The Need For Sleep--Overrated? 7/13/2009 2:41:16 PM
And I don’t mean this because of the caffeinated-fueled society we’ve created. I mean inherently. As a Human.
All previous “official” studies, or most of them, anyway, have prevailingly promulgated that Humans need at least 8 hours of sleep. I have always taken issue with this because of life experience and material I’ve studied. I’ve always been a staunch proponent of the 6-hour sleep “camp.” I first heard about this through the Seth material, which I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, but see second link, below. The material espouses (such as the following, taken from The Personal Sessions, Book Five Of The Deleted Seth Material, which I am currently reading) that normally, healthy bodies do not need 8 or more hours of sleep. That bodies become restless after 7 hours of sleep. Muscles, the body, wants to move--get up and go! This particular information I just took from a “deleted session” from November 15, 1978, at 4 p.m., but it’s mentioned elsewhere in the many volumes of Seth material, by Jane Roberts and Robert Butts. But, now we have independent, scientific verification of something that this material has been talking about for years. The down side to the research, which has been held back for over two decades, because (the article says) of the sheer amount of data generated from 1.1 million subjects, is that those who get more than 8 hours of sleep tend to die off faster within a 6-year period. Again, interesting not only in and of itself, but the specific and brief timespan.
Curiously, the research cannot explain any of this, just that the data does, indeed, show this.
I also find it interesting that the mean age for women in the study was 57, while the mean age for men was 58. Though those are the means, the total age range was 30 - 102. The facts are there, in all their scientific “glory.” I maintain, however, that those dying off “earlier” (another blog topic...) might not be because of the oversleeping, so much as other factors in their lives--like stress. Perhaps many of the subjects who sleep longer do so because when awake they have to deal with issues with which they would much rather not? Maybe they have disorders that bring on the body’s need to sleep more to repair whatever damage is inherent in the individual? Don’t know. All I know is what I’ve been telling people for years is that we only--really--need 6 to 7 hours at a time. But as with most research I come across, it all depends on the variables collected, analyzed, and interpreted. Numbers can be made to purport anything a researcher wants to prove--or disprove. Yes, even this study. But in this case, I have the experience of my entire life to back it up--including the stress part. But it’s also curious to me that all those other sleep studies concluded the 8+ hours requirement.
How did they come up with that, and with what sampling of subjects, if this University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, in collaboration with the American Cancer Society, found different? Doesn’t it just make you wonder?
What else have we been told that is also so very wrong or contradictory?
This is why I no longer pay much attention, if at all, to most studies. I just happened to hear this on the radio and did a quick search for the report.
Now, to all this I add the following: I feel that if people truly believe they need 8 or more hours of sleep, and again, “all things being equal,” then they’ll actually be okay, and not subject to that 6-year death sentence. For one thing, I know many people who believe the 8-hour “requirement,” and have know then for far longer than 6 years--and they’re all still alive and kicking. So, there are still a LOT of questions that need to be answered!
But, all in all, I just love this find!
But please, people, don’t let the significance of this find elude you...if you BELIEVED you needed 8 hours of sleep before, and you “suddenly” only need 6.5...how does that happen for you? Beliefs maybe? And if so, either beliefs do or don’t work in changing your life just by changing your beliefs. It can’t be situational. It’s either all or nothing. So...
Apply that reasoning to absolutely every other aspect in your life. Please!
