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7
Myths About Sleep
Stay up and read this tonight (you’ll
thank us in the morning!)
A
WebMD feature from "Marie Claire" Magazine
By Karen Springen
1. To function best, you need to get
eight hours.
There's nothing magic about that number. Everyone
has different sleep needs, and you'll know you're
getting enough when you don't feel like nodding off
in a boring situation in the afternoon, says New
York University psychologist Joyce Walsleben, Ph.D.,
co-author of A Woman's Guide to Sleep .
2. If you can get it, more sleep is
always healthier.
You wish. Some studies have found that people who
slept more than eight hours a night died younger
than people who got between six and eight hours.
What scientists don't know yet: Whether sleeping
longer causes poor health or is a symptom of it,
says Najib Ayas, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of
medicine at the University of British Columbia. Long
sleepers may suffer from problems such as sleep
apnea, depression, or uncontrolled diabetes that
make them spend more time in bed.
3. Some people function perfectly on
four hours of sleep.
Legendary short sleepers — including Bill Clinton,
Madonna, and Margaret Thatcher — don't necessarily
do better on fewer Zs. "They're just not aware of
how sleepy they are," says Thomas Roth, Ph.D., sleep
researcher at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Too
little sleep is bad for your health and your image:
It can make you ineffective (it impairs performance,
judgment, and the ability to pay attention), sick
(it weakens your immune system), and overweight. In
fact, women who slept five hours or less a night
were a third more likely to gain 33 pounds or more
over 16 years than women who slept seven hours,
according to a Harvard Nurses' Health Study. Oddly,
cutting too much sleep and getting less than six
hours is associated with the same problems as
sleeping too long: a higher risk of heart problems
and death. And, of course, cheating on sleep hurts
you behind the wheel: "Wakefulness for 18 hours
makes you perform almost as though you're legally
drunk," says Walsleben.
4. Waking up during the night means
you'll be tired all day.
Au contraire: It might be our natural cycle. Many
animals sleep this way, and there are a lot of
indications that our ancestors did, too, perhaps
stirring nightly to talk or have sex, says Thomas
Wehr, M.D., scientist emeritus at the National
Institute of Mental Health. When 15 people in one of
his studies lived without artificial lights for a
few weeks, they wound up sleeping three to five
hours, waking up for one or two, then sleeping again
for four or more hours — and they said they had
never felt so rested.
5. You need prescription drugs if you
have insomnia every night.
Sleep meds are designed for short-term sleep
problems, caused by stressful events like the loss
of a job or taking a transatlantic flight. People
with longer-term problems benefit more from
cognitive behavioral therapy — essentially,
retraining your perceptions of sleep and learning
better sleep habits, such as going to bed at the
same time every night, avoiding TVs and computers
before bed, staying away from caffeine at least six
hours before sleep, and other lifestyle changes. In
fact, in 2005, the National Institutes of Health
concluded that this type of therapy is as effective
as prescription drugs for short-term treatment of
chronic insomnia. In many cases, a sleeping pill may
not even solve your sleep problem. "About half the
people who think they have insomnia may have anxiety
or depression," says Daniel Kripke, M.D., a
University of California at San Diego sleep expert.
6. You can make up for lost sleep on
weekends.
Bingeing on Zs over the weekend and not sleeping
during the week — what Harvard sleep expert Robert
Stickgold, Ph.D., calls "sleep bulimia" — upsets
your circadian rhythms and makes it even harder to
get refreshing sleep. Sleeping until noon on Sunday
generally prevents you from hitting the sheets by 10
that night. So instead of correcting your deficit
from the week before, you set up a no-sleep cycle
for the week to come. "The body loves consistency,"
says Donna Arand, Ph.D., spokeswoman for the
American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Best to rise
around the same time every day, even on weekends.
7. Tylenol PM is better than a
prescription sleep med for an occasional bout of
insomnia.
Not if the bout lasts longer than a few nights, says
Helene Emsellem, M.D., of the Center for Sleep &
Wake Disorders in Chevy Chase, MD. Tylenol PM is no
better than a prescription drug for people who have
trouble falling asleep, and may be less effective
than some prescription drugs, she says. The active
ingredient in Tylenol PM is an antihistamine, and
its side effect is that it makes you drowsy. Some
have reported a greater possibility of feeling
"hung-over" after taking antihistamines than after
taking prescription drugs. If you do decide to take
antihistamines, don't do it in the middle of the
night: They may stay active in your system for eight
hours or more. Another difference: Prescription
sleep drugs are thought to allow you to go through
all stages of the sleep cycle; no word on whether
antihistamines do the same.
©
WebMD. All rights reserved.
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Legendary short sleepers —
including Bill Clinton, Madonna, and Margaret
Thatcher — don't necessarily do better on fewer
Zs. "They're just not aware of how sleepy they
are" |
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