Lack of sleep

No BELIEF is more deeply ingrained than that the average individual requires seven, eight or more hours of sleep. Like most firmly established popular misconceptions, it is totally unjustified.

History is full with examples of people who lived at the times of some major transformation, who contributed greatly to the pleasures of life, who were able to do their work on half that amount of sleep. That it is possible to do top notch intellectual work  and maintain a degree of vitality enabling one to live out the scriptural allotment is evidenced by Herbert Spencer.

• “Appearances gave the impression that I was in fair health,” he tells us in his autobiography. ”Appetite and digestion were both good, and my bodily strength, seemingly not less than it had been, as tested by walking, was equal to that of most men who lead town lives. This continued to be my state for many years. Both then and afterwards, my sleeping remained quite abnormal. A night of sound sleep was and has ever continued to be unknown to me : my best nights being such as would commonly be called bad ones save when leading a rural life with working and out door sports to occupy attention. It probably averaged between four and five hours of unconsciousness, but it was never continuous. The four or five hours were made up of bits ; and if one of the bits was two hours long, it was something unusual. Ordinarily my nights had from a dozen to a score of wakings. Moreover, at that time and for five and twenty years after the sensation of drowsiness was never experienced.”

This paragraph from the life ’s record of one of our greatest thinkers should reassure many an insomniac about lack of sleep and how much sleep one does really need.