If you are one of the many people who think that they can train themselves to need less sleep, then you're wrong.
According to James Hamblin, in his recent article for The Atlantic, adapting or getting yourself used to less sleep is not training yourself to function just the same with less amount of sleep. Your mental performance will not be the same and will be more likely to suffer.
In one study, Hamblin cited how participants in the experiment who had less sleep showed poor performance on cognitive tests compared to those who had 8 hours of sleep.
Dr. Sigrid Veasey, a professor at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, has also previously shared why training yourself to need less sleep is not true. He explained that we can be fine with less sleep but it will affect your judgment on your sleep perception.
Many studies have shown how sleep deprivation can affect a person's functionality and healthy adults need at least seven to nine hours of sleep a day, according to the National Sleep Foundation. The older people who are above 65 need around seven to eight hours of sleep, teenagers need eight to ten hours and school aged children need about nine to eleven hours.
The research suggest that even if people have adapted to just sleeping for less number of hours, their mental performance is not functioning at its peak even if they do not feel particularly sleepy. At the end of the day, there's really no way to hack the amount of sleep that your body needs. It's about giving the rest your body needs when it needs it and getting up when you feel you're ready.
