is that fact or fiction? Sleep scientist Dr. Rebecca Robbins explains the thinking behind the eight-hour sleep recommendation, and offers tips for people struggling with sleep.

Fact or Fiction: Do you really need eight hours of sleep a night?

Health

Sleep scientist Dr. Rebecca Robbins explains the thinking behind the eight-hour sleep recommendation, and offers tips for people struggling with sleep.

Do you really need eight hours of sleep a night?

Dr. Rebecca Robbins of Harvard Medical School explains.

do we all need eight hours of sleep at night? I think for many years we've focused really solely on this idea of getting enough sleep and kind of focusing on this magical a number. But the truth is the recommendation for sleep duration is actually a range from 7 to 9 hours. The eight hour sleep recommendation is simply overly simplistic because all of us are so unique and different and our genes in part determine how much sleep we need on a regular basis. But then other factors also loom large for our sleep. If you've had a really into Activity, if you're going through a really intense period as a student of exams and studying, then you will benefit from increased sleep that night. The key message here is that by and large are sleep recommendation is intensely personal. It takes the average, even healthy sleeper, about 15 or 20 minutes to fall asleep. When people tell me they're getting eight hours of sleep, that actually means that they're getting closer to maybe 7.5 or even seven hours simply answering the question. How do I feel in the morning after? Our sleep can be an extremely powerful measure of the quality of our sleep. Now that's important because you or I could spend the same amount of time sleeping. But maybe you or I are experiencing something stressful or maybe we had too much caffeine the day before. Other things like our environment where we're sleeping, there's noise in the environment around us, all of these factors combined to increase or decrease the quality of the sleep that we get another myth is that there are some people that can get by or do fine on less than seven hours. But all of our research shows without a shadow of a doubt that those that are consistently sleeping six or fewer hours at night are at increased risk for chronic conditions. In the short term we see in increased risk for simply poor mood. Maybe you're more prone to feelings of anxiety or feelings of depression, but unfortunately, those can snowball pretty quickly into serious mental health concerns. Our vigilance also decreases. Were less able to get more and give more at our workout. Make healthy nutrition choices in the longer term when we monitor individuals that aren't getting enough sleep consistently night in the night out. That puts them at increased risk for a host of adverse outcomes. And those could include things like cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and increased risk for heart attacks, obesity and stroke. We also want to be managing our stress over the course of the day, stress is the number one cause of insomnia. If you have an experience that is a little stressful, try to cultivate a relaxation response, Consider journaling or doing a brief period of meditation to try to re center exercise is also beneficial for slaves. Now, nutrition is also directly related to our sleep. Such that maintaining a healthy nutrition is really important for the quality of our sleep. You want to stop eating ideally about an hour or hour and a half before you want to be falling asleep, caffeine consumption and alcohol are also important consideration for our sleep. When you consume caffeine, you actually have to count down about six hours, sometimes, even more than that for the time that it will take for that caffeine to leave your body ideally tapering off and not having any more caffeine after noon is that caffeine consumption could interfere with your sleep that night when it comes to drinking alcoholic beverages, one small glass of wine at night, especially when coupled with dinner might not be a problem, but much more than that can interfere with your sleep. Now unfortunately we don't have a silver bullet that will put us right to sleep. And so we have to set ourselves up for success by thinking of all of the sleep strategies that we've talked about so far reserve this time before bed as time for you. Unplug from your day, switch off your screens and start to transition to a different mentality. Try to shift your mindset, try to slow down your breathing, do things that you know, really relax you whether that's a warm shower, a warm bath, switching off your phones, starting a relaxing skincare routine, putting on body lotions that have smells and aromas that relax you and soothe you. These strategies when practice diligently will give your brain a cue that what comes after these relaxing activities is sleep