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Sleep Less, Live Longer
Linuxathome writes: "The Washington Post carried an article describing the results of a study linking the average amount of sleep one gets per night with his/her life span. It appears that those who sleep less than 8 hours a night, live longer (optimum is 7 hours). The study (link to the abstract) was aimed at looking at the mortality rate of those suffering from insomnia. But rather than associating insomnia with increased risk of death, it appears that sleeping more than 8 hours carries a much higher risk."
Wow, they really know their logic! Sleep longer, your days are shorter.. sleep less, your days are longer, hence you live for longer, wow!
Really though, I'm screwed. I sleep at least 10/11 hours every night, and my 'record' was 20. Start building my coffin.
I'm guessing it's just a slow news day on Slashdot.. this story was discussed several days ago on MetaFilter. Lots of interesting comments, check it out.
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The increased risk exceeded 15% for those reporting more than 8.5 hours sleep or less than 3.5 or 4.5 hours
Dammit. I knew this was too good to be true.
This article from CNN reports the same thing. However, in this article The National Sleep Foundation suggests that the study may be flawed, and will do nothing but cause the public unnecessary confusion and concern.
There was a good 4 minute piece on NPR's _All Things Considered_ on Friday. Here's a RealAudio link. The conclusion seems to be that the data is statistically relevant but its still a very small change to a small risk.
The most telling quote:
So it's not exactly "sleep less, live longer".
OT bit: If you go to their main health page, you can see an article about vitamins being added to beer to make it more healthy. Cheers!
As the synopsis of the article says:
Causality is unproven.
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I tried submitting the Reuters version a couple days ago.
/. linked.
It's mostly the same stuff, but there are a couple of quotes that I found highly interesting which are missing from the version
"...the study shows that longer sleep is a risk factor for cancer as well as heart disease and stroke... Heart disease was the most common cause of death, followed by stroke and cancer."
"...some sleep loss actually acts as an antidepressant."
It's correlation certainly, but at least the other version of the story tells you what lots of sleep has been correllated to.
Though I admit it would be very nice if caffeine actually did lengthen life (as opposed ot just making it seem to be lived faster) ...
I realize you were joking, but it reminded me that I wish more people would realize that caffeine really is bad for you.
But reading that didn't do it for me. It was after I read this account of an extreme case of caffeine withdrawal that I decided enough is enough.
Sorry for straying O/T. Um, yeah, sleep! Who needs it! Life's too short! Bah! (there).
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
-The Professor, Futurama
I took his class and it was very interesting. One of the most memorable things that I learned is that there is no single "right amount of sleep" for everyone. Some people need more, others need less. The range that he reports is 2 to 10 hours a night. If you need 6 hours a night then that is what you need and 8 is too much. If you need 9 then you had better get 9 and getting less is harmful. Here is what his website has to say on the subject.
One of the other very interesting things I learned in his class was the concept of sleep latency. He has developed tests that can actually measure how sleep deprived a person is. Once you accumulate sleep debt it doesn't go away until you make that sleep up. Thus if you are a person who needs 7 hours of sleep a night and one night you only get 4 hours of sleep you will be sleep deprived until you make up that 3 hours that you missed. You can do the next night by sleeping 10 hours or you could continue to sleep 7 hours a night and run around sleep deprived for months until you make up the sleep.
I would trust his opinion more than some researchers who do not specialize in sleep and merely noticed a correlation while conducting a study that wasn't related to sleep or sleep disorders. On the subject of life expectancy he actually mentioned in class that life expectancy is correlated with the amount on sleep that you need each night. Someone who needs only 4 hours of sleep each night, he used President Clinton as an example, will have a shorter life expectancy. This directly contradicts the study mentioned in this article.
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Couple of points.
First... this does not mean that "IF you sleep less you will live longer"
It just means that there is some relation between lifespan and sleep. It could also be that those who live longer tend to have lifestyles that involve getting up earlier.
Or that, for some reason, those predisposed to along life just plain sleep less.
Also... not getting your 8 hours? Think you can get by on 4 or 5 hours a night? I've heard people say that...
Studies show very conclusively that you basically need 8 hours of sleep a night. If you don't get it one night, you'll make up for it later. When you don't sleep enough, you accumulate a 'sleep-debt' that the body WILL pay off eventually, even over a span of months.
Stayed up on speed for 3 days? You might not sleep for 24 hours straight afterwards.. but you WILL catch up over the next few days.
Other studies have shown that different people need different amounts of sleep to function best. The "average" is between 5 and 10 hours of sleep.
If you really need 10 hours of sleep, and you believe in the old "8 hours per night for everyone", you will be tired all the time. You'll probably sleep in on weekends, which disrupts your sleep cycle, and makes you even more tired when you get up on Monday.
On the other hand, if you should really be sleeping 7 hours per night and you get 8 or 9, you will also feel tired. Many people have found that a gradual, planned cutback of the number of hours they sleep has led to increased energy. This has also been used as an effective treatment for depression.
The important thing is to figure out how much sleep you need, and keep up (as near as possible) a steady sleep schedule, even through the weekend. You should also avoid things like alchohol and caffeine up to several hours before bedtime, as these will decrease the quality of your sleep, though they might not keep you awake.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.