• Question: Why do humans need 8 hours sleep?

    Asked by Science4lyf to Anna, Hayley, Iain, Rebecca on 16 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by Hannah Austen.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      How much sleep people need very much depends on the individual, but it is true that most people need between 7 and 9 hours. This is the time your body requires to rest both physically and mentally, “recharge your battery”, strengthen new connections between your brain cells and lose unimportant ones, dream and process what you have experienced. Dreaming also helps you work out problems and make decisions. Therefore, sleeping is very important.

    • Photo: Iain Bethune

      Iain Bethune answered on 26 Jun 2015:

      As Sascha said everyone needs different amounts of sleep. For me, I sleep about 6-7 hours per night and feel fine on that. My wife will sleep 8-9 hours. It is said that Margaret Thatcher only slept for 4 hours a night.

      We can manage without sleep for reasonable periods of time (e.g. a few days), especially with the help of stimulants like Caffiene, but after that it starts to be very bad for your health (physical and mental).

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