I was reading yesterday that studies confirm that 7 hours of sleep is ideal for adults -- more or less than that amount doubles your risk of death by cardiovascular disease. (I secretly love studies that assess one's "risk of death" -- it's pretty much 100% for everyone....) I've always, always slept more than that, and felt that I needed it, and still felt like I needed even more sleep than I was getting.
These sleep studies always make me wonder if the people who sleep more actually need more sleep because they have underlying physical problems -- thus their higher mortality rate might make sense on that basis alone. And I always assumed that I was one of those people and that, at the very least, I shouldn't go through my short life exhausted.
But yesterday I thought, why not try sleeping this supposed ideal number of hours? What's the harm? The only drawback to trying it is that I might be very tired and may need to revert to my usual 9 or so hours. So I decided to give it a one or two week trial and see how it goes. Maybe I will sleep more "efficiently" and I'll definitely have more hours in the day, which would be exceedingly welcome.
Last night was my first 7-hour night. Predictably, I am a little tired today, but I did enjoy having the extra time last evening. You might think watching "Six Feet Under" is just squandering that extra time, but you would be wrong. Here at work I've been able to focus on my projects just fine, and I'm not so tired that I'm considering lying down under my desk.
I'll report more as the experiment continues...
These sleep studies always make me wonder if the people who sleep more actually need more sleep because they have underlying physical problems -- thus their higher mortality rate might make sense on that basis alone. And I always assumed that I was one of those people and that, at the very least, I shouldn't go through my short life exhausted.
But yesterday I thought, why not try sleeping this supposed ideal number of hours? What's the harm? The only drawback to trying it is that I might be very tired and may need to revert to my usual 9 or so hours. So I decided to give it a one or two week trial and see how it goes. Maybe I will sleep more "efficiently" and I'll definitely have more hours in the day, which would be exceedingly welcome.
Last night was my first 7-hour night. Predictably, I am a little tired today, but I did enjoy having the extra time last evening. You might think watching "Six Feet Under" is just squandering that extra time, but you would be wrong. Here at work I've been able to focus on my projects just fine, and I'm not so tired that I'm considering lying down under my desk.
I'll report more as the experiment continues...
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