Dr. Amy Athey

@AmyAthey

Performance Psychologist | Author of Still Evolving, Coming 2026 l Still Evolving Podcast Host l Entrepreneur l Mom

Virginia Beach, VA

Joined November 2013

1.6K Following

705 Followers

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AmyAthey retweeted

Matt Walker

@sleepdiplomat

2 months ago

If I could, this post Is dangerously wrong on numerous counts: Claim 1: “8-hour sleep was invented in 1938 by Simmons Beautyrest” False. “Eight hours’ rest” dates to Welsh reformer Robert Owen in 1817 and became the 19th-century labour movement’s rallying cry. Simmons launched its Sleep Research Foundation in 1946, focused on mattress comfort, not sleep duration norms. The 7–9 hour recommendation comes from an AASM/Sleep Research Society panel that reviewed 5,314 scientific articles across nine health domains (Watson et al., Sleep, 2015). No mattress company involved. Sorry. Claim 2: Biphasic “4+2+4” sleep was universal for 200,000 years = distorted. Historian Roger Ekirch documented pre-industrial “first/second sleep” — but the waking interval was roughly one hour, not two, and blocks were ~3–4 hours, not 4+4. This was documented primarily in higher-latitude, long-winter-night Europe — not universally across all human populations or time periods. Claim 3: Shakespeare wrote 1–3 AM; Mozart used “The God Hours” Both invented. No historical record documents Shakespeare’s writing hours. Mozart never used the phrase “The God Hours.” A famous letter portraying divine inspiration is now widely considered a 19th-century forgery by Friedrich Rochlitz. Claim 4: Kleitman faked studies, funded by the mattress industry = defamatory fabrication. Nathaniel Kleitman is the universally recognised “father of modern sleep research” — he established the first sleep laboratory. His archived funding sources: National Research Council, University of Chicago, Ovaltine’s manufacturer. Zero mention of mattress companies. What the epidemiology actually says re: how much sleep you need to survive and thrive…the evidence is overwhelming and drawn from millions of participants: ∙Cappuccio et al. (Sleep, 2010) — 1.38 million participants: sleeping under 6 hours raises all-cause mortality risk by 12%; the lowest mortality is consistently observed at 7–8 hours ∙Itani et al. (Sleep Medicine, 2017) — 5.1 million participants: short sleep raises diabetes risk 37%, cardiovascular disease 16%, hypertension 17%, obesity 38% ∙Shen et al. (Scientific Reports, 2016) — 1.5 million participants: mortality follows a U-shaped curve, lowest at exactly 7 hours, rising sharply below 6 and above 9 ∙Van Dongen et al. (Sleep, 2003): after 14 days at 6 hours/night, subjects performed as poorly as those totally sleep-deprived for 48 hours — and were unaware of their own impairment ∙Spiegel et al. (The Lancet, 1999): 4 hours/night for 6 nights reduced glucose tolerance by 30–40%, producing a pre-diabetic metabolic profile ∙IARC/WHO: night shift work — which chronically disrupts sleep — is classified a Group 2A probable carcinogen The optimal window is 7–9 hours of consolidated sleep, supported by the largest population studies ever conducted. Why waking at 2 AM is the opposite of creative: Sleep inertia is worst when waking from slow-wave sleep, which dominates the early night (Tassi & Muzet, Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2000). Waking at 2 AM places you at the circadian temperature nadir — prefrontal blood flow takes up to 30 minutes to recover, meaning executive function and creativity are maximally **impaired**, not enhanced. Fragmented sleep is also metabolically harmful even when total duration is preserved: Stamatakis & Punjabi (Chest, 2010) showed it drops insulin sensitivity by 20–25%. Calling insomnia a superpower ignores that it doubles depression risk (Baglioni et al., Journal of Affective Disorders, 2011), raises hypertension risk by 350–500% (Vgontzas et al., Sleep, 2009), and involves chronically elevated cortisol. CBT-I — not embracing 2 AM waking — is the evidence-based treatment, recommended by AASM, the American College of Physicians, and the European Sleep Research Society across 50+ RCTs. Bottom line: This post takes a real historical curiosity and wraps it in fabricated quotes, a defamed scientist, and medically dangerous advice. 🤷‍♂️

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