8 Sleep Myths, Busted

Counting sheep never helped me get to sleep. Small wonder: it doesn’t work. British researchers actually looked into this age-old sleep remedy and published a study in 2002 showing that you’re more likely to drift off sooner if you imagine relaxing scenes. Their research suggested that counting sheep is so boring that we soon switch back to our worries du jour.

What other myths about sleep should we discount? Here are eight that may surprise you.

Drift into deep slumber the natural way: 10 Natural Sleep Remedies.

Myth: There’s no such thing as a beauty sleep.

Fact: Recent research from Sweden shows that getting enough sleep does makes you more attractive. The investigators asked 65 untrained observers (age 18 to 61) to randomly rate the attractiveness of 23 men and women age 18 to 31 on the basis of photographs. There were two photos of each participant, one taken after a good night’s sleep and another taken after being awake for 31 hours following a night when they didn’t get enough sleep. The observers rated the sleep-deprived photos as less attractive and less healthy. 

Myth: Reading or watching TV relaxes you so you can nod off.

Fact:  Conventional wisdom holds that this is a bad practice because an engrossing book or TV show can keep you awake. But new evidence suggests that something more serious is taking place: overexposure to light at night.  Your bedside lamp or the glow from the TV screen can suppress production of melatonin, the hormone essential to our sleep-wake cycle. Melatonin is produced by the pineal gland in the brain, but this happens only in the dark, says sleep specialist Rubin Naiman, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine. What’s more, Israeli researchers have linked light at night (from the TV, a night light, an open window) to an increased risk of breast cancer.

Myth: We need less sleep as we get older.

Fact: Regardless of age, adults need seven to nine hours of shut-eye daily. The notion that seniors need less shut-eye comes from the fact that sleep patterns change with age so that older people may wake up more often and don’t regularly clock those seven to nine hours.

NEXT: Alcohol Before Bedtime >>