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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."
it seems from the report that the data are based on actual sleeping habits. this is to say that the time spent sleeping is, if anything, a symptom, not a cause. lots of rich people fly to Paris every day. this does not mean that flying to Paris every day will make you any richer.
-- Rolf Lindgren, cand.psychol
...but you'll feel like it ;-)
If I could tattoo one thing on everyone's head, it'd be: "Correlation does not equal causation!"
This study does not mean that if you sleep less, you will live longer. A correlation has been found, that's all. Maybe people who sleep less have better circulation, also linked with long life. Or maybe the space aliens who shorten life spend two hours a night doing it.
Point is, we don't know what's causing this effect, at least not from this article.
All this living longer is killing me.
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.
"'None of this says sleep kills people,' said Daniel Buysse, a University of Pittsburgh psychiatrist and the immediate past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. 'You should sleep as much as you need to feel awake, alert and attentive the next day...'"
"Sleeplessness produces health consequences that were not measured in the study,"
"The study relied on people's own reports of their sleeping habits,"
(very few reported that they had "CowboyNeal" hours of sleep)
"'You can choose to eat a Twinkie or a carrot, but I can't choose to sleep 12 hours or six -- I don't have that much voluntary control.'"
I dunno. It seems pretty obvious to me that, all else being equal, people tend to sleep longer when they are unhealthy because they are unhealthy. While I hesitate to use the term... Who am I kidding? I think people who are interpreting this as "Sleep less, live longer" are total Bozos, and I think the popular press is being irresponsible in their desire for a sensational story, as usual.
...Studies found that many people undergoing chemotherapy eventually die of cancer. The number was so high, in fact, that the only conclusion we can draw is that chemotheraphy causes cancer.
And tonight at 10: "Tylenol: headache in a bottle?"
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
I agree completely with roffe.
Think about it, who do you know that sleeps 8+ hours a day, other than the elderly and sick (both groups who at more likely to die than the average person)? And from my experience, the "average person" generally has more important things to do than spend 8+ hours a day sleeping. So as roffe said, sleeping 8+ hours a day is more likely a symptom of someone trying to maintain their health, because they are in danger of dying.
To put it another way, when I had mono I was sleeping 12 hours a day, and the hours I was awake, it felt like I was dying. And it wasn't like I had to force myself to sleep, my body was naturally making me sleep longer so I wouldn't end up dying. And gee, would you guess what? When I got better, I went back to my normal 6-7 hours of sleeping!
Does anyone want to fund my study? I'm going to see if age has anything to do with death.
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
Sure you will live longer, but you won't remeber it.
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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