Sleeping smart: The magic number Women who slept 7 hours per night had the highest score for every cognitive measure, followed by those who got 6 hours of snooze time, the study found. For men, the findings were slightly different: those who reported sleeping six, seven or eight hours had a similar cognitive function.
While some people regularly function on short periods of sleep, research mostly agrees that six hours of sleep is not enough for most adults. Experts recommend that most adults need at least seven hours of sleep every night.
Having trouble getting that ideal 8 hours of sleep? So is everyone else. But there's some good news — you may only need 7 hours of it. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society (SRS) have issued a new recommendation, saying seven is the magic sleep number for most healthy adults.
A study published in the journal Sleep Medicine found that individuals who sleep less than seven hours per night tend to have lower cognitive functioning, including poorer memory and attention.
Five hours of sleep most likely isn't enough to feel and function your best. Most of us need seven and a half to nine hours of sleep, and some of us may need even more.
Now, he makes an effort to sleep at least six hours per night, he said in an interview with CNBC's David Faber on Tuesday. “I've tried [to sleep] less, but ... even though I'm awake more hours, I get less done,” Musk said. “And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours [of sleep per night].”
Then why is it that some people feel great after sleeping only 4 to 5 hours, but feel terrible if they sleep 7 to 8 hours? In many cases, they'll just wake up automatically after 5 hours without any alarms. Here's one possible explanation: Normally during sleep, you'll go through 4 to 5 sleep cycles.
Less sleep lowers IQ scores
After five successive days of sleeping less than you need, your IQ can be lowered by up to 15 points. This means that a person of average intelligence could have an effective IQ of only 85, the level at which you would need special education to learn.
Psychology Today reported that intelligent people are likely to be nocturnal beings, with those with a higher IQ going bed later on both weeknights and weekends.
Albert Einstein is said to have slept 10 hours per night, plus regular daytime naps.
According to the scientists, 7 hours of sleep was optimal for adults, with greater differences from this amount being linked with increased changes in the structure of brain regions involved in cognitive processing and memory.
Language switcher. Experts recommend that adults sleep between 7 and 9 hours a night. Adults who sleep less than 7 hours a night may have more health issues than those who sleep 7 or more hours a night.
So why do people think they are able to function optimally on 6 hours of regular sleep? This is because of a natural human phenomenon known as 'renorming'. Renorming means that we are only able to compare how we feel today to how we felt yesterday or the day before.
Getting only six hours of sleep each night is considered a poor sleep schedule that can result in sleep deprivation and lead to poor mental health and potential sleep disorders.
Lower your risk for serious health problems, like diabetes and heart disease. Reduce stress and improve your mood. Think more clearly and do better in school and at work. Get along better with people.
10 HOURS OF SLEEP AND ONE-SECOND NAPS
It's common knowledge that sleep is good for your brain – and Einstein took this advice more seriously than most. He reportedly slept for at least 10 hours per day – nearly one and a half times as much as the average American today (6.8 hours).
Scientists have long known that our ability to think quickly and recall information, also known as fluid intelligence, peaks around age 20 and then begins a slow decline.
Most Geniuses Perfected the Power Nap
That's pretty much true. Since a lot of them tend to believe that it is absolutely imperative to stay ahead, they seem to think that sleeping deprives them of this opportunity. Hence, they'd reduce the time they rest at night in order to have more functional, waking hours.
Scores of studies conclude that students really do better when they sleep. Sleeping poorly (or not at all) leads to worse test results and poorer ability to learn new things. In fact, an all nighter hurts your ability to think, reason, and understand to the same degree as if you were taking your test drunk.
But, unfortunately, six hours simply isn't enough sleep for most people. It might not feel too far off the often recommended seven to nine hours of sleep, but even a small amount of sleep deprivation can have huge impacts on your energy, productivity, and health.
Our body clock naturally lends itself to the siesta because of a reduction in alertness in the early afternoon. They cited a 1990 study by psychiatrist Thomas Wehr that found "bi-phasic sleep," which is a science-y phrase for two separate four-hour blocks of sleep, is "a natural process with a biological basis."