Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

I read it, I liked it, I felt like it was not written very objectively.

There did not seem to be nearly enough self-doubt or testing alternate situations.

And it shouldn't be terrifying. You no longer have to worry about animals trying to eat you, finding enough food to eat yourself, dying of infection, or physically defending yourself on a day to day basis.

If the worst thing that's wrong with you is sub-optimal sleep, you've got life pretty good.

We're getting down to solving more and more subtle problems. Sleep, the biological contents of your digestive system, and environmental exposures look to be the big health problems on the table to solve in the next few decades.

This is so cool, love the pillow, mat + floor idea to nap anywhere. It might be perceived as a little weird by some colleagues at first, but once they get the utility, I guess they'll get used to it. I nap on my chair (it reclines upto 75-80 degrees) for about 18-22 minutes every day after lunch and it refreshes me like nothing else!

Same here. I need to sleep after lunch and after that I feel like I am 100% operative. Otherwise the attention diminishes over the day.

I wonder why it is, that some people can take a nap and feel refreshed. If I do it, I wake up WAY more tired than before going to sleep and will be groggy for a while.

I am guessing it must have something to do with how fast you can fall asleep and enter deep sleep.

How come these 10-20min naps are so effective when you consider that people say sleep cycles are ~90min

Do you drink caffeine at all?

s/don't panic/panic/

Good point. The article is a bit disingenuous in calling it the "eight-hour solid sleep myth".

Matthew Walker in his book on sleep (that's referenced also in the comment you link to) points out, for example, that a lot of learning tends to happen in the latest stages of sleep. So, 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep might well be better than 6 hours + 2 hours siesta.

>If someone says "you need about 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep" I would rather take that as meaning things like "don't get up after just 5 hours" and "don't get up and check ebay auctions in the middle of the night even if it just takes 10 minutes", not "don't panic if you naturally wake up at 4am".

If you're tired when you "naturally wake up", then do panic.

Fear not! :-) I found that my lifestyle changed every six months or so when I had young children. So, baby waking four times a night? Just hang in there for six months, it will probably change. Good luck and enjoy!

I'm in the same boat. 3 years on and it's still extremely rare for my son not to wake up multiple times through the night and have to spend at least 20 mins (up to an hour or sometimes even up to 2 hours) getting him back to sleep. We've just had our second child and our daughter at 2.5 months old is also not a great sleeper during the night, but she will sleep through anything during the day. Combine that with both the kids staggering their sleep/wake schedules (as if they're colluding!) and I'm lucky to get a 3 hour stretch of sleep. Since I've been back at work after paternity leave I've regularly caught myself falling asleep at my desk at work and need to go and take a nap in my car at lunch time just so I can function.

Infants aren't born with their circadian rhythms already calibrated, it seems to take time during which the parents are in for some sleepless nights. Not sure how long the actual accustomizing period should last though.

There's a catch 22, I always sleep deep when I had a full day prior :)

Same here. I got some energy from a mid-day/afternoon sleep, but after it also takes an hour to wake up completely. Going below the 8 hour sleep in a row and loosing focus. Even the weekends get messed up with less sleep.

One coffee a day max is a good trick. Like all addictive substances there is a seriously diminishing return and eventual swing patterns as tolerance builds. One a day gives you the full effect and has a chance to fully leave your system so you don't require coffee to function. Coffee withdrawal migraine style headaches are a real thing.

What do you like more about the article you linked?

That sounds like a terrible idea

Did you try to see a doctor?

Check your eating habits (e.g. lots of difficult to process food, late), and consult a doctor.

I understand how difficult that can be.

I suffer from nocturia (diagnosed as non pathological after many rounds of tests all turning up negative). In a typical night I get five hours max of contiguous sleep and have started sleeping (by that I mean the in bed duration) nine to ten hours as an attempt to compensate for not being able to stay asleep.

I've always been curious about the difference between time spent in bed and actual time in deep sleep and their equivalence (or exchange factor).

Have you also resulted in increasing how long you are in bed to compensate?

On age and your activities during the day. Insomnia and lack of sleep are really bad.

Well, kids need more, obviously.

But old people do not really less than young adults, according to "Why we sleep".

Absolutely the same here. And sometimes i wake up pretty early, feeling totally awake. I find that in that case, I have to get up. If i force myself to sleep 2 more hours, the day is basically ruined.