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Everybody naturally wants to sleep at night. But few people ask why? Even less people believe that we should sleep about 12 hrs per night in perfect darkness.

However, by means of our everyday common sense and instincts (our ancestors' successful experiences saved in DNA 10,000 years ago), it is easily to understand that must be so.

Also, it is naturally, too, that why Lawrence J. Epstein (the author of"The Harvard Medical School Guide to a Good Night's Sleep") said that it is a lot easier to prevent weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease by getting enough sleep than it is to treat these problems once they develop. (1)

Origin of Sleep

According to the biological evolution we learned in junior high school, ancient people slept about 12 hours a day 10,000 years ago.  At that time people had to sleep for such long time because they could not see well at night before the discovery of lamp then. (2)

Function of Sleep

Obviously, our ultra highly economical body makes use of the indispensable long night to grow and repair itself while sleeping. Therefore, the sufficient time of sleeping makes our brain, muscles, and all organs working very energetically and efficiently. Thus, everybody feels so in the morning after he or she has well slept a whole night (about 12 hrs) in darkness.

Even we lying in bed without falling asleep will do us a great deal of good, including making us geniuses. This fact can be explained clearly by many famous people in our history. (2)

Duration of Sleep

Today, our DNA is 99.99% the same as that 10,000 years ago. So, the instincts or regulations of our physiology (including sleeping about 12 hours a night) passed down on our DNA should be obeyed in order to keep our body functioning right. Contrarily, our body will function wrong and become unhealthy if these regulations are not obeyed. (2)

Apparently, the necessarily sufficient time of sleep must be about 12 hours a night as required by our DNA rather than 8 hours we usually think.

Conclusion

We should sleep 12 hours a day on average to make us smart and fit.
　　

References:  1. Laurence, J. Epstein, 2010, Newsweek, "The Surprising Toll of Sleep Deprivation".     2. W. Ying, 2010, "Is Your Happiness Valid?" paperback/e-book, Amazon.com.

Copyright 2010 all rights reserved.

About the Author:
W. Ying, a research chemist retired for 25 years who has lived his life half in poor rural areas and half in luxurious big cities, is the writer of the 700 blog posts and 2 books about 10,000-years-ago norm for life. These posts are application examples (mostly in bilingugal Chinese-English) for the first book "Eat, Drink, Wear, Dwell etc.: An Easy Rule for Happy Health" (in Chinese). The second book "Is Your Happiness Valid?" is about the foolishness of invalid happiness. Welcome to contact him at http://blog.sina.com.cn/happywellness.