Getting by on six hours of sleep? It’s genetic

Getting by on six hours of sleep? It’s genetic

Most of us need about eight or so hours of sleep a night to perform optimally during the day. But scientists have found a mother and daughter who naturally snooze just six nightly hours, waking up bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

"They really have shorter sleep requirements," said study researcher Ying-Hui Fu, a professor of neurology at the University of California at San Francisco, Mission Bay.

It turns out, the pair are genetically programmed for such abbreviated sleep. They both carry a genetic mutation to the gene DEC2 that Fu and her colleagues found is at least partly responsible for the sleep pattern and probably contributes to so-called sleep homeostasis (how much sleep we need).

Scientists think sleep is controlled by at least two processes, one called circadian rhythm that sets the timing of when we go to sleep and when we wake up, turning some into night owls, for instance. The second is a homeostatic process, which regulates the length of shut-eye.

Though Fu isn't sure how many people carry such a genetic mutation, she said it's probably rare as the researchers found no other carriers in a sample of 250.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32406256/ns/health-behavior/

Are you genetically programmed for such abbreviated sleep?

Me thinks I am, ..... my homeostatic process is set for 5 to 6 hours of sleep, which is all I need.

But my circadian clock has been reset in the past few years. I use to got to sleep about 11 PM with a "wakeup call" about 3:58 AM. But now I get sleepy about 7:00 to 9:00 PM ...... and get that "wakeup call" about 1:00 to 2:00 AM.



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