Is there an optimal amount of sleep that promotes physical and mental health? Is there a cumulative effect?
For the last several weeks I have been sleeping about three to fours hours a nite. I am now having trouble with thinking clearly. I have also noticed that my motor skills are not what they once were.
I tried sleeping 14 hours every day between january and april… NEVER woke up feeling anything other than tired and cranky (and with enormous crispy bit buildup (ewwww))
However, I did put on several pounds of muscle despite no change in my overall physical activity or diet. Who’d have guessed?
8 hours a night is the recommended amount to sleep. If you miss an hour or two hours or whatever, you’re supposed to make it up in full.
However, some people need more, and some need less. I think i probably need about 7 hours a night, although i can get on less if i have too. Margaret Thatcher famously only slept four hours a night.
The fact that you can’t think straight means you’re not one of these people who can’t survive on 4 hours a night. I would strongly recommend you sleep a lot more. Long term sleep deprivation can cause mental illness.
DOH! - should have previewed…
Above should read " you’re not one if these people who can survive on 4 hours night"
Napoleon came up with a formula - “Five for a man, six for a woman, seven for a fool”. Perhaps a bit old fashioned…
It depends on the person and their age (younger people seem to need more) and state of health.
Some people seem to function perfectly well on five hours, others need 10. I I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules and quality of sleep is as important as quantity (eg 2 hours normal sleep is probably better than 7 hours of drunken stupor). If you are having trouble concentrating and becoming clumsy, then you are not sleeping enough - three or four hours is pushing it.
It depends on who one is.
A human male aged 36 with no known diseases.
I’m a 25 yr old female and I regularly get an average of 4 hours of sleep a night during the work week. I normally go to bed at midnight and wake up at 4am to get ready for work. I even work long days, ten and a half hours or more. I’m always a bit groggy in the morning as are most people but after about and hour or so awake, I’m fully functional. I’m wondering though, can you make up on sleep lost later? Because on my days off, I normally sleep in till one or two in the afternoon. So maybe those who don’t need much sleep most of the week, make up for it later?
Your body cannot make up on lost sleep. It isn’t some battery.
According to ediets, doing so can confuse your body clock.
http://www.ediets.com/news/article.cfm/article_id,6350
Taking a nap during the day can sort of make up for lost sleep that night, but most experts would say you cannot make up for lost sleep the next day or a week later.
Some people with not so demanding jobs or low activity levels get buy on little sleep. I have noticed in my small area of observation that those I have worked with on graveyard shift jobs seem to always sleep 4-5 hours a sleep a night. I wouldn’t call them the most alert, but they get by.
I have worked some jobs where 6 hours was enough, and others where I was so beat after work I just sleep untill I woke up naturally, about 9-10 hours. (I have noticed waking up naturally when you are no longer tired makes for a much better day)
I think how much sleep a person needs to be at peak is developmental myself. Some just get by fine on 4-5 hours a day, and some rare cases, get by on like 8-12 hours a sleep every other day or so. (not sure if they would score optimally on any tests like the SAT or anything…)
I saw a study on TV (yes, I know) a while back where they subjected one group of people to lots of sleep, and another for no slepp for a few days. Then they performed a whole bunch of tests like driving on a simulator, constructing a jig-saw puzzle, etc., to see how each group performed. Obviously the people who had lots of sleep did better, but the interesting thing was after the tests they were all sent back to sleep. The sleep deprieved group reached REM sleep very quickly, and performed the same as the other group in tests carried out the next day. The show’s conclusion was the humanm body can catch up on sleep very well on it’s own by getting into a deeper sleep quicker.
As for how much sleep we need a day, I get up at the same time everyday and go to bed when I’m tired, usually works out about 8 hours sleep and I feel fine.
IMHO any sleep is better then no sleep. If you had the choice to stay up the whole night or get two hours of sleep, I’d take the 2. Having done both several times I’ve noticed that getting even a little sleep can go a long way (less groggy, more alert, etc).
There are some fun side effects of sleep deprovation though, like mixing up words and banging into stuff. After 3 or so nights in a row of only getting 4-5 hrs of sleep I’ll start to really slur my speech or to say stuff like bountain miking. Coordination goes down the tubes as well. I’ll bump into door frames or hit my hands, while walking, on objects easily avoided. Short-term memory is also effected.
The movie “Insomnia” displayed some interesting side effects. They used a term like micro-sleep to define the way a person may nod on-and-off (you know, the whole pigeon head bobbing thing). This is definitately a bad thing especially while driving. Being asleep for any amount of seconds while bombing down the highway is unhealthy.
Oh and just to reiterate, you can’t store sleep like a battery. You can’t sleep for 28 hrs over the weekend and hope that it will carry through during the week.
I’m 25, male, and relatively healthy. I need 7 hours minimal, but 8 is welcome. Any less and, although I’ll survive, I might not want to.
While in school I got by on less but again, it does lower your mental reaction speed. While I worked a rather late night shift I fell into a 4 hour speed schedule where I would sleep from 4 am to 8 am, do all my shopping etc, go back to sleep from 2 pm to 6 pm and then go to work. It works very well but is hell with your social life.
I believe the issue here is the amount of REM sleep you get. 8, 1 hour naps aren’t going to be good for you. I remember hearing that you only enter deep REM sleep in 2-3 hours and then stay in REM mode for 45 minutes or so.
Epimetheus thanks for the link.
[url=http://www.ediets.com/news/article.cfm/article_id,6350]Cite[/ur]
A lack of proper sleep… guess that is why I am finding it hard to follow this thread. I would like if someone could offer more science on this subject.
I need eight or nine hours a night… and ten during the day, then I’m good.
heh heh.
(That’s a quote, not me.)
I need 7 or 8 hours of sleep. Though during the school year I spent so many nights only getting 6 or 6 my body has adapted and will naturally wake up approximately 7 hours after I fall alseep. I gotta figure out a way to get my body to sleep for 8 hours, because there is a defninite improvement in the day from just having one more hour of sleep at night.
As it was, bad habits made it so I had a very difficult time waking up (I needed 1 hour and 1 cup of coffee to completely wake up). At night I wouldn’t be sleepy anymore if I stayed awake past 9 PM. So sometimes I would stay up very late, because my body was being accustomed to it. I think my body is used to falling alseep at 2 AM and waking up at 9- fine for getting the 7 ish hours I need, but not fine when I start my crossing guard job again and have to start getting up at 6 AM again 