Scientists say the ‘perfect’ amount of sleep is actually less than 8 hours

According to science, there’s a sweet spot you need to meet if you want to get the most benefit out of your sleep.

Sleep is probably one of the biggest things that people complain about.

“I’m too tired because I slept too much”, or, “I’m tired because I didn’t sleep enough”.

When does it end?

While there have been numerous tips and hacks created to help you drift off quicker, and for longer, it might be all that beneficial to sleep for the times we’re used to.

Eight-hours. That’s what we all think about when considering the optimal amount of sleep.

Except, new research suggests that it’s not actually the amount we need, and if we sleep for too long or too little, it could aid in the faster aging of almost all organs in the body.

Yikes.

The researchers measured sleep to find the optimal amount (Getty Stock Images)

The study, published in Nature, reveals that the true amount of hours to aim for each night is between 6.4 and 7.8 hours of sleep, as this can allegedly be linked to improved health.

For example, the study explained that those who slept for the recommended time showed a lower disease risk, and enhanced longevity.

On the flip side, those who slept outside of those times had more risk of disease and higher mortality rates.

"Our integrated genetic and survival analyses consistently demonstrate that disturbed sleep duration patterns, both short and long, are robustly linked to a wide array of systemic DEs and increased mortality risk,” the authors wrote.

To find this out, they used data from the UK Biobank, which contains data of around half a million people.

Mixing this with biological aging clocks, which measures physiological age rather than chronological age for all 23 organ systems, and self-reported sleep, they identified organ-specific biological age gaps (BAGs).

These BAGs can show differences between the biological and chronological age of the organs, which can predict a person’s likelihood of developing diseases or their mortality.

They found that less than 8 but more than 6 was perfect for health (Getty Stock Images)

The researchers found that both short and long sleep were associated with health problems primarily impacting the brain and body.

Particularly when it came to short sleep, this was linked to depressive episodes, and anxiety, as well as obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and also heart arrhythmias.

Both types of sleep were then linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, gastritis, and gastroesophageal reflux.

They found that those who slept too much (more than 8 hours) or too little (less than 6 hours) had higher biological age gaps in these BAGs, leading to accelerated ageing.

However, those within the 6.4 and 7.8-hour range had the smallest biological age gap in the BAGs - meaning they age less in terms of organ systems than others.

But more research is needed, as they admit that while a factor in health, it might not be a definite cause of disease or death.