The thought of thriving on such little sleep鈥攁nd freeing up so many more hours of your day鈥攎ay sound tempting. But the reality is that the vast majority of us cannot function that way. Nor can you train yourself to need less shut-eye. A lot of people underestimate the amount of sleep their body ideally needs. And finding out how much sleep you need each night need may require some attention and experimentation.

How Much Sleep Do Humans Need?

Sleep scientists are in consensus about adults needing at least seven hours of sleep per night for the best health outcomes. More specifically, adults aged 18 to 64 should get of sleep, and adults aged 65 and over should get seven to eight.

A 2022 study published in found that older adults tended to make better and faster decisions, as well as have better working memory, when they got seven hours of sleep each night (not greater and not fewer).

Despite all this evidence, there are plenty of people who claim to need or want fewer than seven hours of sleep. But often they confuse how much sleep they need for optimal functioning with how much sleep they just happen to be getting, says , an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University.

There are, of course, exceptions. 鈥淭here are some individuals who can operate at a very high level on only a handful of hours of sleep,鈥� says Scullin. Research shows there are a that cause people to be 鈥渟hort sleepers,鈥� meaning they are highly functioning on just six hours of sleep a night.

Reasons Why It’s Hard for You to Get Enough Sleep at Night

If your bedroom is too bright, loud, uncomfortable, warm, cold, or crowded, it鈥檚 going to be difficult to get quality sleep, says , an applied economist who studies sleep. Sure, you might be waking up early. But that might be because your body just can鈥檛 stay asleep, not because you鈥檙e well-rested.

Schofield studies the behavioral economics of sleep, focusing in particular on working communities in India. In her work, she found that when it comes to sleep and productivity, there are factors beyond the need for rest that can change people鈥檚 perception of how much sleep they need, especially when it comes to time.

鈥淲hen you use time to sleep, you can’t use that time to do something else,鈥� Schofield says. And so for some, their perceived 鈥渙ptimal鈥� amount of sleep might be a shorter duration than what鈥檚 best for their health, simply because they can get more stuff done. It鈥檚 a cost-value trade-off that every population, regardless of nationality or socioeconomic status, has to consider, she says.

Figuring Out How Much Rest You Need for Optimal Performance

To find out how much sleep your body requires for optimal focus and energy, Scullin says to do the following:

1. Make sure your room is comfortable, quiet, dark, and cool
2. Give yourself a lot of time to be in bed.
3. Put your electronics away and don鈥檛 set an alarm.
4. Simply lie down鈥攁nd let yourself fall asleep and wake up at a natural time.

鈥淚f you do [these steps] across one week, or maybe two weeks, then you’re eventually going to hone in on how much sleep your personal body actually needs,鈥� Scullin says.

From there, it鈥檚 time to adjust your habits for the better. 鈥淭he great news is, if you do increase your sleep, it’s pretty immediately rewarding,鈥� he says. Sure, you may feel a little drowsy as your body adjusts to all those extra hours, 鈥渂ut as you get into a healthier sleep pattern, you鈥檒l find your mood improves,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou’re probably even going to experience a happier outlook on life鈥攁nd that’s really fulfilling.鈥�

Want more of听国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 Health stories?听.

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Cycling is the leading cause of sports-related head injuries in the United States. It has been estimated that head injuries related to cycling accidents caused approximately 80,000 emergency department visits in 2015. 13,000 of these visits included a diagnosis of concussion and traumatic brain injury (TBI). Moreover, a recent study found that only 22% of cyclists who sustained head and neck injuries were wearing helmets during the accident.

Of all the gear you buy for triathlon, the helmet might just be the most important. Your bike helmet is the main (and most) effective strategy to prevent traumatic brain injury in cycling accidents. Cyclists are vulnerable road users, and therefore, the necessity of wearing protective equipment cannot be overemphasized. More often than not, the sequelae from a severe collision are permanent.

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Traditional Bike Helmet Design

Traditional helmets are designed to dampen the impact and reduce head impact force. A typical bicycle helmet consists of the shell, the liner, and the straps. The liner is used to absorb most of the impact energy and reduce the wearer鈥檚 risks of sustaining head injuries.

Helmets have routinely used a rigid shell of EPS (expanded polystyrene foam), which diminishes the impact force and mitigates the impact. Basic cycling helmets have been designed in a way that during an impact, they crush and rupture, absorbing the shock so your skull doesn鈥檛 have to.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) standard is mandatory for bicycle helmets in the United States, and dictates that helmets must limit peak linear acceleration (PLA) to less than 300g鈥攁 level associated with greater than 50% risk of skull fracture or severe brain injury.听

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Testing the Effectiveness of Bike Helmet Protection

Before, scientists studied the effectiveness of helmets using only the vertical drop of some sort of mannequin head (head form) against a rigid surface. However, thanks to scientists in the lab, new tests are taking into consideration head rotational kinematics.

Why? Because bike accidents and impacts rarely occur in a full vertical manner, and it has been proven that real life impacts occur mostly at oblique angles of about 30 to 60 degrees. Oblique impacts induce head rotation, which is known to be a key mechanism of several distinct types of head injury, such as听, or the tearing of the connecting nerve fibers in the brain.

Studies using this new and improved multi-directional testing strategy have demonstrated that new helmet technologies can provide better protection under oblique impacts than conventional helmets. These new technologies are aimed towards mitigating the head鈥檚 kinematics through rotation-damping systems.

What Is MIPS?

As we鈥檝e established, rotational forces are a dominant factor causing brain injury in cycling accidents. Because of this, modern cycling helmet designs now include 鈥渁nti-rotational technologies.鈥�

Multi-Directional Impact Protection System, or MIPS, consists of a thin slip liner that covers the inside of the helmet. This technology seeks to reduce rotational acceleration of the head by permitting sliding between the helmet and head during impact.

In fact, as expert scientists have stated, MIPS aims to reduce rotational head acceleration caused by an oblique impact in order to further improve protection from rotational traumatic brain injury. So basically, MIPS is oriented towards reducing rotational head kinematics by enabling sliding between the helmet and the head during a given impact.

As of 2019, MIPS technology helmets have been used by over 100 brands. There are other new technologies to address rotational protection in bike helmets, such as WaveCel and Koroyd, which utilize a collapsible cellular structure that absorbs the force of impact and minimizes the energy transferred to the cyclist鈥檚 head. Shearing Pad Inside, or SPIN for short, is another rotation damping system used by some cycling helmet manufacturers.

Is a MIPS Bike Helmet Safer?

Experts in the field of biomedical engineering听听in order to evaluate the effects of MIPS on peak head form kinematics. They evaluated 3 head form conditions: bare, stocking-covered, and human hair, in three impact orientations over a range of impact speeds. They conducted a total of 72 freefall drop tests of a single helmet model, with and without MIPS, onto a 45掳 angled anvil and measured many variables, such as peak linear (PLA) and angular acceleration (PAA), as well as the brain injury criterion. Conclusively, MIPS reduced peak angular kinematics across 3 head form conditions, 3 impact orientations, and 4 impact speeds.

But the lab is not the real world. It鈥檚 important to objectively interpret these findings and extrapolate the results in the context of real-world head impacts. How substantial would a difference be between a long-haired cyclist versus a bald one?

For that matter,听听have proposed that head forms used in the lab should be better designed by incorporating artificial skin layers that can better resemble scalp鈥檚 behavior, that way, a much more reliable insight could be obtained from the design of helmet technologies against rotational acceleration.

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Studying Spin, WaveCel, and More

MIPS and SPIN rotation damping systems demonstrated significant improvement in mitigating rotational head kinematics and in consequence, brain injury risk. For instance,听was conducted in the UK and Sweden in order to assess the brain injury prevention effects of 27 bicycle helmets in oblique impacts, including helmets fitted with MIPS, SPIN, WaveCel (a wavy cellular liner), H枚vding (an airbag helmet) and a number of conventional helmets.

For each bike helmet technology, a detailed computational model of TBI was used to determine strain distribution across the brain and in key anatomical regions, namely the corpus callosum and sulci. The Corpus callosum is the largest white matter tract in the human brain and a common location of axonal injury after severe traumatic brain injury.

The assessment of 27 commercially-available helmets showed that the vast majority of helmets with new technologies like MIPS or SPIN do have the potential to reduce peak rotational acceleration and velocity, and maximal strain in corpus callosum in oblique impacts.

This is further confirmed with听, where two helmet technologies were evaluated to determine the ability to on decrease peak rotational acceleration in cycling helmets.

The findings of this study demonstrated significant reductions, compared to a traditional helmet, for peak rotational acceleration for MIPS technology and thermoplastic urethane bladders containing a low-viscosity fluid. The former showed significant reductions in rotational acceleration for the front and side impact sites, while the latter showed听 significant reductions in rotational acceleration for the front, side and crown impact sites. As stated by the scientists, each technology demonstrated unique performance characteristics depending on the impact condition.

Is It Worth Investing in a MIPS or SPIN Helmet?

Yes. We are not talking here about aero helmets or technology to make you faster here. Instead, we鈥檙e talking about the most fundamental job of the bike helmet 鈥� something that will actually protect your head during an accident on the road.

New helmet technologies cost more, but investing in your health means you care about yourself, your significant other, your family and your sports community.

How to Wear a Bike Helmet (the Right Way)

If you want to get the most out of your bike helmet, you鈥檝e got to wear it the correct way 鈥� and many are making helmet mistakes without even realizing it. Let鈥檚 review the basics:

• Buy the correct size by measuring your head circumference before purchasing. Then use the ratchet system to fine-tune the fit. When a helmet fits well, it does not move much when you shake your head (but it shouldn鈥檛 be so tight that it causes headaches or discomfort, either).
• The front of the helmet should rest just above your brow. If you see a significant amount of forehead skin, your bike helmet is higher than it should be.
• When the helmet is on your head, the straps should be snug, but not tight enough to distract. You should not be able to fit more than two fingers between your skin and the chin strap. The strap dividers (the 鈥淵鈥� straps on your bike helmet) should sit just below your earlobe.
• Based on听current evidence, it is not advisable to wear thick layers between your hair (or your scalp for that matter), and the inner surface of any given helmet. For instance, a very thin and traditional cycling cap would probably not have a detrimental effect during an accident, but wearing thick layers (such as a beanie or a winter toque) is definitely discouraged, as they might alter the beneficial and protective effects of a regular cycling helmet.

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Can I Still Wear My Bike Helmet After a Crash? It Looks Fine.

Some cyclists continue to use a helmet even after the helmet has been involved in collisions, falls or road accidents. Why? For starters, the helmet 鈥渓ooks fine.鈥� Besides, helmets can be expensive and most cyclists simply like the helmet they already have and don鈥檛 want to go through the process of fitting a new one.

But guess what? Science has demonstrated that effectiveness of head protection might be compromised even after one collision. A study was conducted in order to investigate this. Researchers used 2 types of helmets (both without MIPS technology). After several experiments (involving drop tests with different accelerations and impacts), they concluded that although macroscopic (visible) damage was not observed after the first tests, the helmet structure might have been irreversibly changed, lowering the effectiveness of the head protection in the second tests. Thus, helmets may not be safe after a collision or a fall, even if there is no visible damage.

So yes, in real-life situations, helmets subjected to an impact should be discarded. It is a matter of safety.

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听is a board certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon, a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) and an enthusiastic amateur triathlete

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Mark Macy recently got a tattoo on his right arm that depicts many of the grueling endurance events he鈥檚 tackled in his life.

If you don鈥檛 know Macy, a 69-year-old retired attorney from Evergreen, Colorado, the ink on his arm will tell you that he鈥檚 a tenacious ultra-distance athlete who鈥檚 been there and done that. But the sincerity of his smile, his deep blue eyes, and gregarious laugh tell you everything you need to know about him.

The tattoo, which is a collage of names and symbols from Eco-Challenge, Ironman, Badwater, Iditasport, Spartan Race, and the Leadville 100, represents his rigorous race resume dating back to the late 1980s. 鈥淢ace,鈥� as he鈥檚 been known by friends, family, colleagues, and training partners, is one of only a handful of people in the world who have completed at least eight of the ten Eco-Challenge multisport adventure races since the first one in 1995.

But the tattoo isn鈥檛 a showy gesture by any means. He was never a podium finisher at any of those events, and besides, he doesn鈥檛 have a boastful bone in his body anyway. It was just a fun thing to do and, perhaps, a way to keep it all top of mind, now that he鈥檚 facing the biggest endurance event of his life.

Mace was diagnosed four and a half years ago with early onset Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and, despite remaining very physically and mentally active, it has continued to advance beyond the early stage of mild memory loss.

鈥淵ou know he’s proud of the new tattoo, and, while doesn’t always remember what’s on it, he kind of remembers it’s there and he has fun showing it to other people,鈥� says his son, Travis Macy, 40, who, not only followed in his father鈥檚 passionate life-affirming footsteps for endurance sports but turned it into a career as a professional athlete, coach, author, speaker and podcaster.

Mace鈥檚 heartfelt story is captured in a powerful new father-son memoir centered on the demanding journey Mace and Travis endured during the 2019 Eco-Challenge race in Fiji. Jointly written by the Macys and Patrick Reagan, , which hit bookstores in March, depicts Mace鈥檚 full life as an endurance sports participant, respected defense attorney, and devoted family man. Most importantly, because of the inclusion of Mace鈥檚 candid journal entries to start each chapter, it tells a touching story about how he has continued living and thriving amid the slow but cruel progress of the disease.

Enduring Dementia

According to the Centers of Disease Control, more than 5.8 million Americans are living with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, the most common form of dementia. Although there are some medications that can help reduce or control some cognitive and behavioral symptoms, scientists do not yet fully understand what causes the disease, and there is no cure.

When Mace was initially diagnosed in October 2018, his family, led by his wife, Pam, and their three children were immediately aligned in the need to keep him mentally sharp and physically active as he headed into what was suddenly a more cloudy future. Included in that collective effort was the family decision to have Travis captain a four-person team of adventure athletes鈥攊ncluding Mace鈥攖hat would take on the challenge of hiking, mountain biking, paddling, climbing, and rappelling more than 400 miles during the seven-day , an event producer Mark Burnett was bringing back in 2019 after a 17-year hiatus.

They knew it would be an opportunity for Mace to race one final time, but being a part of the aptly named Team Endure was also part of the bigger family strategy to keep him engaged in the sports that听 defined him for so long, while also raising money to find a cure for Alzheimer鈥檚. They made it through the race that was later broadcast as a 10-part series on Amazon Prime, but the story in the book tells more about the transcendent power of love between families, friends, and the endurance sports community.

Despite the worsening of the disease, Mace continued to hike, trail run, and ride bikes with Travis, Pam, and other close friends, including adventure legend and longtime adventure racing teammate Marshall Ulrich. Sometimes Mace would occasionally forget what he was doing in the middle of a hike, get lost on familiar terrain, or uncharacteristically get depleted of energy, but the positives of being active in the outdoors far outweighed the negatives.

鈥淚n Mace鈥檚 story鈥攁nd that of his family鈥擨 have found an inspiring reminder that with love, determination, and teamwork, the most formidable challenges can be overcome,鈥� Burnett writes in the foreword of the book. 鈥淟iving the life you love is always worth the risk.鈥�

Travis made his dad a co-host of his podcast, , for a while, and the father-son duo chatted with numerous endurance sports athletes, coaches, event organizers, and health professionals in conversations about training, competition, fueling, sports psychology, aging, and more, recalling a wide range of stories in Mace鈥檚 athletic career and dispensing nuggets of wisdom along the way.

However, amid the joy of those moments and the continued family immersion (especially with his grandkids), Mace has still been at the mercy of the disease as it has been persistent. He remains as active as possible and still has good friends who pick him up occasionally so he can join them for trail runs and hikes. But he can no longer safely ride a bike because of declining spatial awareness, and he needs more help on a daily basis. Travis admits it was a sad day when he and his mom agreed recently it was time to pick up Mace鈥檚 mountain bike and take it away.

Travis is grateful to have his dad with him at the first Colorado stops of the book tour, and that they鈥檒l have the opportunity to be the featured speakers at the , on April 19, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. While Travis led the sometimes emotional discussion at a book talk at Berkeley Park Running Company near Denver on April 5, Mace contributed where he could with his warm smile, witty humor and a candid defiance to beat the disease.

鈥淲hen the book went up for presale last August, I didn’t know, looking ahead to right now, when the book would be released, if Dad would be able to do any of these in-person events,鈥� Travis said recently. 鈥淏ut, thankfully, the answer is yes, he can. It looks a little different, because he鈥檚 not going to be leading the conversation or anything. But he can still contribute to stories, and he鈥檚 genuinely happy to be there, shaking people’s hands and smiling and taking a picture with them. And those are meaningful moments.鈥�

Travis believes there鈥檚 a distinct parallel in Mace鈥檚 long history of enduring physical and mental fatigue in endurance sports and his ability to remain strong and positive amid what he knows is a declining condition. At the bottom of Mace鈥檚 new tattoo, the phrase 鈥淒on鈥檛 Quit鈥濃�攐ne of his commonly repeated endurance sports mantras鈥攊s emblazoned on a purple-hued ribbon over the words 鈥淓nd Alz.鈥�

For now, Mace is still out there doing what he can, even if more limited than ever. A few times听 a week, he ventures down to the end of his driveway alone and runs hill repeats up and down an adjacent dirt road.

鈥淥nce he’s out there, he’s pushing himself, and he’s enjoying it,鈥� Travis says. 鈥淎nd, you know, he can’t count the hill repeats and he can’t track how long it’s been or anything, but he stays out there as long as he wants. And my mom knows right where he is, and so if it’s been too long or something, she just walks out there and brings him back home. But it’s really important, because it gives him something to do and the ability for him to do his thing. It鈥檚 still really what he looks forward to. It’s an essential part of his life.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 All Good Training鈥�

Mace鈥檚 recent tattoo is actually the second one he鈥檚 gotten in recent years. The other one on his right forearm states, 鈥淚t鈥檚 all good training,鈥� a reminder that even the smallest efforts鈥攚hatever you might be capable of on any given day鈥攁re good catalysts to keep thriving in the game of life.

And to that point, life is no longer about enduring hardcore endurance events for Mace, but instead it鈥檚 about simply getting outdoors on a regular basis to move his body, take in the views, and soak up deep breaths of fresh air in the company of family and friends.

And maybe, Travis says, that鈥檚 what it鈥檚 always been about for his dad. It鈥檚 the ultimate life lesson that Mace has passed on, in various ways, to his son and two daughters and five grandkids.

鈥淥ne thing I observed before as he was getting older, but long before he had Alzheimer鈥檚, was that it was a lot less about trying to conquer the course or the competitors and more about just being there, being there with nature, and being there with the community of people you care about,鈥� Travis says. 鈥淭hat’s something that I’ve adopted, too. Competing still feels good because that can be a part of the fun. But as I look at my whole purpose, it’s a lot more about being with nature and being with other people, because we鈥檙e all doing this together.鈥�

Purchase your copy of A Mile at a Time: A Father and Son’s Inspiring Alzheimer’s Journey of Love, 国产吃瓜黑料, and Hope at your local, independent bookstore, or .听

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