Sleep Stage and Personality Characteristics of "Natural" Long and Short Sleepers

Abstract

A group of college freshmen that typically slept 5½ hours or less per night and a group that typically slept 9½ hours or more did not differ significantly on a battery of personality, scholastic, and medical measures. Compared with control subjects not selected on a sleep length criterion, electroencephalograph recordings of the short sleepers contained reduced amounts of stage 2 and rapid eye movement sleep.