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Is 17 hours sleep really enough?

Of course it is. Here are eight famous people who needed a lot, lot less.

23/09/12 10,438 Views 7 Comments

You’ll have a heart attack, die younger and you’re brain will shrink.

You’ve married a gold digger? Possibly.

But it’s also likely that you’re not be getting enough sleep. At least that is what several studies have told us down through the years.

To those, we can now add another piece of worrying research. Not getting enough sleep is as important as diet and exercise when it comes to measuring weight loss.

But is getting enough sleep really all that important?

We take a look at a couple of high achievers who’ve done quite well without it.

Is 17 hours sleep really enough?
1 / 8

  • Winston Churchill

    /AP/Press Association Images Winston Churchill outside the door of 10 Downing Street, London. Britain's war time leader often took sold 1-2 hour naps in the afternoon, and averaged 5 to 6 hours sleep a day. You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner, and no halfway measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That's what I always do. Don't think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That's a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one -- well, at least one and a half"

  • Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO

    Source: Photo/Henny Ray Abrams, File Named Yahoo Inc.'s CEO on July 16, Mayer gained a reputation for working extremely hard at Google, working as many as 130 hours some weeks, leaving little time for sleep. She now says she only needs four to six hours a night.

  • Martha Stewart

    Source: Steven Bergman/UK Press/Press Association Images Felonies aside, Martha Stewart is still worth over $US600m thanks to her wholesome living business empire. "It's an exhausting lifestyle, and I always say sleep can go" she told WebMd. "It's not important to me right now. I never stay in bed late -- I can't! In my house, the first people arrive at about 6:30, and I have to be up well before that." Breakfast for her household menagerie alone -- three dogs, four cats, about 30 birds, 200 chickens, eight turkeys, five horses, and three donkeys -- could take hours."

  • Napoleon Bonaparte

    Source: Topham/Topham Picturepoint/Press Association Images Despite the odd blip or two, for almost 30 years the Corsican artillery officer lorded over all of Europe. How many hours sleep would he recommend? "Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool."

  • Nikola Tesla

    Source: PA/PA Archive/Press Association Images The Croatian born physicist invented the alternating current, which allowed for electricity to be distributed safely and easily and paved the way for the modern world. It clearly made him a busy man, as he often worked throughout the night only to crash the next day. I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything."

  • Thomas A. Edison

    Source: /AP/Press Association Images With the invention of the modern electric light-bulb, you might well blame the Ohio inventor with eating into everyone's sleep. But the founder of the company that became General Electric wasn't too fond of the shut eye himself. "Most people overeat 100 percent, and oversleep 100 percent, because they like it. That extra 100 percent makes them unhealthy and inefficient. The person who sleeps eight or ten hours a night is never fully asleep and never fully awake - they have only different degrees of doze through the twenty-four hours".

  • Thomas Jefferson

    One of America's founding fathers and the 3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote about his sleeping habits in letters to Dr. Vine Utley (1819). " I am not so regular in my sleep as the Doctor says he was, devoting to it from five to eight hours, according as my company or the book I am reading interests me; and I never go to bed without an hour, or half hour's previous reading of something moral, whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep. But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun."

  • Benjamin Franklin

    Source: /AP/Press Association Images "There will be sleeping enough in the grave" the inventor, scientist and a signer of the U.S. Constitution Benjamin Franklin once famously said. Yet it is another saying of his that is still known to many today. ""Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
  • /AP/Press Association Images Winston Churchill outside the door of 10 Downing Street, London. Britain's war time leader often took sold 1-2 hour naps in the afternoon, and averaged 5 to 6 hours sleep a day. You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner, and no halfway measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That's what I always do. Don't think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That's a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one -- well, at least one and a half
  • Source: Photo/Henny Ray Abrams, File Named Yahoo Inc.'s CEO on July 16, Mayer gained a reputation for working extremely hard at Google, working as many as 130 hours some weeks, leaving little time for sleep. She now says she only needs four to six hours a night.
  • Source: Steven Bergman/UK Press/Press Association Images Felonies aside, Martha Stewart is still worth over $US600m thanks to her wholesome living business empire.
  • Source: Topham/Topham Picturepoint/Press Association Images Despite the odd blip or two, for almost 30 years the Corsican artillery officer lorded over all of Europe. How many hours sleep would he recommend?
  • Source: PA/PA Archive/Press Association Images The Croatian born physicist invented the alternating current, which allowed for electricity to be distributed safely and easily and paved the way for the modern world. It clearly made him a busy man, as he often worked throughout the night only to crash the next day. I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.
  • Source: /AP/Press Association Images With the invention of the modern electric light-bulb, you might well blame the Ohio inventor with eating into everyone's sleep. But the founder of the company that became General Electric wasn't too fond of the shut eye himself.
  • One of America's founding fathers and the 3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote about his sleeping habits in letters to Dr. Vine Utley (1819).
  • Source: /AP/Press Association Images

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Jody Clarke
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