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I don't buy the seemingly arbitrary distinction that 8 hours is a good night's sleep. I know people who require 9+ hours per night (ie they appear sleep depriv

I don't buy the seemingly arbitrary distinction that 8 hours is a good night's sleep. I know people who require 9+ hours per night (ie they appear sleep deprived if they get less than 9 for a few consecutive nights). I know one person who requires about 4 per night (not a forced four where you end up looking 10 years older than you really are after a few years). I do like the idea of testing where your sweet spot is, though. I've never done anything like the PVT, but I've found (through Steve Pavlina's advice) that if you wake up at the same time each day, every day, and simply fall asleep when you're tired at the end of the day, you discover pretty quickly where that sweet spot is. More here: http://www.ajkesslerblog.com/how-to-get-back-9-weeks-of-your-life/ http://www.ajkesslerblog.com/how-to-get-back-9-weeks-of-your...

bcl 15y ago
Read the article more closely. Most need 8. There are some who need less, some who need more. The graph might even look like a bell curve ;)
- kaiwetzel 15y ago
  I was a little disappointed by the article in this regard. While it's mentioned that "There is a small portion of the population — he estimates it at around 5 percent or even less — who, for what researchers think may be genetic reasons, can maintain their performance with five or fewer hours of sleep. (There is also a small percentage who require 9 or 10 hours.)" it would be very interesting to know if there is a larger than 5% group that does just fine with 6 or 7 hours of sleep. Assuming your assumption about the distribution of "needing x hours of sleep to do well" is correct and if we assume that 5% need only 5 hours or less and the mean is at 8 hours (the article is even unclear about what those 8 hours represent so it's a wild guess at best), how large is the percentage of people needing 7.5 hours or less? (Roughly 40% if it's a normal distribution). So what the article says about "most of us" is technically correct the interesting answers for the many of us that presumably need between 5 and 8 hours of sleep is left out. Does it make a difference in what sleep phase people are woken up (after the n hours of sleep their group gets)? I wish more money would be available for this area of research so longer and more detailed studies could be done. And better handouts for journalists.

bcl 15y ago

Read the article more closely. Most need 8. There are some who need less, some who need more. The graph might even look like a bell curve ;)

kaiwetzel 15y ago
I was a little disappointed by the article in this regard. While it's mentioned that "There is a small portion of the population — he estimates it at around 5 percent or even less — who, for what researchers think may be genetic reasons, can maintain their performance with five or fewer hours of sleep. (There is also a small percentage who require 9 or 10 hours.)" it would be very interesting to know if there is a larger than 5% group that does just fine with 6 or 7 hours of sleep. Assuming your assumption about the distribution of "needing x hours of sleep to do well" is correct and if we assume that 5% need only 5 hours or less and the mean is at 8 hours (the article is even unclear about what those 8 hours represent so it's a wild guess at best), how large is the percentage of people needing 7.5 hours or less? (Roughly 40% if it's a normal distribution). So what the article says about "most of us" is technically correct the interesting answers for the many of us that presumably need between 5 and 8 hours of sleep is left out. Does it make a difference in what sleep phase people are woken up (after the n hours of sleep their group gets)? I wish more money would be available for this area of research so longer and more detailed studies could be done. And better handouts for journalists.