Sleep. Why You Might Not Need As Much As You Think

Sleep 8 hours they say. Well, 7–9 hours, but the noise in the self-improvement and health space seems to yell 8 hours.

Matthew Walker says in his book Why We Sleep, “The World Health Organization and the National Sleep Foundation both stipulate an average of eight hours of sleep per night for adults.”

No, they don’t.

That is made up.

The National Sleep Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend “7 or more” for adults.¹

Additionally, research from the American Academy of Sleep and Sleep Research Society claims, “Current evidence supports the general recommendation for obtaining 7 or more hours of sleep per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health among adults aged 18 to 60 years.”²

Not “an average of eight hours of sleep per night for adults.”

This is a major distinction.

Here’s why.

The Difference Between 7 and 8 Hours of Sleep

The difference is one hour.

Sure, one hour doesn’t seem like much, but let’s have a look.

One hour more of being awake per day is 365 more hours per year.

Big deal, right?

But 365 more hours a year is about 15 more days awake, alive, and doing things, each year.

Not too bad, huh?

And 15 more days a year over 24 years, is one entire year of life, awake…alive…doing things…living!

I don’t know about you, but if someone gave me one entire, healthy, vibrant year awake, and the whole time I could do things, and just simply added it to my time here on this Planet, I’d say Fuck yea!

Let’s go one layer further.

How to Get 4 Extra Years of Life (or More)

First, it’s important to note the difference between sleep opportunity and actual sleep.

Sleep opportunity is the time you give yourself for sleeping; your time in bed. Actual sleep is, well, when you are actually asleep.

If you’re like me, then you thought that if you got into your bed at midnight and then woke up at 8 am, you were “getting 8 hours of sleep.”

Wrong.

It seems so silly and obvious now, looking back.

But at the time, that’s what I thought.

The truth is, we tend to lose a fair amount of time to sleep goblins: if you go to bed at midnight and wake up at 8 am, you are probably only getting 7–7.5 hours of sleep, based on a myriad of factors — the time it takes to fall asleep, stress, light, exercise, sunlight, when and what you ate, temperature, going the bathroom, etc.

And I obsessed about getting 9 hours of sleep because I was convinced I needed it. More accurately, 9 hours of sleep opportunity so I could get the necessary 8 hours of actual sleep.

The problem?

8–9 hours might have been doing more harm than good.

The other problem?

If you change that from 9 hours in bed to 7 hours in bed, you gain two hours of life back per day.

Okay, cool. I’ll take it.

Wait, but two hours a day for a year is 730 hours a year, or about 30.5 days. An entire extra month awake, alive, and doing life each year!

And every twelve years you get back an entire year of life, awake!

If you did that, over the next 48 years of life, you would get 4 years of awake life added to your life!

That blows my mind!

4 whole years.

That is a lot of time: more time to read all those books you’ve wanted to read; more time to love more; more time to travel to that remote village that you’ve always wanted to go see; more time to, well, do whatever the fuck you want, actually.

Why We Sleep Doesn’t Have to Be Scary

This is relevant because Walker’s book was read by millions of people. I was one of them. And I left that book feeling pretty rattled.

It was a scary book.

Doubling your risk of cancer if you consistently sleep less than six or seven hours a night, destroying your ability to consolidate memories, impairing your ability to create memories, stifling learning, increasing your risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and the list goes on.

It had me obsessed with trying to get enough sleep.

And that’s a good thing.

But not really.

Here’s the thing: we need sleep or we will die.

Got it? Good.

How Much Sleep Do You Need?

Now with that said, it’s important to say that the exact amount of sleep needed to avoid all of those ailments mentioned above or to live longer, is relatively unknown. It’s not an exact science. There are too many factors at play.

7 versus 9 hours doesn’t seem like much of a difference. Even 7 versus 8 hours. But it is. It is a very big difference.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an argument against sleep. Sleep is essential for day-to-day health and longevity. But obsessing over it, like I did, is not beneficial.

This is, however, an article to question how much sleep we really need and how to get good at it.

It’s also to point out that sleep anxiety is a real thing, and having people terrified that they are going to die if they don’t get “8 hours of sleep” every. single. night. is not helpful.

So next time you find yourself worried about your sleep, ask some questions. Talk to your doctor. Reflect on things. But don’t panic.

It’ll be okay.

It’ll be okay.

Rules For Sleep (adapted from Why We Sleep):

1. Stick to a sleep schedule! (Do your best to stick to the same sleep-wake times every day. If you can’t, try waking up at the same time every morning and going to sleep when you are tired. I’ve found that sticking to a strict sleep-wake time, my quality of sleep skyrockets, and I lose almost no sleep to the sleep goblins.)
2. Sleep in your bed, not on the couch, and the bed is only for sleep, sex, and maybe light reading.
3. Exercise (30 minutes per day).
4. Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine.
5. Avoid large meals, junk food, and beverages late at night.
6. Avoid medicines that delay or disrupt your sleep.
7. Don’t take naps after 4:00 p.m.
8. Relax before bed — have a nighttime routine.
9. Take a hot bath or shower before bed (this, ironically, helps you cool your body temperature).
10. Dark bedroom/eye mask, cool bedroom, gadget-free bedroom (avoid clocks and NO PHONE IN THE BEDROOM if you can’t handle it!)
11. Get sunlight exposure in the morning (at least 30 minutes each day).
12. Don’t lie in bed awake if you can’t sleep.

So here are a few tips to get good at sleep that I use:

1. Dim the lights in the evening.
2. Blue-blocker glasses (but who the fuck knows if they really work. I have my doubts).
3. 30 minutes — 1 hour before bed (when I start to feel sleepy) I start a “shutdown routine”.
4. Stop working or doing whatever it is on any device or screen.
5. No devices (kind of, Kindle seems okay for me).
6. 2–3 minute review of the day (What small change can I make?, What was great today?, What must I do tomorrow?)
7. 2–3 minute Next-day Plan (BuJo and Block Scheduling).
8. Brush teeth.
9. Warm shower.
10. 5-minute stretch.
11. Meditate (10–20 minutes, not in bed).
12. Read.
13. Sleep with an eye mask and sleep sounds.
14. Dream cool shit.

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Note: Alexy Guzey lays assault on Walker’s claims in two outstanding, insightful, and well-documented essays breaking down the misinformation found in Why We Sleep (more specifically, Chapter 1).⁴ My article was 100% inspired by Guzey’s brilliance and questioning, mainly his notation of this meta-analysis that recommended 7 hours of sleep: Shen X, Wu Y, Zhang D. Nighttime sleep duration, 24-hour sleep duration and risk of all-cause mortality among adults: a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Scientific Reports. 2016 Feb 22;6:21480.⁵ Also, this is not medical advice or advice to not sleep or to sleep less than the recommended amount. It is simply advice to question the advice.

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29073398/ ↩︎
2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4434546/ ↩︎
3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4761879/ ↩︎
4. https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/ ↩︎
5. https://guzey.com/theses-on-sleep/ ↩︎

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