{"id":215374,"date":"2025-06-26T08:09:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T08:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/215374\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T08:09:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T08:09:25","slug":"why-some-people-need-less-sleep-than-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/215374\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Some People Need Less Sleep Than Others"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lindsey Hudson began to suspect her sleep habits<\/a> weren\u2019t the norm during her freshman year at Southern Nazarene University in Oklahoma. <\/p>\n

A competitive high school cheerleader, teenage Lindsey\u2014busy with daily practices and homework\u2014often wouldn\u2019t go to sleep<\/a> until sometime between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., only to wake up bright, early, and surprisingly well rested by 6:30 a.m. in order to do it all over again. (If you don\u2019t have a calculator handy, that\u2019s four and a half to six and a half hours of sleep per night.) Lindsey\u2019s mom, a nurse, adhered to a similarly brief sleep schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe only ever slept, at most, four to five hours a night,\u201d Lindsey, now 40, recalls. \u201cAnything more than that and something was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Lindsey moved out of her mother\u2019s home and in with her college roommate, Dalene, she started to notice some strange occurrences. Like how Dalene would sleep until noon (or later!) on Saturdays and Sundays. Or how Dalene would take naps<\/a> most days of the week. <\/p>\n

\u201cI never nap,\u201d Lindsey says. \u201cThat\u2019s when I realized, Huh, some people sleep a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those differences only became more apparent to Lindsey as her social circle widened. In nursing school, when other students were \u201cdragging\u201d at 6 a.m. clinicals, she felt energized and alert. When she met and married her husband, Brian, it was clear they had vastly different snooze schedules<\/a>\u2014he preferred to be under the covers by 9 p.m., whereas Lindsey maintained the midnight-ish bedtime she\u2019d had since high school.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI never nap. That\u2019s when I realized, Huh, some people sleep a lot more.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s not to say Lindsey never dabbled in delayed wakeification. But the side effects weren\u2019t pleasant: \u201cIf I sleep more than seven hours, I feel hungover,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel foggy. I feel like I don\u2019t completely wake up.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lindsey is what\u2019s known in scientific parlance as a \u201cnatural short sleeper,\u201d an individual who thrives on about four to six hours of sleep per night. Experts aren\u2019t sure how many people are true natural short sleepers. As a percentage of the population, they\u2019re likely less than 1 percent. Despite their small numbers, natural short sleepers are elbowing into the conversation around sleep in a big way, calling into question what we\u2019ve long thought we knew about slumber\u2014not to mention the multibillion-dollar sleep industry that\u2019s set on selling us gadgets and gizmos promising more and more and more Z\u2019s! Could these short sleepers\u2019 DNA actually hold the secret to a better night\u2019s rest for us all? <\/p>\n

Reassessing Sleep Standards<\/strong><\/p>\n

Google \u201chow much sleep do I need<\/a> each night?\u201d and you\u2019ll find nearly unanimous answers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine: Seven hours a night is the minimum for adults in order to maintain health and well-being. (The maximum, on the other hand, is a little squishier.) <\/p>\n

\u201cThe vast majority of adults truly need somewhere between seven and nine hours, and we offer that range because there is a lot of individual difference that we believe is, in part, genetically determined,\u201d says Rebecca Robbins, PhD, a sleep scientist at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital in Boston. <\/p>\n

Sleep needs diverge along gender lines too. Women require, on average, about 11 minutes more per night than men, according to a study in American Sociological Review. While it\u2019s not entirely clear what\u2019s driving that disparity, women also tend to suffer from higher rates of insomnia than men, largely due to hormonal fluctuations during menstruation, pregnancy, and perimenopause\/menopause. Higher rates of anxiety and depression may also play a role. These factors could lead to women needing more time in bed to log the same amount of quality sleep as men. <\/p>\n

More Sleep<\/p>\n

That phrase \u201cquality sleep\u201d really is key. Focusing on the behaviors that surround sleep\u2014managing stress, not eating too late, relaxing and unwinding close to bedtime\u2014and not just the duration can help optimize our rest periods. \u201cRestorative sleep is waking up and feeling refreshed, almost improved, from your time asleep,\u201d Robbins says. <\/p>\n

Restorative sleep is also key for supporting nearly every function and system in the body. Each sleep stage offers its own benefits. During the early, non-REM (rapid eye movement) stages of sleep, for instance, your blood pressure and heart rate are at their lowest, a boon for your cardiovascular health. REM sleep<\/a>, on the other hand, supports cognitive functions, such as learning and memory. Adequate sleep also supports the production of important building blocks of the body\u2019s immune system and allows the brain to flush out toxins. Yes, you are literally being brain-washed every night! <\/p>\n

Individuals who don\u2019t get enough quality sleep can suffer a myriad of short- and long-term consequences: Brain fog and drowsiness from lack of sleep not only make crafting that presentation deck at work more difficult but can actually increase the risk of bodily harm (think: falling asleep at the wheel of a car). Sleep deficiency\u2014defined as not getting enough sleep or getting poor-quality sleep\u2014has also been linked to a number of chronic conditions, including heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/a>. (Interestingly, this doesn\u2019t seem to apply to natural short sleepers, who don\u2019t suffer ill health effects from getting less sleep.) <\/p>\n

Despite how much researchers know about sleep today, there\u2019s still so much they don\u2019t know. It\u2019s a notoriously tricky field of research, given the many ways modern life interferes with our natural sleep cycle\u2014everything from the introduction of electric lights into the home to a caffeine-soaked Starbucks on every street corner. Few of us actually let our bodies be our guide when it comes to getting the rest we need. Except, perhaps, natural short sleepers\u2014who are often derided for not following the sleep status quo. <\/p>\n

Is Short Sleeping In Our Genes? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Natural short sleepers are those who sleep four to six or so hours per night because that is what feels best for their bodies and brains. If given the opportunity to sleep longer, they wouldn\u2019t want to or need to. Natural short sleepers are not people who\u2019ve trained themselves to snooze for minimal hours in order to be more productive or meet the demands of an unconventional work schedule (such as a night nanny or long-haul trucker). <\/p>\n

History is chock-full of men and women who\u2019ve claimed to require very little sleep\u2014Martha Stewart<\/a> and former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi among them. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the snooze-disrupting lightbulb, famously said he slept just three to four hours a night. \u201cWhat\u2019s not widely known is that he also had a bed in his office, and he would take extremely long naps of two to four hours at a time,\u201d Robbins says. <\/p>\n

And that is one factor that differentiates natural short sleepers from what sleep researchers at the University of California San Francisco call \u201cfacultative short sleepers\u201d\u2014those who\u2019ve hacked their sleep schedules because of professional drive or life circumstances. Natural short sleepers rarely, if ever, take naps. They also don\u2019t \u201ccatch up\u201d on sleep over the weekend. The hours they log at night are sufficient to keep them alert throughout the day. (Sorry, Thomas.) <\/p>\n

Another factor that is more challenging to measure: genetics.<\/p>\n

In 2009, a group of researchers discovered the first short-sleep gene. Led by Ying-Hui Fu, PhD, a professor of neurology and a member of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, the study found that those with a mutation on the DEC2 gene averaged 6.25 hours of sleep per night while participants without averaged 8.06 hours. This mutation runs in families, which means a mom or dad may carry it and pass it on to one or multiple children. (Though Lindsey has not participated in any studies to confirm she carries the short sleeper gene, the fact that her mother and father were both short sleepers and that her son also appears to be a short sleeper seems to indicate that it likely runs in her family.) <\/p>\n

It took one more decade for Fu and study coauthor Louis Pt\u00e1\u010dek, MD, the John C. Coleman Distinguished Professor in Neurodegenerative Diseases at UCSF, to discover a second and third short-sleep genetic mutation. So far, they\u2019ve published findings on a total of four short-sleep genes, with a few more pending publication. <\/p>\n

The mechanism by which these mutations affect a person\u2019s sleep cycle is still largely unknown. In the case of the DEC2 gene, Fu says the mutation leads to an increase in a neuropeptide called orexin, which plays a role in regulating the sleep cycle. More orexin results in more wakefulness. But Fu is convinced there\u2019s much more at play than just orexin. Which means: Yep, more research is necessary. <\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Despite the various lingering question marks, researchers have identified several traits shared by natural short sleepers. For one, they don\u2019t seem to suffer the ill side effects common among those who are chronically sleep-deprived<\/a> (i.e., their health isn\u2019t negatively affected by notching less sleep). And that is notable! It means that the seven-hour standard may, in fact, not be the minimum for all adults to stay healthy and happy. <\/p>\n

Additionally, natural short sleepers don\u2019t tend to experience jet lag, they have higher pain tolerances, and there is even anecdotal evidence that they may live longer. Dr. Pt\u00e1\u010dek notes that many of the natural short sleepers he\u2019s aware of have lived into their 70s, 80s, or 90s and are in good health. Fu hypothesizes that natural short sleepers are meeting their bodies\u2019 needs while sleeping more efficiently. <\/p>\n

As a quasi-test of this idea, the researchers crossbred mice with genes predisposing them to Alzheimer\u2019s disease and mice with natural short sleeper genes. Sleep deprivation tends to exacerbate Alzheimer\u2019s in mice. But in short sleeper hybrid mice, there was a slower accumulation of the abnormal proteins associated with Alzheimer\u2019s, suggesting that the natural short sleeper gene was protective. \u201cWhile this doesn\u2019t prove that natural short sleepers live longer, it does support the notion that natural short sleeper mutations lead to sleep in these people where they are able to accomplish some physiological processes\u2014waste clearance, perhaps\u2014more efficiently,\u201d Dr. Pt\u00e1\u010dek says. <\/p>\n

The researchers used mouse models to validate their overall findings as well, employing mice bred with the same short sleeper genetic mutations they discovered. The result? The mutated mice slept less than their unmutated rodent peers. \u201cMice don\u2019t have to go to work or go to school,\u201d Fu says. \u201cThey can sleep anytime they want, but they don\u2019t sleep any more.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fu and Dr. Pt\u00e1\u010dek admit that their findings are controversial in the field of sleep research. Despite what they\u2019ve uncovered, many in the medical community still dismiss the phenomenon of natural short sleepers. <\/p>\n

Lindsey, now a nurse practitioner, says that her own primary care providers typically don\u2019t believe her when she says she needs just five or six hours of sleep a night, reiterating that the literature recommends seven to eight hours. Ultimately, they don\u2019t say much else beyond that since they know she\u2019s a nurse and it\u2019s a bit of a losing battle with her. <\/p>\n

What It’s Really Like To Be A Short Sleeper<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you were to pull into the parking lot of Jewel-Osco in the Chicago suburb of Round Lake at around 6:30 a.m. on a random weekday and peer through the grocery store\u2019s large front windows, you\u2019d likely spy one or two cashiers, maybe a bakery department employee icing the day\u2019s maple bars. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a good chance you\u2019d also see a lone shopper, 77-year-old Joanne Osmond, pushing her cart through the aisles, making small talk with the staff. After all, what else is there to do at 6:30 a.m. when you\u2019ve been awake for hours? <\/p>\n

Joanne is a confirmed natural short sleeper\u2014one of the dozens of participants in Fu and Dr. Pt\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s studies. Like Lindsey, she didn\u2019t realize her nocturnal routine was unusual until she went off to college. Joanne\u2019s dad and several of her siblings were also natural short sleepers. Her mom was the oddball who needed a full night\u2019s rest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not wake my mom up,\u201d Joanne says. \u201cShe was as grumpy as could be.\u201d To ensure their mom remained undisturbed, Joanne and her siblings stayed in their rooms until what was deemed an appropriate hour to get up. This was long before iPads, or even TVs, were the norm, so they\u2019d pass the predawn hours reading any and every book series they could get their hands on at the local library\u2014Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins. <\/p>\n

As Joanne got older and married a non-short sleeper, reading remained her companion. She and her husband, Bud, would climb into bed together at night; he would fall asleep right away; she would stay up until 11 p.m. or midnight. Joanne was then the first to rise\u2014usually around 3:30 or 4 a.m. <\/p>\n

The years wore on, and Joanne, who works as an online instructor with half of her students in another time zone, began to expand her late-night to-dos. Today, she might grade papers or help students across the country. She is the picture of productivity. You can sense something akin to a restless energy when speaking to her, and those extra hours have surely allowed her time to reach her many goals. Throughout her life, Joanne has managed to find and befriend other short sleepers in her local community, and they\u2019ve often stayed up late working on projects together. This fellowship has been vital for her. Sure, being awake some 20 hours a day has created opportunities for achievement, but it\u2019s also resulted in, at times, a profound sense of isolation.<\/p>\n

How To Sleep Better Tonight<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a short sleeper is extremely lonely, because even though there were people all around\u2014my husband, my children\u2014I couldn\u2019t wake them up if I wanted to talk to them. They had to sleep,\u201d Joanne says. \u201cHere I was with all these ideas and things I wanted to do and places I wanted to go, and I was restricted because everybody else was sleeping.\u201d <\/p>\n

Even her early-morning shopping runs are tinged with a hint of melancholy. \u201cIt\u2019s really dark out, and most people aren\u2019t up yet,\u201d she says. \u201cI drive out and all the lights are off. It makes you feel like you\u2019re totally alone.\u201d <\/p>\n

Here, too, she\u2019s endeavored to foster connection and community. \u201cI know everybody at the Jewel-Osco and say good morning,\u201d Joanne says. \u201cOne of the employees owns a wonderful Polish restaurant, Reflections on Deep Lake, so I invited two friends to dinner there one evening. The woman who checks me out lost her mother recently, so I gave her a card. We are family!\u201d <\/p>\n

Understanding Keys For Better Sleep for All<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Lindsey, who considers herself more of an introvert, there have been few downsides to her short sleeper status. Working 12-hour shifts in telehealth, she finds that the extra wakeful hours allow her to decompress after a long day of caring for patients and tending to her two children. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my sanity,\u201d Lindsey says of her evening alone time. She\u2019ll usually read dark romances or catch up on TV her husband doesn\u2019t watch, like the Max medical series The Pitt or any variety of Hallmark movies. Lindsey admits she did once run into a bit of trouble when she \u201cstream cheated\u201d one night, watching an episode of Netflix\u2019s Too Hot to Handle, a show the couple usually enjoy together.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy husband was like, \u2018You caught up on it without me? We were supposed to watch that together!\u2019\u200a\u201d she recalls. \u201cI\u2019ve learned not to do that, because he takes it personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reality TV drama aside, there\u2019s not much Lindsey would change about her sleep situation. \u201cI don\u2019t have a problem falling asleep, and I stay asleep,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

If only we could all be so lucky. An estimated 35 percent of Americans get insufficient sleep, according to the CDC. And it\u2019s that concern that Fu and Dr. Pt\u00e1\u010dek ultimately hope to remedy with their research into natural short sleepers. \u201cIf we all can get a good night\u2019s sleep, then we can prevent many of the diseases of aging,\u201d Fu says. <\/p>\n

Understanding the underlying biology of sleep\u2014a mystery that researchers are still working to unravel\u2014could lead to advances that would help people suffering from insomnia and other sleep disorders. \u201cThere is hope that we might be able to develop a medication that can work in a way that doesn\u2019t cause problems or side effects, but rather improves the quality of sleep and the efficiency of sleep,\u201d Dr. Pt\u00e1\u010dek explains. <\/p>\n

Bottom line, says Fu: \u201cThe goal is to help everybody to get the best sleep they can,\u201d whether that\u2019s four hours, six hours, or eight hours. We can all raise a mug of Sleepytime Tea to that. <\/p>\n

How To Optimize Your Slumber With Insights From Short Sleepers…
<\/strong>1. Respect your body\u2019s rhythms.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being highly attuned to sleep demands is a quality of natural short sleepers. And given the wide range of possible requirements (as little as 4 hours a night for some natural short sleepers and as much as 12 for some natural long sleepers, says Dr. Pt\u00e1\u010dek), honoring your own needs\u2014rather than following one-size-fits-all advice\u2014will go a long way toward ensuring you get the most out of your time under the covers.<\/p>\n

2. Prioritize rest as you would other health habits.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Natural short sleepers don\u2019t shape their sleep schedules around their lifestyles; rather, they shape their lifestyles around their sleep schedules. \u201cEveryone has some control over their sleep,\u201d Fu says. \u201cJust as many people prioritize exercise to stay healthy, one can choose to prioritize sufficient and quality sleep to support their long-term health.\u201d Think of sleep and your next pilates class as a one-two punch for longevity.<\/p>\n

3. Maybe lay off the caffeine?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We know, we know\u2014you\u2019ve heard this advice before. But hear us out! Another interesting fact about Joanne, the research-confirmed natural short sleeper, is that she doesn\u2019t drink coffee. Mostly because she doesn\u2019t need it to stay awake (hello, adequate sleep). Caffeine consumption can create a never-ending cycle of reduced sleep quality, studies show, so if you\u2019re not feeling well rested, that pistachio latte might be to blame. And how can you know how much sleep your body really needs if you\u2019re always self-medicating your insomnia with energy drinks? Time to find out.<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Amy Wilkinson is a contributing entertainment editor at Women’s Health, where she edits the magazine’s celebrity cover stories and writes health features. She has previously held editor titles at Entertainment Weekly and MTV News. In 2021, Amy completed her 600-hour teacher-training at Core Pilates NYC to become a comprehensively trained Pilates instructor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lindsey Hudson began to suspect her sleep habits weren\u2019t the norm during her freshman year at Southern Nazarene…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[267,70,85621,85620,43547,85622,50821,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-215374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-short-sleepers","11":"tag-short-sleeping","12":"tag-sleep-habits","13":"tag-sleep-hygiene","14":"tag-sleep-quality","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114748651738558190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}