Why Six Hours of Sleep Is as Bad as None at All

Interesting study, bad title. The claim is that getting 6 hours per night is as bad as not sleeping for two nights.<p>The other interesting aspect is that the people who got six hours night after night underreported their fatigue. That fits with my experience. Several years ago, I started missing out on a lot of sleep (young kids, trying to learn programming while working a full time job). When I finally started sleeping enough, I felt like I was fully awake for the first time in years. Before, I would notice I was truly exhausted, and sleep more for a day or two, but I was never actually catching up, just taking the worst of the edge off.

What about people that naturally only need 6 hours of sleep? Are they tricking themselves to believing that?<p>Can you condition yourself to only need 6 hours of sleep and get a full nights rest?

The study [1] is from 2003 and has been cited over 1600 times. It had errata in 2004 published in the same journal (Sleep), but I haven&#x27;t been able to find them.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.med.upenn.edu&#x2F;uep&#x2F;user_documents&#x2F;VanDongen_etal_Sleep_26_2_2003.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.med.upenn.edu&#x2F;uep&#x2F;user_documents&#x2F;VanDongen_etal_S...</a>