6 Things We Get Wrong About Sleep

There is no doubt that sleep is important for your health. If you don’t get enough of it, your risk of developing conditions such as dementia, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes may increase, and you’re more likely to feel irritable and anxious.

In search of the perfect night’s sleep, some people have tried drinking “sleepy girl mocktails” or invested in elaborate nighttime routines. But many of these solutions are not supported by research and will not address underlying sleep hygiene issues.

“There are a lot of opportunities to shake things up” about common misunderstandings about sleep, said Rebecca Robbins, an assistant professor in the division of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School and lead author of a 2019 study on sleep. misconceptions related to sleep.

The New York Times asked 11 sleep experts to set the record straight on some of the myths they hear most often.

You can’t train your body to need less sleep.

If you’ve suffered from long-term sleep deprivation, you may have felt like your body had finally adapted.

You can find ways to cope with less sleep, like drinking caffeine or skipping nighttime activities, said Dr. Ian Katznelson, a neurologist at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital. But that doesn’t mean you’ll avoid the negative effects of a lack of rest, which can include impaired memory, mood swings, and decreased creativity.