Contrary to popular belief, you do not need 8 hours of sleep to function properly during the day. There’s a crazy media hype out recently telling people that America is sleep deprived, and that we should all get 8 hours of sleep, blah blah blah. This is absolute non-sense, and any sleep expert would agree.
There are many people in the world today that perform extraordinary physically and mentally demanding tasks and sleep for only 4 to 6 hours per night. Are these people living zombies? Or did they somehow, consciously, or un-consciously tap into a hidden fountain of energy, a system that lets them perform this way?
A good example of a person like this is someone in a trans-atlantic yacht racing crew. The crew takes shifts being at the helm and on deck, and has to fight vigorous weather, poor eating conditions, continuous motion, and drastic temperature changes, for up to 3 months! At this time each crew member sleeps about 4-5 hours per shift, and has no trouble performing the highly mentally and physically demanding tasks of sailing a yacht, fighting 30 foot waves, adjusting sails, and concentrating on keeping the boat on course.
There are also many other individuals in the world who don’t sail yachts or perform outrageously physically demanding tasks, yet they also sleep very little. Regardless of their “sleep deprivation”, they’re always up beat, energetic, and full of life. Were these people just born with this ability, or is it something they’re doing on a conscious/subconscious level?
Recent “Eye Opening” Discoveries
The longest recorded times that human beings have gone without sleep have been:
– Randy Gardner in 1965, Randy went without sleep for 11 days (That’s 264 hours!).
– In 1980, Robert McDonald of California stayed awake for a record 18 days 21 hours and 40 minutes. (453 hours)
In both experiments, the subjects only experienced drowsiness
and trouble with concentrating. This dispelled the popular myth that sleep deprivation will make you go crazy.
In another experiment, a 6 year study done by the University of California, completed in 2002, revealed that people who slept less than 8 hours actually lived longer! Up until this experiment (which involved 1.1 million participants), there were many conflicting beliefs about whether sleeping less was more health beneficial. Many would argue that sleeping more was actually more beneficial. Both sides of the argument had experimental data to prove their theories. However, none of the previous experiments were carried out with such a large group of people over this long of a period of time. Many people die due to other circumstances, which have nothing to do with how long they sleep.
How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?
This is the first belief about sleep you will consciously dispel in this e-book. The Questions you should be asking yourself instead are really:
“What Actions can I take to raise the QUALITY of My Sleep?”
“How long does Quality Sleep Take for Me?”
“If I increase the Quality of my Sleep – Will it be possible to gain more energy, enough to reduce my sleeping time and do all the extra things I want to do in life?”
There are people who get an average of 8 to 10 hours of sleep, and always feel tired, drowsy, low on energy, and complain about “poor sleep”, or “sleep deprivation”, and try to compensate by sleeping even longer! In reality, they are sleeping TOO MUCH, and decreasing the “quality” of their sleep as well as their energy levels.
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