Doctors Bust These 7 Biggest Sleep Myths

1. “You have to sleep eight hours a night”

“If a friend comes to me stressed out because she isn’t getting eight hours of sleep a night, I reassure her that it’s okay. In fact, from a math perspective, the average person only needs 7½ hours of sleep, or five 90-minute sleep cycles. But it’s individual. For instance, I’ve been sleeping fine on 6½ or 7 hours my whole life. The best way to figure out how much sleep you need is to calculate 7½ hours before you have to get up—that’s your bedtime. If you wake up feeling great, you …read more