Yes, a few lucky “short sleepers” are genetically inclined to thrive on only about four hours of shut-eye per night, but this condition is extremely rare.5 “Most of the time when someone says they only need five or six hours of sleep, what that means is that their ability to tolerate sleep deprivation is better than most,” says Meeta Singh, a sleep specialist at the Henry Ford sleep laboratory. “They’re actually walking around with sleep debt, and have forgotten what it feels like to be awake and alert.”
