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The science behind sleep: Why we should sleep the recommended amount of hours

Posted at 11:16 AM, Feb 20, 2019
and last updated 2019-02-20 13:16:03-05

TUCSON, Ariz. — We have all heard the average adult needs seven to nine hours of sleep each night, but we're not getting it. The number one sleep disorder in America is insufficient sleep syndrome.

Dr. Jyotsna Sahni, a board certified sleep medicine specialist with Swan Sleep Medicine, says a consistent schedule is key to get through each stage of REM. Stage one is light transitional sleep in which you are half awake and half asleep, stage two is a light sleep, and stage three is a deep sleep that is restorative.

"That's where we do the work of sleep. We make growth hormones that keeps us young, testosterone that keeps us sexy, immune proteins that fight off infections and cancer, and we also clean up the proteins in our head that cause Alzheimer's when we're old. Stage three sleep is really important," said Sahni.

REM sleep happens in more of the first half of the night, and the second half works on our emotional processing during our dreams.

"Second half of the night might be more psychological restorative, whereas the first half of the night, during stage three sleep, is maybe more physiologically restorative," said Sahni.

If you are sleeping more than the average seven to nine hours, or napping too much, Sahni says it could be one of two things. Either you are not getting good quality sleep and need to sleep more, or there are medical issues.

"If somebody needs to sleep that long, then there's something else going wrong. So if its natural for someone to sleep nine hours and that's how much they need to fill restored, that's okay. But if they're now needing to sleep many more hours, that would be unusual and it would make me wonder, 'Do they have some type of underlining sleep disorder like sleep apnea? Are they depressed? Do they have some sort of fatigue or something unusual like narcolepsy?'" said Sahni.

On the other side of the spectrum, not enough sleep can affect our health. Sleep deprivation alters our moods, energy, quality of thinking and our immune system.