How much sleep do you need?

How much sleep do we really need to have and when? The answer in Ayurveda is “it depends”. It depends on our personal qualities, called the doshas. Each of us has a tendency at birth toward Vata, Pitta and Kapha in various combinations. You can read more about the doshas here . That combination of qualities helps determine our optimum sleep amount and patterns.

Ayurveda’s cardinal rule of sleep

While it may depend on our doshas, the one solid, seldom wavering recommendation Ayurveda provides on sleep is this — go to bed by 10PM.

There are so many good reasons to be in bed by 10, all of them supported heavily by both eastern and western science. The primary time of detoxification of the body and the emotions is at night. The liver does most of its vital work roughly between 1 and 3 AM, while 3 to 5AM are when the lungs are cleansed and renewed. Other work is done prior to 1AM. We can’t live a healthy life without this important detoxification function. To have this work occur, we need to be in a state of sleep.

The 4 stages of sleep

Since we move through the stages of sleep in about 90 minute cycles, our body needs some settling in and run-up time to the detox process. In stage 1 we’re sleeping lightly and are easily wakened, in stage 2 we finally give our poor hearts and nervous systems their first rest of the day, important to heart health, in stage 3 we enter deep sleep and a lot of the repair work gets done, and stage 4 is the famous REM sleep when we dream. Then we re-enter stage 1 and it starts all over. We want as many cycles per night as possible, so the most work can get done

Ten PM is a good rule of thumb, but it may not be early enough for you. Keep reading.

Vata, pitta and kapha sleepers

People with a lot of vata qualities are hummingbirds that constantly flit from thing to thing both mentally and physically. Vatas are active, anxious, multitaskers that wear themselves out until they drop and then they just quit–or get sick. Vata-dominant people also often have a lot of sleep disturbances, with worries and anxieties rising at night. As a result, it’s hard for vata people to get enough sleep to renew their bodies in less than 8 hours. They usually need more like 9 or 10 hours to get a decent number of sleep cycles in..

Pitta types are hard driving, goal-oriented go-getters. They tend to have stronger constitutions than vata-types with well-balanced bodies so 8 hours is generally enough. The danger is that pittas will give up sleep to reach their goals, not realizing that they can’t get to those goals without sleep.

Kapha-dominant people are the best sleepers. In fact, they sometimes need to be sure they don’t get too much sleep. A solid 6 to 8 hours a night is generally good for kaphas.

The anthropology case

Just as a lot of health experts today tell us to eat foods that would have been consumed by our ancestors, the same kind of case can be made for sleep. Before the advent of electric lights and central heating, people went to bed earlier. Maybe they sat around the campfire for a while, but still, sleep was natural and important to recovery for tomorrow’s search for food. Anthropologists today argue not only that the blue light of screens is bad for us, but also artificial light of any kind well into the night takes a huge toll on our bodies that are made to sleep when it gets dark — or soon after — and rise with the sun or before. That’s why many health experts say to go to bed only a couple hours or less after it gets dark. Clearly in the winter, this means at like 7 or 8PM. In the summer, it may mean that it’s still dusk when you go to bed.

Find your best sleep time

Consider it. I’m a vata/pitta type and I go to bed by 8ish year round — 7:30 often in winter and 8:30 or 9 in summer. If you want to try it, adjust a bit earlier each night. Find the time that works best for your type, but no later than 10PM — except for the occasional special event. If you’ve developed a pattern of doing most of your work at night, it’s hard to adjust, but it’s important to make the change. Your body wants and needs to sleep at night. You might even like it!