Sleep Myths by Rich Maloof

Not sure if any of you are as interested in sleep and energy as much as I am? If you are here is a great article on sleep myths!


Is the power nap really powerful? Can we make up for lost sleep by sacking out on Saturday? MSN Health & Fitness sought a few answers from the Land of Nod.

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?

Can we catch up on sleep during the weekend? Is this healthy?

Yes, you can effectively catch up on sleep—and no, it’s not particularly healthy.
The body and brain share a remarkable ability to recover when we don’t treat them as well as we should. When you skimp on sleep, you miss more of the REM cycles that keep the brain’s memory, concentration, motor skills, and emotional controls in good working order. That’s why someone on three hours’ sleep can stay awake but is more likely to fumble the car keys or put on shoes that don’t match. Nonetheless, the brain will reset itself after a good night’s sleep.
Though the body is resilient as well, all of its major systems require the slowed pace and reduction of stimuli that come with adequate rest. As the National Sleep Foundation describes in Sleep-Wake Cycle: Its Physiology and Impact on Health, scientists believe the body repairs itself during sleep with a number of biochemical and physiological processes, and that without restorative sleep our systems become more vulnerable. A 2002 study, for example, showed that sleep helps fortify the immune system: When flu shots were administered to two groups of men, those who slept normally for 10 nights in a row had twice as many flu-fighting antibodies as those who slept just four hours per night.
Dr. Michael Twery, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, offers additional words of warning: “Recent findings indicate that regularly sleeping less than seven hours each night is associated with potentially serious health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.”

As we age do we really require less sleep to function properly?

The blissful 12- or 14-hour snoozes we needed as infants certainly curtail over the years, and once past the teen years our sleep requirements level out. The more significant change for the elderly is not in the total hours needed—at seven to nine hours, their requirements are on a par with young adults—but in the quality of nighttime rest they’re actually able to get.
“Older people don’t need less sleep, but they often get less sleep,” Twery says. “As people age, they spend less time in the deep, restful stages of sleep and are awakened more easily. Older people are more likely to have sleep apnea, insomnia, and other medical conditions that disrupt sleep and impair daytime function.”
Many elderly people will drift off throughout the day to make up for lost sleep time. If your grandmother gets a full eight hours, some may come at night, some after lunch, and some while playing canasta.

Do naps help?

If we really believed that life’s most valuable lessons were learned in kindergarten, we’d all be eating more cookies and taking more naps. Our grown-up culture generally frowns on the notion of daytime sleeping, but 15 or 20 minutes of shut-eye can help make up for a sleepless night and provide a freshness and clarity that seldom comes in the last few hours at work. Resting too long or too late in the day, however, can defeat the benefits by leaving the catnapper groggy in the afternoon and sleepless again at night.
Workers in Latin America, as in many hot climes, are known to appreciate the value of a siesta whereas gringos seem unwilling to trade dollars for Z’s. In February 2007, a study favoring the midday nap was published by doctors from Greece, another warm and sunny climate. After studying 23,861 subjects for more than six years, the researchers found compelling evidence that napping has quantifiable health benefits for everyone, especially working men. They concluded that people who napped occasionally were 12 percent less likely to die of heart disease. Moreover, those who regularly took half-hour naps three times per week had at least 37 percent lower risk of death by heart disease.
Though you may have difficulty convincing your boss that an afternoon nap would be great for your health and your productivity, putting your head down for a few minutes is not a bad idea at all. Cookies wouldn’t hurt, either.