Myths about sleep

Did you know that if you live to be a 90-year-old and sleep 8 hours a night, you will spend about 30 years of your life asleep? A large part of our lives is spent sleeping, but there are still many misconceptions, uncertainties, and misinformation surrounding sleep.

In the following exercise, you will learn about common sleep-related assumptions and consider which of them are true and which are false.

Click here to view the accessible version of this interactive content

References

Clark, I., & Landolt, H. P. (2017). Coffee, caffeine, and sleep: A systematic review of epidemiological studies and randomized controlled trials. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 31, 70–78.

Colrain, I. M., Nicholas, C. L., & Baker, F. C. (2014). Alcohol and the sleeping brain. Handbook of clinical neurology, 125, 415–431. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-62619-6.00024-0

Haba-Rubio, J., Marques-Vidal, P., Tobback, N., Andries, D., Preisig, M., Kuehner, C., Vollenweider, P., Waeber, G., Luca, G., Tafti, M., & Heinzer, R. (2015). Bad sleep? Don’t blame the moon! A population-based study. Sleep Medicine, 16(11), 1321–1326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2015.08.002

Klerman, E. B., & Dijk, D.-J. (2005). Interindividual Variation in Sleep Duration and Its Association With Sleep Debt in Young Adults. Sleep, 28(10), 1253–1259. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/28.10.1253

Manger, P. R., & Siegel, J. M. (2020). Do all mammals dream? Journal of Comparative Neurology, 528(17), 3198–3204. https://doi.org/10.1002/cne.24860

Merikanto, I., Kronholm, E., Peltonen, M., Laatikainen, T., Lahti, T., & Partonen, T. (2012). Relation of Chronotype to Sleep Complaints in the General Finnish Population. Chronobiology International, 29(3), 311–317. https://doi.org/10.3109/07420528.2012.655870

Williamson, A. M., & Feyer, A. M. (2000). Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 57(10), 649-655.‌

Keywords: sleep, sleeping, physical wellbeing, learning

Physical wellbeing