- Many common beliefs about sleep are actually myths, including that turkey makes you sleepy, counting sheep helps you fall asleep, and you can train your body to need less sleep. - While sleeping, the brain is still very active performing important tasks like forming memories, consolidating learning, and removing waste from the brain. - The amount of sleep needed varies by age, but most adults need between 7-9 hours per night, and getting less chronic sleep can have serious health risks like heart disease and diabetes.

1. 10 Myths About Sleep
by Maria Trimarchi»
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Getting More Sleep Image Gallery
Incorrect beliefs about the science of sleep could be keeping
you from getting the best and most beneficial rest.
Rip van Winkle was an idle man, who, as the story goes, took a
walk in the woods to catch a break from his wife, drank a
stranger's brew and proceeded to fall asleep for 20 years. You,
however, can't sleep for 20 years (no matter what you may be
trying to escape). Nor can you go without. Not only does a lack
of sleep kill your brain cells, it could also eventually kill you.
But what of the more subtle aspects of sleep science? For
example, did you know that you yawn less when you're cold?
And did you know that counting sheep won't help you fall
asleep, and that it might actually keep you awake longer? Let's

2. get to the bottom of some of the most common myths about
sleep, including how many hours are ideal.
If your schedule allows it, getting part of your needed daily
rest during the day might work best for you.
©Purestock/Thinkstock
Although 40 percent of us are falling short, it won't surprise you
that it's true, on average, that most adults should aim for about
eight hours of sleep, give or take an hour [source:Jones]. How
much sleep we need varies based on age: If you're between age
18 and 64, for instance, your goal should be between seven and
nine hours of sleep, and anyone over 65 should try for seven to
eight hours.
Those who haven't reached adulthood yet need more than eight
hours. Teenagers, for example, need eight to 10 hours, and kids
ages 6 to 13 should be getting between nine and 11 hours per
night. And when it comes to the little ones, we're looking at
between 10 and 17 hours depending on age (3- to 5-year-olds
need 10 to 13 hours; 1- to 2-year-olds need 11 to 14 hours;

3. infants ages 4 to 11 months need 12 to 15 hours; and newborns,
between 14 and 17 hours) [sources: NSF, Hischkowitz, et al].
It's important to remember, though, that the recommended
guidelines may not be appropriate for everyone, and catching up
with the sandman in small blocks throughout your day rather
than spending the night with him might work out better for some
people. Sleeping eight hours through the night is
called monophasic sleep, but not everyone is a monophasic
sleeper. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, is a famous example of
apolyphasic sleeper, which means he slept in a few segments
throughout the day rather than all at once. In fact, monophasic
sleep cycles are a relatively new thing for humans, changing
around the time that electricity became commonplace. Most
animals arepolyphasic sleepers, and historically humans were
once naturally biphasic sleepers, meaning we slept for four
hours, spent a few hours awake, and returned to sleep for
another four hours [source: Campbell and Murphy].

4. You may have convinced yourself you need less sleep than
everyone else. That might be true, but the odds are greater
that you’ve just stopped noticing how tired you are.
© Anna Bizoń/iStock/Thinkstock
It's true that there are some people who need just a few hours of
sleep each night. However, it's probably not you or me. The
numbers are quite small; only an estimated 1 to 3 percent among
us can function just fine with only five hours of sleep each
night. Short sleepers, nicknamed the "sleepless elite" tend to run
in families; it's not that they've somehow trained themselves to
need less sleep, though (we'll get to that later). Rather, they
carry a gene variation, hDEC2, that allows them to go without,
and with no apparent consequence [source: Beck]. The rest of
us, well, we just stopped noticing how tired we are.
Too little sleep, though, makes you more than just
drowsy. Sleep deprivation is associated with some pretty severe
health problems, including obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
Get too little sleep -- five hours or fewer per night -- and you
double your risk of death from all causes [source: Peri]. And
once you've been awake for 18 hours, you may be more than
just a little tired. Get behind the wheel of your car at that point,
for example, and you could be mistaken for driving under the
influence.

5. You can make yourself get up early, but that doesn’t mean
your body has gotten all the sleep it requires.
© Erik De graaf/Hemera/Thinkstock
About half of American adults say they don't get enough sleep
(only 30 percent report that they get, on average, at least six
hours of sleep every day). Many of us rely on coffee or another
source of caffeine to stay awake, and fewer of us take naps. And
at least 45 percent of men polled believe that people can train
themselves to need less sleep [source: Better Sleep
Council, CDC].
Sorry guys, but we can't. Sleep isn't a waste of time, you won't
sleep when you're dead and you can't train your body to function
just fine on very little sleep. During combat, for instance,
soldiers may need to remain awake for long periods of time,
unable to get several hours at one time, perhaps needing to stay
awake for 48 hours or longer. Research conducted by the Walter
Reed Army Institute of Research found that despite all attempts,
humans are unable to adapt to getting fewer hours of shut-eye

6. than their body requires every day [source: Szivos]. Each of us
has our own sleep requirement, and no matter how hard you try,
your body isn't going to change its mind about that. You may
stop noticing the effects of your sleep deprivation after a while,
but less sleep is associated with heart disease and high blood
pressure in addition to depression, diabetes, weight gain and
even premature death.
Sleeping late on your day off may feel amazing, but if you’re
chronically cutting your sleep short, it won’t make up for
the lost dozing.
©Thinkstock Images
Although you may feel more refreshed after indulging in a long
night of sleep after a week of early mornings, recovering from
your sleep debt — the difference between the hours of sleep
your body requires and the number of you're actually getting —
takes time, and definitely more than just one night of good
sleep. If, for instance, your sleep patterns are similar to the

7. average American adult, you're sleeping 6.8 hours on weekdays
and a little more, 7.4 hours, on weekend nights. If your sleep
goal is 8 hours a night, your sleep debt ends up totaling more
than two weeks every year [source:Webster].
Eventually, you may settle that debt if it's a short-term deficit
(one all-nighter, for example). But in the case of long-term sleep
debt, you might not be able to. Even if you do repay a short-
term loss of sleep, you're still at an increased risk of developing
the health problems associated with sleep
deprivation [source: Cohen, et a].
When you’re unconscious and lost in dreamland, your brain
is active, performing vital tasks.
© Johan Swanepoel/iStock/Thinkstock
Your brain doesn't take the night off when you're asleep; it's
actually pretty busy while you doze. This is when your brain
forms new memories. It also links memories with older
memories and consolidates memories for long-term storage.

8. And it does the same with motor skills, too, so if you're learning
a new dance or want to improve your swing, don't skimp on
sleep — it's when you develop muscle memory. While you're
not actually physically making the movements of that new
dance while you snooze, you're processing complex information
and even making decisions — or at least making the links
between information that's important to something in your
waking life.
And, as if that's not enough to keep your brain busy while you
catch some Zs, this is also the time when your brain takes out
the trash. Literally, it's when the body's glymphatic system gets
to work, sending cerebrospinal fluid flowing through the brain
and removing waste products [source: Xie, et al]. If the brain
isn't able to clean up, it leaves you at risk for developing
neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Even as you mature, you still need plenty of sleep.

9. © michaeljung/iStock/Thinkstock
Sleep experts recommend that older adults aim for seven to
eight hours of sleep every night, which, as you can see, is not
much different than the seven to nine hours recommended for
young and middle-aged adults [source: Hirshkowitz, et al]. You
don't need less sleep as you get older, although your sleep habits
are likely to shift with age. Seniors frequently report that while
they don't regularly sleep through each night, they rely on a
daytime nap (or two).
As you age, there are also more things getting between you and
the sandman. As the years pass, your risk of developing sleep
problems increases, including common disorders such as
insomnia, restless leg syndrome and sleep apnea. Often the
cause of lost sleep in later years may look like a bout of
transient insomnia, for example, but your sleep complaint may
actually be caused by other health problems and chronic
conditions such as arthritis, depression or GERD
(gastroesophageal reflux disorder).

10. Tying one on may make you doze off quickly, but you’re
unlikely to get quality sleep.
© Jelena Jovanovic/Hemera/ Thinkstock
About 20 percent of Americans pour themselves a nightcap in
an effort to get a good night's sleep, and if you're one of them,
that drink you're having before bed may actually be sabotaging,
not helping, the quality of your snooze [source: Thakkar, et al].
Yes, drinking an alcoholic beverage or two before bed will help
you fall asleep faster. That's because alcohol has a sedative
effect on the body's central nervous system — but there's a
catch. If you're three sheets to the wind when you hit the sheets,
that alcohol appears to have an effect on what's known as your
brain's sleep-wake system. Through this system, your brain
regulates and balances when you feel sleepy or awake, in
addition to regulating your sleep throughout the night.
There are two sleep cycles: non-rapid eye movement (NREM)
and rapid eye movement (REM). We spend about 80 percent of
our sleep in NREM sleep; NREM sleep, which is dreamless, is
broken into multiple stages, including deep sleep when the body
is in restoration mode [source: Robinson]. It's the second piece
of your good night's sleep, REM sleep, when you'll really feel
the brunt of the booze. Once your body metabolizes the alcohol
you drank, your sleep becomes restless, and you may wake early
or multiple times during the night, and you may find it difficult
to fall back asleep [source: Thakkar, et al].
To help avoid the sleep-related side effects of alcohol, which
may include headache, night sweats, nightmares and snoring (in
addition to a growing reliance on that evening cocktail), cap
yourself at one to two drinks and don't drink alcohol within
three hours of turning in [source: AASM].

11. Turkey’s been getting false credit as a sleep aid for years.
©Creatas Images/Thinkstock
Here's the thing about turkey: Everyone knows that turkey
contains tryptophan, and everyone knows that tryptophan will
leave you snoring on the sofa. Well, at least we get one out of
two correct. Let's break it down.
Yes, turkey does contain tryptophan. But, then, so does cheddar
cheese. In fact, an ounce of cheese contains more tryptophan
than an ounce of turkey — and we've yet to hear anyone
complaining how tired they are after ordering the cheese plate
[source:Wanjek].
Tryptophan is an amino acid your body uses as a building block
for producing serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps to regulate
your mood, your appetite and your sleep cycle, in addition to
melatonin, a hormone that also regulates sleep. It does play a
role in making us sleepy, but here's the thing: You're not
ingesting enough tryptophan, nor does enough of it reach your

12. brain after a meal — even a big holiday meal — to overtake you
with the urge to nap [source: Young].
As a sleep aid, tryptophan is thought to work most effectively
when taken as a supplement on an empty stomach — and in
much higher doses than you could eat, even with Thanksgiving
seconds (and thirds). While a 4-ounce (113-gram) serving of
turkey contains 350 milligrams of tryptophan, the supplements
popular in the 1980s contained levels as high as 2,000
milligrams [source: Mikkelson]. But a better sleep-aid snack
than cheddar or Swiss is one that contains 1 ounce (30 grams) of
carbohydrates [source:Zamosky].
Staying connected right up to the time you’re falling asleep
is not a good idea.
© monkeybusinessimages/iStock/Thinkstock
Ninety-one percent of Americans adults own a PC or laptop, and
almost half own a tablet. And then there are our phones. Eighty
percent of American adults own a cell orsmartphone; one-third

13. say they can't even begin to imagine living without them. And
even if you don't consider yourself a smartphone addict, we're
all using them a lot more; in 2014, on average, we used our
smartphones 45 percent more every month than we did in 2013
[sources: GlobalWebIndex, Pew, Cisco]. What are we doing
with our tech? Mostly we text, but we also browse the Web,
play games and use social media — more than we actually use
the phone as a phone.
While staying connected may feel good, nearly half of us sleep
with our phone (and that rises to as many as 74 percent for
people under the age of 34), and the consequences of that habit
aren't so good at all [Source: Pew, Lookout].
You may enjoy falling asleep watching a movie, catching up on
social media or reading an e-book, but the devices you use to do
those things all emit short-wavelength enriched light — blue
light. Research shows that light exposure disrupts the body's
circadian clock and reduces the levels of melatonin produced by
the pineal gland. Reading on an iPad before bed, for instance, is
shown to delay natural circadian rhythm by more than one hour
[source: Chang, et al].
The best advice? Wait until the morning to check your phone —
which 80 percent of us already do as soon as we wake up
[source: Stadd].

14. Science is still puzzling out why we yawn. It might have
more to do with temperature than tiredness.
© Giulio_Fornasar/iStock/Thinkstock
You and I, on average, will each yawn eight times today
[source: Koren]. While one or two of those yawns may be to
pop your ears after a flight or another change in air pressure,
scientists can't yet fully explain for certain why we yawn — or
why yawning is contagious. But they have ruled out the theory
that yawns mean you're tired. Yawning also won't help wake
you up by increasing the oxygen levels in your bloodstream.
Hippocrates theorized that yawning was the body's way of
releasing noxious air when body temperature began to rise.
Later theories emerged that yawning was the body's way of
increasing the level of oxygen in the blood supply
[source: Robson]. Currently, there are two leading theories as to
why we yawn. One is a social explanation: Yawning is a
primitive form of communication (although what we're trying to
communicate to each other remains unclear). The other

15. explanation is that yawning is a thermoregulatory function that
cools the brain when its temperature rises as little as 0.18 degree
Fahrenheit (about 0.1 degree Celsius). Humans do yawn more
frequently when they're in a warm environment and when
feeling anxious or stressed [source: Gallup].
5 Health Risks of Too Little Sleep
Groggy, gravelly, grumpy. Most of us feel glum when we're
running on too little sleep, but not sleeping enough has
implications beyond our general mood. Read more »
Author's Note: 10 Myths About Sleep
As it turns out, we spend a lot of time on using our phone,
playing games, texting, using social media. When you total up
all the hours, it adds up to be about 23 days out of the year.
That's 23 days of looking at a small screen. I'm not judging. I
like my phone just as much as anyone else. But during my
research I also discovered that there are apps that can help
reduce the problem that light causes on our sleep cycle. They
work by filtering out blue light and are available for all your
devices, from phone to tablet to computer. And they also come
in physical filters. So if you must sleep with your phone, it can't
hurt to try out a filter.