Rest

“Almost everyone has heard a story about someone famous who doesn’t need much sleep: Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Margaret Thatcher, the list goes on and on.
In our fast-paced, global society, many people consider it a big plus to need as little sleep as possible. But almost every sleep researcher will tell you that most people need at least seven hours of sleep for biological and psychological health. So there is a glaring disconnect between what the messages in our culture say about sleep and the messages we receive from scientists.
Dr. Eve Van Cauter, a sleep researcher and professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, says that many people today, especially in the United States, take pride in not getting much sleep.
“Sleeping as little as possible is viewed as a badge of honour here,” Van Cauter says.
Short sleepers, people who can do with five hours of sleep a night, do exist. But most sleep researchers say they comprise only 10 percent or less of the population.
And Van Cauter even wonders about all those famous people who supposedly don’t need sleep. She notes that Bill Clinton, a notorious short sleeper, had heart surgery in his 50s, with no obvious risk factors.
Dinges says most people will show serious impairments if they are deprived of sleep for even a few days. The problem is most people assume they are fine when they are not.
“People will often say, ‘I am good to go,'” he says. “It is that disconnect between your ability to introspect your alertness and impairment and how impaired you are cognitively, which is why we think many people believe they are doing fine when they not doing so fine.””