Is this a new phenomenon? If not, it may just be normal and healthy for you. Most people need somewhere in the negihborhood of 8 hours sleep a night to be at peak mental and physical health. But a small percentage do fine on half that, and a small percentage need much more. One of the super-successful Silicon Valley tech company founders (can’t recall now the name of the guy or the company) was profiled in a business magazine back in the dot.com era, and said he’d always needed 11 hours of sleep a night. It certainly didn’t get in the way of his success, but is obviously not terribly compatible with a career like military special forces.
“Most people need somewhere in the negihborhood of 8 hours sleep a night ...”
The average amount of time that adults slept at the turn of the century (1900s) was 9-1/2 hours a night. The fact that we’ve turned that back to an average of 8 hours a night says a lot about cultural expectations.
Cave studies put research participants at about 10 hours when they are left to their own devices and without any external cues to tell them what time it is or how much time has passed since they last slept.
— Jane