Let’s Chill Out About Our Sleep Habits and Stop Obsessing Over Eight Hours

As a primary care doctor, I frequently encounter patients consumed by concerns about their sleep habits. They meticulously track sleep hours and scores, invest in advanced mattresses, and experiment with white noise machines and a plethora of supplements. This anxiety is so pervasive that a concept called 'orthosomnia' has emerged, describing how the stress over sleep metrics can actually degrade sleep quality. It's time we all take a breath and relax about sleep. The widely held belief that we must sleep at least eight hours a night is not as strongly supported by evidence as we might assume. Numerous sleep epidemiology studies consistently show that there isn't a single magic number below which health drastically declines. Instead, research often indicates that the lowest risk of mortality is clustered around seven hours of sleep. Both insufficient and excessive sleep can elevate risk. A meta-analysis published in Scientific Reports, for instance, found that adults with the highest mortality rates were those sleeping nine to 11 hours per night. While short sleep was linked to increased risk, the study noted little difference in all-cause mortality between sleeping six and seven hours. Other studies have reached similar conclusions, though data can be inconsistent and exceptions exist. This doesn't necessarily mean sleeping nine hours is dangerous. The link between long sleep duration and higher mortality often stems from reverse causation: people who are ill tend to sleep more, as do many individuals struggling with depression. Once these factors are accounted for, the risk associated with sleeping too much largely disappears. However, the converse is also true: less sleep is strongly correlated with poverty, night shift work, psychiatric conditions, and chronic illnesses. Aggressive statistical adjustments for these variables have been shown to substantially weaken these associations. Ultimately, sleep quality and the regularity of one's sleep routine may hold more significance than sheer duration. A consistent, good-quality 6.5 hours of sleep per night, with a regular bedtime, likely carries less risk than a fragmented, anxiety-ridden eight-hour routine or a pattern of wildly fluctuating sleep times.

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We could all benefit from chilling out about sleep.