Simply Sleep

We've all heard it before: get 8 hours of sleep per night.  Most of us just hear that and roll our eyes, who needs 8 hours a night!?  You. 
On Friday, I was sitting in on a lecture at Mayo Medical School, topic: neurology, focusing on sleep and sleep deprevation.  This lecture in particular interested me because as a college student, I feel like I understand sleep deprevation quite will, especially considering last week was finals week. 

Last week, during the midst of finals week, I averaged 5 hours of sleep a night for roughly four nights straight.  Throughout the semester this wasn't uncommon either, so I thought it would be no problem during finals week since my body "had adjusted."  However, what I learned on Friday changed my view quite substantially on sleep and just how important it really is.

Here is a short summary of some of the "fun facts" I learned:

• Getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night is necessary.
• You're body never adjusts to inadequate sleep.
• Getting more then 9 hours of sleep a night is actually worse for you then getting 6.
• Naps should be 0-30 minutes or 90+ minutes.  If you nap in between that time you will more then likely feel tired and groggy with a significantly less amount of energy for the remainder of the day. 
• Your natural "cycle" urges you to nap between 12 and 2, its not because you eat a large lunch that you feel tired.  Your "tiredness" slightly increases naturally here. 

A study contducted took people and restricted their sleeping.  One group got to sleep 8 hours, one group 6, and the last group 4.  After each night, the groups had to record whether they felt "tired" or "not tired" and whether they "had adjusted" or "not adjusted."  Just about every person said that they "had adjusted" to the amout of sleep after a few days.  However, they also had to do a physical test.  Their attentivemenss and responsiveness were both tested.  The groups that got 6 and 4 hours of sleep had significantly lower attentiveness and responsiveness then the group that got 8 hours of sleep. 

So here is my experiment.  For the next week I will be sleeping 8 hours a night.  Impossible?  Maybe.  But I'm going to force myself to do it, at least for a week. 

Sweet dreams.