These aren't restorative in nature - and you won't feel refreshed if you only hit these two stages during the night. Sleep is comprised of four stages and REM - rapid eye movement - sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation. There's a lot of metabolic activity occurring at night." ( RazerM)Ī common misconception is that the brain essentially shuts down during sleep. "But if the 12 hours are bad quality, you didn't really sleep." 3) Your brain can be just as active during sleep as it is when awake "You can be in bed for 12 hours," Ruiz said. The key is to reach enough high-quality sleep that the brain recovers in full. Other research found that a single genetic mutation might explain why some people can get by on six or less hours of sleep each night.Īnd it's not just the hours that matter. Multiple studies have found that up to 80 percent of a person's need to sleep is genetic. Sadly, you can't train yourself to do this. That said, there are people who can get by on less sleep. Adults 65 and older are generally fine with seven to eight hours. Adults aged 18 to 64 generally need seven to nine hours of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation is pretty clear on its sleep guidelines. 2) You can't train yourself to sleep less. That hypothesis is controversial, though, since sleep does leave people quite vulnerable. Some experts even theorize that sleep actually helps some species evade predators, since it allows them to hide, be quiet, and be still for a long time. Other evidence suggests sleeping might be a way to preserve energy - particularly at night, when it's harder to find food in the wild. Some evidence suggests that deep sleep might allow the body to release growth hormones and make proteins associated with tissue repair. Sleep might help support other bodily functions, too. There's a lot of research to support this explanation, but scientists are unclear on the exact mechanisms. The brain might not be able to do this as well when awake. "That allows for the brain to rest and reset itself for the next day."Īnother theory is that sleep helps us consolidate memory - strengthening memories that might be particularly important, while discarding ones that aren't. "We think that sleep is a period when the brain actually purges or dumps all the toxins that build up during the day," Ruiz said. Some researchers theorize that the brain's cleaning system goes into overdrive during sleep. Yet despite all of this, the need to sleep has obviously stayed with us - so it must serve some function.
It forces people to spend one-third of their lives doing what feels like nothing, all while being potentially exposed to predators and unable to hunt for food. "We don't know why we sleep."įrom an evolutionary standpoint, sleep doesn't make much sense. "That's one of the beauties of the field," Ruiz said. Scientists agree sleep is essential to our health. "I have no idea why I'm doing this." ( Shutterstock) 1) Scientists still don't know why we need to sleep Here are nine surprising facts that came out of our conversation. To get a better sense of the science of sleep, I spoke to Camilo Ruiz, a sleep specialist with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. And that society functions in all sorts of subtle ways to rob us of sleep, from the light in our phones to the way the workday is set up. They've found that it's virtually impossible to train yourself to get by with less sleep - if you need 8 hours, it's likely genetic. Not sleeping enough can have all sorts of odd side effects, like making people more prone to gambling or more likely to find others attractive. In recent years, researchers have been discovering some bizarre things about the science of sleep. Most people already know that sleep is important and that they should probably get more of it.
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