Let’s chill out about our sleep habits and stop obsessing over eight hours
A family physician argues that sleep quality and a consistent routine may matter more than hitting eight hours. He advises aiming for about seven hours while recognising individual sleep needs.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
A family physician suggests that sleep quality and a consistent routine may be more important than the exact number of hours slept, citing studies that show a link between sleeping too much and higher mortality rates.
Sleep is a powerful and healthy habit that improves performance on tasks, makes driving safer, and buoys our mental health. Adequate sleep leads to a stronger immune system, better metabolic and cardiovascular health, and more reliable physical energy throughout the day.
Analysis
The Myth of Eight Hours of Sleep
The idea that we should be sleeping at least eight hours a night is a common one, but the evidence for this is shakier than we might assume. A consistent finding in sleep epidemiology studies is that there is not a magic number below which health suddenly falls off a cliff. Rather, studies that show an association between sleep duration and mortality often find that the lowest risk clusters around seven hours. Risk rises both with not enough sleep and with too much sleep.
The Data on Sleep Duration
A meta-analysis of sleep studies published in the journal Scientific Reports found that the adults with the highest mortality rates were those who slept nine to 11 hours a night. Notably, while risk rose with short sleep, the study did not find much difference in all-cause mortality between six and seven hours a night. While the data is inconsistent and there are some exceptions, several other studies have reached similar conclusions.
The Importance of Sleep Quality
Sleep quality and the regularity of the routine may matter more than duration. A consistent, good-quality 6.5 hours a night, in which you go to bed around the same time every evening, probably carries less risk than a fragmented, anxious eight-hour routine or a pattern in which sleep varies wildly night to night. Dr Michael Perlis, director of behavioural sleep medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, acknowledges that the standard medical recommendation of getting seven to nine hours works for many people but “nowhere near all.” That’s because it “doesn’t take into account sex, age, typical duration of the individual’s wake period, amount of mental and physical expenditure per day, health and basal sleep need,” he told me.
Key points
- Sleep quality and routine may matter more than the exact number of hours slept.
- Studies show a link between sleeping too much and higher mortality rates.
- Getting less sleep is strongly correlated with living in poverty, working a job that requires night shifts, psychiatric conditions, and chronic pain and illness.
- A consistent, good-quality 6.5 hours a night may carry less risk than a fragmented, anxious eight-hour routine or a pattern in which sleep varies wildly night to night.
If we focus on sleep quality and routine rather than the exact number of hours slept, we may be able to improve our overall health and well-being. By prioritizing consistent and good-quality sleep, we can reduce the risk of health problems and improve our quality of life.
On the other hand, if we continue to obsess over the exact number of hours slept, we may be doing more harm than good. The data shows that sleeping too much is linked to higher mortality rates, and that getting less sleep is strongly correlated with living in poverty, working a job that requires night shifts, psychiatric conditions, and chronic pain and illness.
