Let's Put The Rumors To Bed: 4 Common Myths A Sleep Doctor Sees All The Time

High-quality sleep is crucial for overall well-being. After all, a proper snooze affects so many avenues of health—from immune function1 to weight gain2, stress3, skin health4, and more. And yet! There are a plethora of misconceptions about sleep running rampant in society, specifically around the notion of a "good night's rest." How can we expect to reap all the profound benefits of sleep if we don't even know what "good" sleep really means? 

According to Breus, eight hours shouldn't be the standard for sleep. In fact, he says there shouldn't be a standard at all: "It's so personalized and it's so different for everybody," he says. "Eight hours is not necessarily what everybody needs." He explains that the average sleep cycle, from wake to REM, takes approximately 90 minutes, and the average human has five of these 90-minute cycles (if you do the math, that clocks out to around seven and a half hours). But that's just the average! You may require more or less sleep than the average person, and that's OK. 

"I've [seen patients] who need more sleep before they have their period and who need less sleep after they have their periods, and we adjust their bedtimes accordingly," says Breus. Some people's circadian rhythms change with the seasons—there are a host of factors that can affect your perfect snooze range. 

Here's another misconception: Have you ever gotten a night of poor sleep, then thought, Oh well, I'll catch up on sleep this weekend. According to Breus, it's time to nip that notion: "It's almost impossible to actually catch up on sleep," he says. "The human body can only take on so much sleep in a single bout."

In other words, your body has a limit for how much natural, healthy sleep it needs (which, again, differs for everyone). When you do cross that limit? You might feel even worse: "I don't know about you, but I feel like absolute crap if I sleep longer in the mornings than my normal wakeup time," Breus notes. 

Another pervasive notion in the world of sleep? Rather than staring at the ceiling, you should get up and walk around. At first glance, yes, this is sound advice—experts say if you've been trying to fall asleep for 20 minutes with no luck, leaving your bedroom can actually help. But some people may take this counsel and run with it—literally—completing a workout in the hopes of making the body tired enough to fall asleep. 

Perhaps you've been warned before: Snacking before bedtime keeps you awake and energized. Again, this is an overgeneralization. Sure, you don't want to be feasting on sugary sweets right before hitting the hay, but some light snacking isn't so bad. Says Breus, "You don't want to go to bed full, but you also don't want to go to bed hungry." 

Here's the science: When your body runs out of fuel, your brain activates cortisol (aka, your stress hormone that sounds the alarm bells in your body and causes a spike in blood sugar). As a result, you might wake up in the middle of the night: "When I talk to [patients], I ask the timing of their last meal, and more times than not, they stop eating at like seven o'clock at night. If you take the time from seven at night until two in the morning, that's seven and a half hours. They're out of fuel."