ANSWERS: 8
  • Yes, you can train yourself to sleep less but be prepared for the health problems that may follow. Reduction of exercise means less sleep but loss of memory and weight gain is often a result. Less creativity and productivity may be a part of the scenario too. Set the alarm for one hour earlier and see how that works. Most people need about 7 hours a night but many function on only 4 hours sleep. It depends on what your body needs but be careful that you don’t compromise good health by training yourself for less sleep.
  • Yep. no doubt about it. Sleep and how much has a thought process which is controlled by the side of our brain which has the oh so powerful control process,thoughts, our memory and our feelings. clyde
  • Yes, it is quite easily possible to train yourself to sleep less. This comes with many side effects as well though, such as: less active thinking, health concerns, a need for a healthy diet if you want to maintain your current less of fit, as well as others. In fact there is a sleeping habit that many famous people in the past used including: Da Vinci and Jefferson, that provides you with only 2 hours of sleep that you accumulate of the course of the day. Though this may sound crazy, it is actually very true. Your body will become accustom to whatever sleep cycle you force it into and will begin you REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep cycle earlier in accordance to your sleep pattern. (link for the 2 hour sleep program http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=892542)
  • Yes it is very possible to adapt your body to any requirements you may have for sleep. Throughout modern history there have been cases (some of which have already been stated in previous answers to this question) of more famous people to have done so. I'll add another: the US military. Obviously other militaries do this but the most documented is the US. SEALs get very few hours sleep over the course of few days but when trained to adapt to this, they have no problems overcoming barriers/obstacles and thinking clearly. All other recruits are train in similar though less rigorous circumstances and function on society's 'minimal' amount of sleep. The point being... although it is a lot less common, sleeping only a few hours each night is indeed attainable and perhaps even desirable in this day and age... I know I could use a few extra hours each day!
  • I am going to take the dissenting position from the other posters. It is generally quite difficult to safely reduce the amount of sleep you require, unless you are willing to pay a physiological price. If you are receiving an appropriate amount of each of the four stages of sleep, you cannot reduce the sleep period without experiencing a deterioration in your health. It may take some time before this is apparent, but it will occur nonetheless. An individual must go through adequate periods of each of the four stages of sleep, particularly the delta and REM sleep phases, to remain healthy. Many people remain in bed for a longer period than required, lightly sleeping or dozing in the first two sleep phases. A reduction in the length of time these persons spend resting can be managed without adverse health effects, providing they continue to receive adequate periods of restorative sleep. However, with others, a reduction in the sleep period will also produce a corresponding reduction in the amount of restorative sleep. This can cause several health problems over a prolonged period of time. Curtailing sleep often means that one does not enter deep and/or REM sleep. Some people require quite long periods of rest and still will not achieve adequate restorative sleep. Many of these suffer from one or more medical conditions that prevent them from sleeping properly, e.g., sleep apnea or chronic pain. Medical assistance in the form of small doses of drugs such as trazodone or amitriptyline, are taken before going to bed at night. These will often assist the person to enter deep sleep. So, in short, trying to reduce the amount of sleep you receive may cause medical problems over the long term. You should feel completely rested when you wake in the morning. If you do not, there may a medical condition preventing it, one that should be dealt with before you experience adverse health effects. By the way, disrupting a person's sleep has been used by torturers for centuries. Don't torture yourself over some mythical concept of sleep. You cannot live on two or three hours of sleep a night - at least you can't for very long.
  • Yes, I have done it but with some bad results. Everybody requires a certain amount of sleep. Usually between 6-8 hours. When you deprive yourself of sleep you have problems focusing, remembering things, and nodding out. It always catches up with you . I personally nodded out while driving a couple times. It scared me to the point that I had to come up with a solution to get more sleep.
  • I beleive the answer is yes, and the way in which I sleep less, is being aware of the time. I have two clocks by the bed (one battery operated in case of power failure) Often if I know I have to get up at a certain time to go somewhere, I will wake up before the alarm goes off. The bodies "alarm clock" is so aware of the time, that if say, I want to wake up at 6:00am (when I normally wake at 8:00am) I wake up around 10 minutes early. This has been happening for years. I don't know why but it gets me to where ever I'm going on time.
  • Depends on what you want to lose...ability to concentrate, clear thinking, short-term memory, good mood, etc. etc. Been there, done that. It is btw. possible to exist on 2-4 hours of sleep a night during a couple of years. But expect a major mental breakdown to happen. Up to hallucinations and stuff. Bypassing on sleep? I'd bypass that thought.

Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC

Answerbag | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy