The genetic aspects of sleep patterns

I’ve always thought the notion that everyone needs eight hours of sleep a night was a crock. This sort of admonition just worries people and drives them toward medications. “Experts” say that sleeping less than seven hours per night on a regular basis is associated with adverse outcomes, such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and a lot more. I don’t buy that, either. As it turns out, now scientists are saying some people do well on less sleep. Duh.

Researchers have now found people who are natural “short sleepers.” They average only 6.25 hours of sleep a night and suffer no ill effects. This group is healthy, optimistic, and has a high pain threshold. Being a short sleeper, they’ve found, is a genetic thing—a mutation, they call it—which has been shown to facilitate learning and memory, reduce anxiety and block the detection of pain. And what about the three the hunter-gatherer societies whose sleep patterns were studied? Researchers found that those folks average 6.5 hours of sleep per night (as I reported in an earlier post). As for me, I usually sleep between six and seven hours—rarely eight. At any rate, I don’t worry about not getting enough sleep. I figure my body will get the sleep it needs.

Scientists know the biological processes that tell our bodies when to sleep—our circadian system. But they don’t understand the system that tells our bodies how much sleep we need. Not only that, they have never figured out why we need to sleep at all. As one scientist said, “when it comes to what sleep is, how much you need and what it’s for, we know almost nothing.” So don’t go telling me how much sleep I need.

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