Sleep directly related to life expectancy

Research shows naps increase performance. NASA found pilots who take a 25 minute nap are 35 percent more alert and twice as focused.

Research by NASA revealed that pilots who take a 25-minute nap in the cockpit — hopefully with a co-pilot taking over the controls — are subsequently 35 percent more alert, and twice as focused, than their non-napping colleagues.

Little siestas helped people across a whole host of measures. Improved reaction time, fewer errors…

NASA found that naps made you smarter — even in the absence of a good night’s sleep.

If you can’t get in a full night’s sleep, you can still improve the ability of your brain to synthesize new information by taking a nap. In a study funded by NASA, David Dinges, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and a team of researchers found that letting astronauts sleep for as little as 15 minutes markedly improved their cognitive performance, even when the nap didn’t lead to an increase in alertness or the ability to pay more attention to a boring task.

Scientists have revealed that sleeping less than six hours a night can increase the risk of an early death, while sleeping more than nine hours can also cut down life expectancy.

After analysing data from 16 studies, involving more than 1.5 million participants, researchers found ‘unequivocal evidence’ of a direct link between sleeping less than six hours a night and dying prematurely.

People who regularly had this little sleep were 12 per cent more likely to die over a period of 25 years or less than those who got the recommended six to eight hours.

An association was also seen between sleeping more than nine hours a night and early death.

Professor Francesco Cappucio, head of the Sleep, Health and Society Programme at the University of Warwick, said: ‘While short sleep may represent a cause of ill-health, long sleep is believed to represent more an indicator of ill-health.