Most of us know about the 8 hour rule – you need 8 hours of sleep per night. This is actually a falsehood which has been long disproved.

We do not regain energy based upon the total number of hours we’ve slept, but instead the total number of sleep cycles we complete.

What is a Sleep Cycle?
A sleep cycle is one “cycle” through each of the brain’s states during sleep. To overly simplify, we have two states of sleep- REM (rapid eye movement) and non-REM. During non-REM sleep, our brain doesn’t have much activity and we have very weak dreams. It’s in REM sleep that we have our deep sleep and vivid dreams. It is also in REM that we refuel our bodies.

So, one study conducted by CentACS showed that a sleep cycle consists of roughly 65 minutes of Non-REM sleep, followed by 20 minutes of REM sleep and finished off with 5 minutes of non-REM sleep. Throughout the night, we progressively increase our REM sleep duration.

On average, each cycle takes about 90 minutes to complete. What does this mean? That to maximize our energy, we should sleep in chucks on 90 minutes. 1.5hours, 3 hours, 4.5hours, 6 hours, 7.5 hours, 9 hours, and 10.5 hours is the approximate time table you should use to pick a amount of time you need for sleep.

What does this mean for the 8 hour rule? Its wrong. You will actually feel just as refreshed from 7 1/2 hours of sleep as you will from 8 hours.

Please note, this study was done a while ago (2005 I believe), so if anyone has any new info, please leave a comment.

Quick Sleep Tip #1 – Get Rid Of Stress To Sleep Better
Stress plays a big role in the quality of sleep you get. If you feel like you are having trouble falling asleep, check out your stress levels. If you feel that they are too high, get rid all possible stress.