Short Sleepers

Many studies of long- and short-sleeping humans were published between 1970 and 1987. The studies fall into two groups (a) most of the papers were naturalistic comparisons of people with characteristic sleep lengths of more than 9 hr/day with other individuals sleeping 6 or fewer hr/day (b) a few studies identified a small group of people with extremely short sleep lengths (less than 3 hr/day) in an attempt to document that such individuals did exist and did not develop symptoms of extreme sleepiness. 

Many of the initial studies were based on observations that there might be personality differences between long and short sleepers. Some studies have found no differences (11,12). However, Hartman (13) characterized short sleepers as involved keeping busy and avoiding psychological problems while long sleep- 

Only one study has carefully looked at characteristic performance or alertness as a function of habitual sleep duration. Taub (34,35) examined performance in groups of 7.5-hr- and 10-hr-sleeping university students. The long sleepers were found to have significantly shorter reaction time, improved vigilance per- 

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The previous studies led to the hypothesis that the insomnia patients may be suffering from a state of chronic activation that disturbs night sleep but protects against or prevents EDS from occurring in the morning. Conversely, such patients may be naturally short sleepers whose sleep need may be fulfilled with relatively short sleep at night. 

Aeschbach D, Cajochen C, Landolt H, Borbely AA. Homeostatic sleep regulation in habitual short sleepers and long sleepers. Am J Physiol 1996 270 R41-R53. 

Aeschbach D, Postolache TT, Sher I, Mathews JR, Jackson MA, Wehr TA. Evidence from the waking elecroencephalogram that short sleepers live under higher homeostatic sleep pressure than long sleepers. Neuroscience 2001 102 493-502. 

Hartmann E, Baekeland F, Zwilling GR. Psychological differences between long and short sleepers. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1972 26 463 168. 

Benoit O, Foret J, Bouard G. The time course of slow wave sleep and REM sleep in habitual long and short sleepers effect of prior wakefulness. Hum Neurobiol 1983 2 91-96. 

Kripke DF, Rex KM. Short sleepers are not at higher risk for driving accidents or other violations. Sleep 2002 25(abstract Suppl) A284-A285. 

Webb WB, Friel J. Characteristics of natural long and short sleepers a preliminary report. Psychol Rep 1970 27 63-66. 

Webb WB, Friel 1. Sleep stage and personality characteristics of natural long and short sleepers. Science 1971 171 587-588. 

Hartman E. Sleep requirement long sleepers, short sleepers, variable sleepers, and insomniacs. Psychosomatics 1973 14 95-103. 

Monk T, Buysse D, Welsh D, Kennedy K, Rose L. A sleep diary and questionnaire study of naturally short sleepers. J Sleep Res 2001 10 173-179. 

Webb WB, Agnew HWJ. Sleep stage characteristics of long and short sleepers. Science 1970 168 146-147. 

Benoit O, Foret J, Merle B, Bouard G. Diurnal rhythm of axillary temperature in long and short sleepers effects of sleep deprivation and sleep displacement. Sleep 1981 4 359-365. 

Aeschbach D, Sher L, Postolache TT, Matthews JR, Jackson MA, Wehr TA. Thyrotropic status as a marker of chronic sleep pressure in habitual short sleepers and long sleepers (abst). J Sleep Res 2002 ll(suppl 1) 1—2. 

Short sleepers lose the latter part of sleep (REM). 

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