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How much sleep do we need?
Ferrara M, De Gennaro L.
Department of Psychology, University of Rome "La Sapienza" Rome, Italy
There is increasing concern for sleeplessness-related risks in modern society.
Some recent epidemiological data seem to support the view that many segments of
the adult population have chronically inadequate sleep. On the other hand, some
experts have claimed that our core, basic amount of sleep is around 6 h per
night, and that the rest of our sleep can be easily curtailed, being unnecessary
to fulfill any sleep need. However, experimental data on the effects of both
acute and cumulative partial sleep deprivation (PSD) consistently point out that
sleep restriction has substantial negative effects on sleepiness, motor and
cognitive performance and mood, as well as on some metabolic, hormonal and
immunological variables.
As chronic PSD may have serious long-term adverse health effects, it should
be avoided in the general population. In the short-term, the effects of sleep
curtailment seem to accumulate linearly, while the effects of long-term PSD
should be further investigated, as the few available studies are flawed by
methodological weaknesses.
On the other hand, there is evidence that extending sleep by 2-3 hours beyond
the norm produces only marginal benefits for an average individual. Finally, it
is underlined that, as large individual differences do exist in the need for
sleep, the search for the sleep need may be vain. A somnotypology, taking into
account age, gender and the position in both the sleep-alert and the
morningness-eveningness continuum, should help in the search for the actual
individual sleep need
. 2001 Harcourt Publishers Ltd
[PubMed - as supplied by publisher
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