What Do We Know About How Long We Have to Sleep?

Long SleepThe majority of us usually sleep 7-8 hours a day, but duration is actually not an important parameter of the quality of our sleep. We are not surprised that every one of us has individual size of shoes or individual height. However, it is considered that the amount of sleep necessary for being in good shape must be universal and the same for everyone. Also, there are other weird common ideas about our sleep habits. The people, who rise with the sun and start their daily activities in the early morning are supposed be hardworking, but the people, who like sleeping and usually sleep till noon, are considered to be lazy. Is this always true and does everyone, who wakes up early, spend the time more effectively than those who work till midnight?

There are so called short sleepers (the people whose need of daily sleep does not exceed 6 hours) and long sleepers (the people whose daily need of sleep is over 9 hours), and it was proven that belonging to one of these groups means very little for your personal or professional success in life. For example, Napoleon Bonaparte used to sleep only 3-4 hours a day, but Albert Einstein and a great deal of other talented people needed more than 9 hours of sleep every day. Nevertheless, there are certain advantages that short sleepers and long sleepers can enjoy in this life. Recent researches of the specialists from San Diego revealed that short sleepers usually feel more energized and refreshed after their sleep. At the same time, long sleepers are typically less affected by sleep deprivation and do not lose their learning abilities even when they have some serious lack of sleep.

Therefore, our individual needs of sleep can vary from 3 to 12 hours a day, but an interesting fact is that the norm of sleep that every person needs in order to have a good rest and wake up revitalized, does not change throughout the whole life, starting from early youth. Certainly, depending on the circumstances, one day you can sleep more, and another day you can sleep less. However, weekly and especially monthly hours of your sleep are actually almost the same. Experiments proved that total weekly hours of sleep of the same person vary within at most 30 minutes.

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