The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It

by W. Chris Winter

A word of comfort: Scientific studies have established that if an adult sleeps well, usually six to seven hours will suffice. Many of my patients with sleep problems often feel they need nine hours or more of sleep to feel okay. Imagine asking one hundred adults how much sleep they need to feel their best. Most of the adults who unknowingly have sleep problems answer with unusually high numbers. This is one of the factors that can lead survey analysts and researchers to conclude that the average amount of sleep we all need is eight hours. Six to seven hours is absolutely fine for some people. For adults over the age of sixty-five, as little as five hours could be appropriate according to the 2015 consensus paper by Nathaniel Watson and his colleagues. The hunter-gatherer cultures mentioned in the last chapter were averaging only about six and a half hours of sleep each night and yet they appeared to be quite healthy and well adjusted.