2-5 hours a night, but I've only been doing that for the past 4 years. My family members have seen sleep specialists, and according to them, the "people need 8

2-5 hours a night, but I've only been doing that for the past 4 years. My family members have seen sleep specialists, and according to them, the "people need 8 hours a night" argument is not true for everyone. Different people need different amounts. And if you actually read the research papers (it's been a couple years, so I'm not sure of links), scientists don't even know with 100% certainty what the purpose of sleep is. However, that being said, there was a study done recently showing a correlation between getting less than 5 hours a night and heart problems later on in life. This has prompted me to start averaging closer to 5 hours than 2 hours lately.