For many of us, obsessing over how much sleep we get is a favorite pastime. Largely thanks to the rise of the sleep industry, which offers everything from wearable trackers to assess sleep quality to melatonin gummies that speed up sleep – but are we getting this wrong?
Rules of thumb for sleep have become gospel: strive for around 8 hours uninterrupted, or you could be on the highway to conditions like dementia or diabetes. Embedding such beliefs can be harmful, as this week’s cover story reveals. In fact, some of us seem to develop “insomniac identities” when we’re not actually insomniacs – at least a third of those who self-assign the label are actually good sleepers.
The latest research suggests that our mindset about how much sleep we get is crucial: in cognitive tests, it’s a person’s belief about how well they’ve slept, not the objective truth, that predicts how well they perform. The 8-hour maximum is also shakier than you might think. Proof of the widely reported harms of having less sleep than it’s lacking, provided you get over 6 hours. Sleeping for 7 hours is linked to living longer, but extra hours do not provide additional benefits. The background to all of this is that being stressed about sleep is antithetical to getting it.
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The sleep industry can help us understand that most of us sleep better than we realize
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It is possible to remedy this. For example, the sleep industry could reorient itself around helping some people – such as those who mistakenly believe they are insomniacs – to understand that they are getting more and better sleep than they realize, with wearable devices that share this information. The sleep targets promoted by health authorities and medical professionals can become more realistic, and it can be made clear that short-term sleep deprivation is something we are resistant to.
On an individual level, we can take heart, knowing that the often impossible ideals imposed are less concrete than we might think. Our obsession with sleep may have become a favorite pastime, but maybe it’s time for a new hobby.
