{"id":825815,"date":"2026-08-25T23:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/825815\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T23:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:10:09","slug":"forget-8-hours-new-research-reveals-how-much-sleep-adults-really-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/825815\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget 8 hours \u2014 new research reveals how much sleep adults really need"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to sleep<\/a>, is eight hours really the magic number?<\/p>\n

While adequate rest<\/a> is undoubtedly an important component of human health, how much sleep we need isn\u2019t necessarily the same for everyone.<\/p>\n

A new review<\/a> from Brain Medicine challenges the notion that all adults require eight hours of sleep per night to be healthy.<\/p>\n

While adequate rest is undoubtedly an important component of human health, how much sleep we need isn\u2019t necessarily the same for everyone. StockPhotoPro \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman sleep patterns in pre-industrial societies exhibit substantial flexibility, suggesting that contemporary norms of consolidated nocturnal sleep are not evolutionarily fixed,\u201d according to the authors.<\/p>\n

In other words, healthy sleep patterns<\/a> can vary from person to person \u2014 and history supports this idea.<\/p>\n

Ancestral sleep patterns vs. modern shut-eye<\/p>\n

Humans, of course, have always required sleep. <\/p>\n

Long before the implementation of the 40-hour workweek, the invention of alarm clocks and the use of cell phones, people relied on a more natural sleep cycle \u2014 one that often didn\u2019t amount to eight hours a night.<\/p>\n

Per The Conversation<\/a>, researchers have studied hunter-gatherer communities \u2014 whose lifestyles share more similarities with those of our ancestors and who have limited or no exposure to artificial light \u2014 to better understand natural sleep duration in humans.<\/p>\n

Long before the implementation of the 40-hour workweek, the invention of alarm clocks and the use of cell phones, people relied on a more natural sleep cycle \u2014 one that often didn\u2019t amount to eight hours a night. oatawa \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

The publication then cites a study published in Current Biology<\/a>, which found that people in Tanzania, Namibia and Bolivia slept for\u00a0between 5.7 and 7.1 hours a night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe short nights also seemed to be enough: people did not make up for them with long daytime naps. Without an alarm clock, they tended to wake close to dawn, regardless of the day of the week,\u201d the outlet states.<\/p>\n

Additionally, an analysis published by the Royal Society Publishing<\/a> estimates that people slept an average of 6.4 hours per night in pre-industrial societies. The journal also acknowledges that modern sleep patterns \u201care\u00a0delayed\u00a0relative to the natural light-dark cycle,\u201d per The Conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of us do not wake naturally before dawn. Many of us have short sleep during the working week and longer catch-up sleep on work-free days,\u201d the outlet states. <\/p>\n

Artificial light \u2014 from lamps, computers and smartphones \u2014 \u00a0is considered a major culprit behind this delayed pattern.<\/p>\n

Citing an article from Nature<\/a>, The Conversation points out that artificial light \u201cchanges our sleep habits and delays our body clock, which controls the timing of sleep and wakefulness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Individual sleep needs <\/p>\n

Individual factors \u2014 such as health status and biological sex \u2014 also play a role in determining a person\u2019s sleep requirements.<\/p>\n

According to The Conversation, \u201cIf we define optimal sleep as the amount linked to the best health, many large studies suggest the sweet spot may be less than eight hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Individual factors \u2014 such as health status and biological sex \u2014 play a role in determining a person\u2019s sleep needs. Krakenimages.com \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Another study published in Nature<\/a> used brain and body scans, along with molecular measures, to examine how sleep relates to the aging of different organs. It estimated that the ideal amount of sleep is between 6.4 and 7.8 hours, depending on the individual\u2019s sex and the specific organ observed.<\/p>\n

How much sleep should I be getting?<\/p>\n

Based on the above information, it\u2019s safe to say that eight hours isn\u2019t necessarily the golden rule of sleep \u2014 though that doesn\u2019t mean eight hours is too much or too little for you.<\/p>\n

Eight hours may work well for your spouse, but it may leave you still feeling tired. Nine hours may suit you best, but could feel like overkill for your friend.<\/p>\n

Based on the above information, it\u2019s safe to say that eight hours isn\u2019t necessarily the golden rule of sleep \u2014 though that doesn\u2019t mean eight hours is too much or too little for you. Rithor \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

As The Conversation states, \u201cThe eight-hour rule is clearly too simple. People need different amounts of sleep, and when we sleep matters too.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the National Sleep Foundation<\/a>, adults between the ages of 26 and 64 should get between seven and nine hours of sleep per day, though some adults may require between six and 10 hours.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the sleep \u201csweet spot\u201d varies from person to person, and eight hours certainly isn\u2019t a concrete answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to sleep, is eight hours really the magic number? While adequate rest is undoubtedly an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[15108,97,252,253,1728,8115,28256,3284,673],"class_list":["post-825815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-adults","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-research","tag-sleep","tag-sleeping","tag-study-says","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}