Genuine short sleepers are extremely rare, Fu said in an email to Discover. In fact, studies have found some evidence to suggest that people who are in denial about being sleep deprived are more adversely impacted than they think. But researchers don’t think most of these people are natural short sleepers. If you think you’re a short sleeper, you’re probably just sleep deprived, like the roughly one-third of Americans who get less than seven hours of sleep a night.Īround 12 percent of Americans say they feel fine on less than six hours of sleep. Are You a Short Sleeper?įirst, let’s get some bad news out of the way. It’s simply a different way of being, one that we could learn a lot from. Understanding their superhuman sleep needs could unlock some of the standing mysteries of sleep, says Ying-Hui Fu, a researcher who studies the genetics and other attributes of short sleepers at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.įu stresses that natural short sleeping actually isn’t a syndrome or a condition that needs to be fixed. And, unsurprisingly, this group has caught the interest of researchers due to their sleep efficiency.Īlthough sleep needs do vary from person to person, natural short sleepers are rare unicorns in sleep research. It’s sort of like being both a night owl and early riser at the same time. Some short sleepers say a mere few hours of shut-eye a night is all they need to feel great. Short sleepers wake up feeling refreshed and wide awake, despite clocking six or less hours of sleep per night. But it seems that these guidelines don’t apply to a small segment of the population officially called natural short sleepers. Trump, Musk and Stewart all reportedly get by on less than six hours a night, making them part of the so-called “sleepless elite.” Most people need around seven to nine hours of sleep a night for overall health and well-being. Scientists call them natural short sleepers. Instead, we’re referring to the one percent of people who thrive on far less sleep than what is recommended by doctors and researchers. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to determine with a decent approximation just how much every person needs, which will go a long way to a healthy and productive life.What do Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Martha Stewart have in common? They’re part of the one percent. Short sleeping also tends to run in the family, so there is some genetic research being conducted on the issue too. It is currently believed that a short sleeper pattern emerges since childhood, and the pattern continues throughout the years, which can be a serious but unnecessary source of concern for family members and friends short sleepers should not be confused with insomnia, in which basically a person has trouble going to sleep or staying asleep. “Everybody can use more waking hours, even if you just watch movies.” “My long-term goal is to someday learn enough so we can manipulate the sleep pathways without damaging our health,” says human geneticist Ying-Hui Fu at the University of California-San Francisco. But by studying short sleepers, researchers believe they can somehow understand why the necessary amount of sleep time varies so much from individual to individual. There is currently no medically accepted way for one to teach himself to become a short sleeper, despite numerous reports and more or less documented cases. He was one of the authors of a 2001 study that had 12 confirmed short sleepers and 12 control subjects keep diaries and complete numerous questionnaires about their work, sleep and living habits. They’re always on the up side of life,” says Dr.
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