Less Sleep

Some people do just fine on just 4 to 6 hours of sleep. Or do they?

We should all be getting about 8 solid hours of sleep each night. That’s the general professional consensus. So what about people who say they do just fine on just 5 hours? Researchers put them to the test. The volunteer sleepers did their thing in a controlled sleeping environment for 2 weeks. Those who slept 8 or 9 hours did just fine on the cognitive testing. The group who slept just 4 to 6 hours a night flunked. Their cognitive skills results were impaired to the equivalent of being legally drunk.

The study found that when we get less than 8 hours of sleep at night our attention spans and reaction times are the first skills to take a significant hit. Even getting 7 hours is not enough. One hour less nightly accumulates to a noticeable sleep debt.

Source: Walter Reed Research Institute