You only need 46 minutes of extra sleep to function better.
It’s well known that having a good night’s sleep is needed for brain health and alertness. Although we have been often told we should strive for around eight hours of sleep, that rule has been proven to be more generalised.
What you really need, researchers say, is just 46 extra minutes of sleep than usual. And that could make all the difference to your health.
Sleep deprivation has been well researched and the negative impacts can range from memory and cognition issues, to DNA damage, and even poor sexual performance.
However, a new study by researchers at Baylor University in Texas revealed that sleeping for a set extra minutes per night positively contributed to participants’ overall well-being, pro-sociability, gratitude, resilience and ‘flourishing’ – which in positive psychology means to find fulfilment in our lives.
The research, which is published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, wanted to focus more on the positive traits that can be enhanced thanks to a good night’s sleep, rather than on the things which are made worse by sleep deprivation.
The idea came from first year medical student Alexander Do, who conducted the research for his honors thesis. Supervisor Dr Micheal Scullin said: ‘Alex did an excellent job coming up with a novel thesis idea, which built a bridge between the work that he had been doing in my sleep lab for two years prior and a new area that would expand the sleep field in a meaningful way.’
So what did the researchers do, exactly?
In the study, a group of 90 young adults aged between 18-24 were placed randomly into three groups: late bedtimes who went to sleep at 2am and woke up at 7.30am, early bedtimes who went to sleep at 10.30pm and got up at 7.30am or those who just did their usual sleep routine during the working week.
Those going to bed later decreased their sleep by an average of 37 minutes compared to the usual sleep group’s average. The early group was allowed much more sleep, gaining an average of 46 minutes compared to the normal sleepers.
The participants were also asked to keep a diary of their sleep habits, which were monitored via an actigraphy through a smartwatch. At the beginning and at the end of the week, they also completed questionnaires to assess their levels of sleepiness and underwent some cognitive testing.
How much sleep do you need?
Sleep is important to rest and repair our mind and body. It is vital for us to maintain good physical and mental health and well-being.
On average, a healthy adult needs around 7 to 9 hours of sleep, but this is influenced by age, health, and personal circumstances. Plus, some people just tend to sleep more than others.
A good way to figure out how much sleep you need is to pay attention to the amount of hours you sleep when you function at your best. If you have a smart watch it may be worth seeing if you wake up a lot during the night too which could be affecting your sleep time.
The researchers wanted to see if improved sleep could improve mental well-being, changes in state, and feelings of flourishing, resilience and gratitude and behavioural expressions of gratitude in a journal.
They found that very subtle changes in sleep patterns were enough to have a significant impact.
Co-author Dr Micheal Scullin said: ‘We saw that people who increased their sleep by 46 minutes a night ended up feeling more resilience, gratitude, life satisfaction, and purpose in life.
‘When people were cut back on sleep by a mild average of 37 minutes a night, they experienced drops in mood, resilience, flourishing and gratitude.’
The researchers also found that it wasn’t only the participants’ well-being that was affected. Sleep was linked to more prosocial behaviours, such as giving to charities and taking part in community initiatives which could have much wider societal impacts.
Dr Scullin said: ‘It turns out that getting more sleep has a broader influence than just feeling more alert during the day. Better sleep helps you to have a clear vision for your life and to be more resilient to the challenges that could happen tomorrow.’
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