Transcripts

Sleep specialist Dr. Carlos Schenck, author of the book Sleep, says it's fairly easy to tell how much sleep you need.

A good indicator of getting enough sleep is if you feel rested in the morning. And even if you only get six hours the night before, maybe that's all you need. Most American adults do need seven to eight hours but there are people on either end of the fringe - the key thing is "How do you feel when you get up in the morning?"

How well you sleep at night is often determined by how well you prepare yourself to go to bed...

The more you can calm down your nervous system in the evening, engage in restful activities, turn down the volume in your life basically. The sound element - turn it down. The light, bright light - in the evening is not good for going to sleep. So you want low light, don't spend too much time on the Internet with the bright computer screen and that can greatly promote sleep.

Dr. Schenck says if you are tired from lack of sleep, there's nothing wrong with taking a little nap during the day.

Most naps though should not be more than forty-five minutes or else it's difficult to shake the cobwebs - and that's called sleep inertia. You can't transition that well from sleep to wakefulness. So, a twenty to forty-five minute nap would be great. There are people that are born with the ability to power nap. Meaning a five or ten minute nap is great for recharging your batteries but that's kind of an innate ability. A typical nap is more twenty to forty-five minutes.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net, I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.