Sleep, perchance to dream

About 41 million people in the U.S. — nearly a third of all working adults — get six hours or fewer of sleep a night, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Typically, this leads to suggestions for earlier bedtimes and a longer night’s sleep. But this directive may be part of the problem, says the author of “Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep.”  He questions the assumption of the eight-hour block of sleep -- some of the tossing and turning we do may result from misconceptions about sleep and our bodily needs.
 
He points to studies suggestions that the body would like to naturally settle into a split sleep schedule. Subjects in one study found ways to use “middle-of-the-night awakenings” as a chance to do deep-thinking. A Harvard professor of psychiatry says  sleep — including short naps that include deep sleep — offers our brains the chance to decide what new information to keep and what to toss.