Is it possible to reduce the amount of sleep I need every night by changing my diet, exercise, meditating, or yoga?
Answers
For most people, 4 hours of sleep per night isn’t sufficient to wake up feeling relaxed and mentally alert, no matter how well they sleep. There’s a familiar myth that you can adjust to chronically limited sleep, but there’s no proof that the body adapts its functions to sleep deprivation. Likewise, regular exercise often needs more than the minimum number of hours to give their bodies time to rest from additional physical stress.
A 2018 study that investigated the sleep habits of over 10,000 people revealed that constantly having 4 hours of sleep per night was equal to adding eight years of age to the individuals’ brains. Getting fewer than 7 hours of sleep per night over a long period may raise your risk for developing complications like:
• Depression
• Obesity
• Hypertension
• Anxiety
• Diabetes
• Obstructive sleep
• Apnea
• Stroke
• Psychosis
• Cardiovascular disease
