How much sleep do you need? A lack of sleep can certainly make life more challenging and in some cases undermine our health. Despite amazing technological advances, ostensibly designed to make life easier for us, many are experiencing less sleep than those in previous generations. There is even a saying in Occupational Psychology that “Sleep is the new luxury!” Whilst some can thrive on only a few hours sleep, most of us need around eight hours. A new
study of genetics has identified a rare sleep condition that allows people to function well with as little as three hours sleep a night. It’s possible that understanding the influence of such genetic variants could help researchers to devise better treatments for sleep disorders, as well as discover more about why some of us are able to maintain normal cognitive capacity with little or no rest. Whether we sleep soundly each night, or we are nightly robbed of sleep by
insomnia, learning to relax and rest is a powerful skill. Ian Oswald, a great pioneer in sleep research, argued that when people couldn’t sleep, relaxation was the next best thing. Learn to relax your body, calm your mind, and rest your spirit in God.