How much can an extra hour's sleep change you?

Doesn&#x27;t matter for me. I hardly get much deep sleep due to anatomical issues essentially blocking my airways. I can&#x27;t afford the surgery (even though I have insurance) nor will my government contribute to it (even though it would increase my productivity multiple times over, meanwhile they throw trillions at universities offering useless degrees).<p>But yes, we have a culture that doesn&#x27;t value sleep. I know of people who schedule emails to be sent in the middle of the night just so they appear to be working all the time. Construction can begin at 7AM in NYC, waking up hundreds of people in surrounding buildings. Gas leaf blowers emit one of the most stressful drone sounds out in the suburbs, causing stress to dozens of neighbors, so one man can clear a pavement of dead leaves quicker.<p>And just this morning over Manhattan, a helicopter hovered at 6AM for at least an <i>hour</i>. An hour, sitting there, hovering, for God knows what reason, awaking possibly <i>thousands</i> of people early, causing possibly <i>millions</i> in lost productivity today.

I will. As soon as my son becomes a teenager I have every intention of remaining asleep beyond 7AM. Until then, I&#x27;m at his unlimited, energetic mercy.

&gt; <i>So we asked seven volunteers ... The volunteers were randomly allocated to two groups. </i><p>Ahem

<i>Deep sleep sounds restful, but during it our brains are actually working hard. One of the main things the brain is doing is moving memories from short-term storage into long-term storage, allowing us more short-term memory space for the next day. If you don&#x27;t get adequate deep sleep then these memories will be lost.</i><p>Compacting garbage collection.

With our technologies for stress monitoring, I&#x27;ve been amazed at how much naps seem to reduce stress. You go from being pretty high to pretty low within twenty minutes.

My FitBit tells me that my average sleep time is 7.5 hours. That&#x27;s pretty good for me since I&#x27;m a light sleeper. My girlfriend moving in bed wakes me up.<p>Worse than that is that if I do have a lie in, or I sleep longer than 8 hours — yes, I recorded sleep before my FitBit — I&#x27;d end up with headaches all day and night, worsening my sleep the next night. 7.5 hours seems to be my perfect sleep duration.<p>I&#x27;ve never been able to have a lie in, even when growing up with my parents and going through puberty. I&#x27;d want to lie in, but my parents would have me up by 8:30 every day. 9AM on rare occasions. I wonder if that&#x27;s got anything to do with it.

I often wondered about sleep recommendations that focus on the amount of time. I realize that if you try to sleep for seven hours instead of six you are likely to get more sleep. But my problem is that not every person is getting the same quality of sleep in that period of time. If I sleep seven hours I may be getting as much rest as another person who sleeps six or a person who sleeps eight or nine hours.<p>Sleep is another of those things that is not one-size-fits-all and I guess having a sleep study done is the only way to find out for sure what you need individually.

I know there&#x27;s a lot of research in the effects of sleep deprivation on health, but the study referenced in the article had only 7 participants, segmented into two groups. Doesn&#x27;t that seem like a really small sample size?

Note that you can use it to your advantage too. Bad allergy? Sleep less, it&#x27;ll raise your corti??? and reduce the effect of the allergy. Not a long term solution, but works well when you are at the pick of it.

I don&#x27;t believe all of this claims about sleep. I sleep 10 to 12 hours a night and I always feel like shit. Even when I had to go to school, I used to sleep 8 hours a night and I was drowsy for most of the day.