When it comes to sleep, it’s quality over quantity
"There's a dogma in the field that everyone needs eight hours of sleep, but our work to date confirms that the amount of sleep people need differs based on genetics," said neurologist Louis Ptacek, MD, one of the senior authors on the study, which appears in iScience on March 15, 2022 "Think of it as analogous to height; there's no perfect amount of height, each person is different. We've shown that the case is similar for sleep."
For over a decade, Ptacek and co-senior author, Ying-Hui Fu, PhD, both members of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, have been studying people with Familial Natural Short Sleep (FNSS), the ability to function fully on -- and have a preference for -- four to six hours of sleep a night. They've shown that it runs in families and, thus far, have identified five genes across the genome that play a role in enabling this efficient sleep. There are still many more FNSS genes to find, the researchers said.
This study tested Fu's hypothesis that elite sleep can be a shield against neurodegenerative disease. Her ideas contrast somewhat with current thinking that, for many people, lack of sleep can accelerate neurodegeneration. The difference, Fu said, is that with FNSS, the brain accomplishes its sleep tasks in a shorter time. In other words, less time spent efficiently sleeping may not equate to a lack of sleep.
My Takeaways From This Article
Like the name of the article says, a recent study conducted by scientists at UCSF showed that the quality of sleep is more important than the quantity of sleep. This effectively suggests that 8 hours of bad quality sleep will be overshadowed by 5-6 hours of quality sleep.
The article plays into how genetics plays a big role in one's ability to have good and restful sleep and how some are more prone to have quality sleep than others. Regardless no matter what our genetic set may be, it's important to always strive for quality sleep to optimize our health.
Certain methods that we can control to optimize the quality of sleep is making sure we get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep through the night. Additionally avoiding any lights before sleep and reducing the amount of blue light exposure are ways we can maintain good sleep quality.
Full article is here!
How can you strive for quality sleep?
#Sleep #Health #Study
@sunnyWriting4806 I think quality sleep can be encouraged through a variety of different ways. We can turn off electronics, get black-out curtains, turn on some relaxing music and even take melatonin to help aid in sleep. I think many of us are guilty with the electronics being on until the very last minute and the blue light doesn't help us in falling asleep. It's hard to turn off the world when we are always so busy and attached to our phones, but it can do wonders if we are able to discipline ourselves a little more :)
@fruityPond7887
All what you said is super valid, I totally agree that there are so many ways we can help to improve the quality of our sleep. Like you said, perhaps the primary thing we have to focus on is to turn off our electronics and phones before sleep since that seems to be prevailing issue today.
@sunnyWriting4806 Exactly! It's so difficult because I think we are low-key addicted to using our phones 😅 Thank you for sharing!!
