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Sleep duration

Individual differences in sleep duration are normal, but less than 6.5 hours of sleep may induce performance decrements and could be unhealthy.

 

Some people think they can do with a little amount of sleep and indeed short sleep may be in your genes. But in most cases, these short sleepers are just sleep deprived without actual noticing. Already 1.5h less-than-usual sleep during one night may induce a reduction of 32% in alertness. Chronic sleep restriction to 6h of sleep on 6 consecutive days, may result in 6 times more missed hits in an attention test. Epidemiological studies show that people who sleep less than 6 hours per night have an increased risk of developing or dying from a coronary heart disease (+48%) or stroke (+15%).

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