Do you really need eight hours of sleep?

On Joe and Terry Graedon's The People's Pharmacy (show 1333, March 2023), one of the hosts told sleep psychologist Jade Wu that talk about the harms of short sleep can make people anxious, then read her an email from a listener, Linda. Wu, a behavioral sleep medicine specialist and author of Hello Sleep, said in that conversation that Linda had a good point. Her answer was short: the eight-hour rule has become a dogma, and it can harm our relationship with sleep. Some people need less than eight hours, she said, and some need more.

Sleep need is personal

Wu compared it to food. Nobody tells every adult to eat exactly 1,500 calories, because the right amount depends on your biology, your age, your lifestyle and even what you did that day. Sleep works the same way. She thinks a rigid number can strain what she calls your relationship with sleep: you start counting hours, worrying about the shortfall and trying harder. Her alternative is to learn your own sleep need and listen to your body.

Later in the same show, a caller asked whether she might be a natural short sleeper. Wu said such people exist but are fairly rare. The signs she gave: you function well, you aren't sleepy during the day, and you can't sleep longer even when you try.

What the guidelines say

Wu's point is about eight as a magic number, and the official advice doesn't use eight either. The 2015 consensus of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommends seven or more hours a night, on a regular basis, for adults aged 18 to 60, and it says individual need varies with genetic, behavioral, medical and environmental factors. So seven works as a floor for most adults, not a target everyone must hit, and some people need more. Nobody sleeps every minute in bed, so getting seven hours of sleep usually takes about seven and a half to eight hours in bed.

How do you tell where you sit? The NHS suggests a simple check: you're probably getting enough if you wake up feeling refreshed, have enough energy for the day and can focus on everyday tasks. Needing an alarm every day, or sleeping two or three hours longer on free days, points the other way.

How this fits the Better Sleep program

The 1h Protocol for Better Sleep doesn't hand you a number. It starts from your own lights-out and wake times, works out the time your night actually has, and compares it with what people your age typically need. If your answers point to the Squeezed pattern, too little time in bed, you start by making time rather than trying harder. Your fourteen-night sheet then has you rate your days, so you judge the plan by how you feel. The first chapter is free: find your sleep pattern.

Source: The People's Pharmacy, Show 1333: Overcoming Insomnia Without Medication, 4 Mar 2023 Research: AASM and Sleep Research Society, recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult (2015) · NHS Every Mind Matters, Sleep problems