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New review challenges the eight-hour ancestral sleep myth
The review says historical and modern evidence points to variable sleep patterns, not a universal eight-hour night, and cites field data showing 6.4 to 7.1 hours.
- A new narrative review in Brain Medicine challenges the pervasive "eight-hour" sleep rule, noting the standard originated in the 19th century but was never systematically studied or validated by scientific evidence.
- Studies of hunter-gatherer societies in Tanzania, Namibia, and Bolivia reveal natural sleep averages between 5.7 and 7.1 hours, undermining claims that humans naturally require eight hours of uninterrupted rest.
- Industrialization primarily shifted when people sleep rather than reducing total duration, as artificial light drives later bedtimes and less regular schedules, the synthesis argues.
- Dr. Haitham Jahrami, co-author of the Psychiatry Hospital, Government Hospitals, Manama, and the Department of Psychiatry at the College of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain, noted "Sleep is not distributed the way people assume," citing factors like noise, light, and housing quality.
- First author Dr. Seithikurippu R. Pandi-Perumal of the Central Research Facility at Patil Medical College in Pune stated the literature asks the "wrong question," noting optimal health benefits occur at 6.4 to 7.8 hours.
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Western Morning News
Western Morning NewsHow much sleep do I need? Why you can forget the eight-hour rule
Eight hours isn’t necessarily the magic number for sleep. Your age, body clock and individual needs all matter.
·Albuquerque, United States
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A study on the anthropological, genetic and social roots of sleep shows that rest does not depend only on the clock and that our ancestors slept only in two blocksHemeroteca - Maiken Nedergaard, neuroscientific: “90% of sleeping pills interrupt the brain cleansing system” The magic figure of the eight hours of sleep appears in the health guides, the welfare leaflets and is repeated again and again as information about the quality of rest is soug…
·Madrid, Spain
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources11
Leaning Left3Leaning Right2Center2Last UpdatedBias Distribution43% Left
Bias Distribution
- 43% of the sources lean Left
43% Left
L 43%
C 29%
R 28%
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