Alright, so sleep is important, but how much sleep do you really need? To answer that question, consider an experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Washington Condition University.
The researchers started out the experiment by party 48 healthy women and men who had been averaging seven to eight hours of sleep per night. In that case, they split these subject matter into four groups. The first group had to stay up for 3 days straight without going to bed. The second group slept for 4 hours every night. The third group slept for 6 hours per night. And the fourth group slept for 8 hours per night. In these final three groups--4, 6, and 8 hours of sleep--the subject matter were held to these sleep patterns for two weeks straight. Through the entire research the subjects were examined on their physical and mental performance.
Here's what occurred...
The subjects who were allowed a full almost eight hours of sleep displayed no cognitive decreases, attention lapses, or motor skill declines through the 14-day review. Meanwhile, the groups who received 4 hours and six hours of sleep continuously declined with each moving day. The four-hour group performed worst, however the six-hour group didn't fare much better. In particular, there were two notable results.
First, sleep debt is a cumulative issue. In the words of the researchers, sleep debt "has a neurobiological cost which accumulates over time. " After one week, 25 percent of the six-hour group was falling asleep at random times throughout the day. After two weeks, the six-hour group had performance deficits that were the same as if they experienced stayed up for two days straight. Allow me to repeat that: if you get 6 hours of rest per night for two weeks straight, your mental and physical performance diminishes to the same level as if you had stayed alert for 48 hours straight.
Second, participants didn't notice their own performance declines. When participants graded themselves, they believed that their performance declined for a few days and then tapered off. In reality, they were continuing to become worse with each day. In other words, were poor judges of our own performance decreases even as our company is going through them.
