Sleep Myths

Do we really need eight hours of sleep per night?

Not necessarily, but that’s the average for healthy adults. According to the National Institutes of Health, when healthy adults are given unlimited opportunity to sleep they are on the pillow eight to eight-and-a-half hours a night. Most sleep experts recommend between seven and nine hours to be at one’s optimum performance mentally and physically.

The amount of sleep needed to be at one’s best is called “basal sleep” time. Basal sleep is forever in competition with “sleep debt,” which is the total sleep we lose due to certain sleep disorders, restless partners or screaming infants (but parents cherish every waking moment … right?). We constantly need basal sleep to pay down our sleep debt.

Most people have an innate sense of whether they’re getting enough shut-eye (for a quick evaluation of your own sleep status, check out the Epworth Sleepiness Scale). According to the Sleep In America poll, Americans in 2005 averaged almost seven hours per night, while back in 1910 we averaged nine hours. What would you give up for an extra two hours of sleep tonight?
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