Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) need more sleep because their nervous systems process stimuli more deeply, leading to quicker overstimulation, mental fatigue, and emotional burnout, so sleep acts as crucial restorative time for their overworked senses and brains to process the day's intense inputs and reset. While everyone needs rest, HSPs experience the world more intensely, making deep rest essential for detoxification and recovery from sensory overload, preventing irritability and breakdown, says this YouTube video.
A lack of sleep is enough to make anyone cranky, sloppy, and unproductive. But a lack of sleep for an HSP can make life almost unbearable. Getting enough sleep helps soothe HSPs' ramped-up senses and allows them to process their emotions. How much sleep a sensitive person gets can literally make or break their day.
Highly sensitive individuals are more likely to experience burnout because they pick up more emotional and sensory information on a daily basis. They feel others' emotions more deeply, pay close attention to social cues, and sometimes have difficulty saying 'no' due to high empathy.
Bottom line: Empaths are not biologically wired to need more sleep per se, but the psychological and sensory burdens they commonly carry make sleep problems and greater subjective sleep need much more likely.
HSP can cause vomiting and abdominal pain, and blood may appear in the stool. Abdominal cramps and pain are usually worse at night. Pain and swelling may occur in the knee and ankle joints, but it can also occur in the elbows and wrists.
6. HSPs feel everything more deeply than others, which can make them seem over-emotional to others who don't understand their nature. HSPs have a heightened sensitivity to many things in life. They can be easily overwhelmed by loud noises, strong odors, or large crowds.
Sleep needs vary from person to person. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 7-8 hours of sleep each day for adults and 8-10 hours for teens. Elite athletes often report that they need more sleep (8-10 hours) during peak training.
The 3-2-1 sleep rule is a simple wind-down routine: stop eating and drinking alcohol 3 hours before bed, stop working/mentally stimulating activities 2 hours before, and turn off screens (phones, TVs) 1 hour before sleep, helping you transition to rest by reducing stimulants and preparing your mind and body. It's often part of a larger 10-3-2-1-0 rule, which also adds no caffeine 10 hours prior and no hitting snooze (0) in the morning.
The 3 Different Types of Sensitivity
Because empaths can be emotional sponges and take on the literal symptoms of others, it adds to their stress levels and leaves them more vulnerable to adrenal fatigue.
Life can, at times, feel harder simply because the world hasn't been designed for the sensitive person. So, it's important for the highly sensitive soul to understand their trait in order to create a life that works for them and not against them.
As a highly sensitive person, you feel deeply—and that often means your emotions show up as tears. In this episode, I'm breaking down why crying a lot is actually normal for HSPs, why it's not something to avoid or be ashamed of, and how those emotions are actually guiding you back to your true self.
Sensitivity and Emotional Intelligence
The good news is that highly sensitive people aren't more or less emotionally intelligent than others. Highly sensitive people experience things more intensely. Their strong emotions are easier to identify (and potentially use to their benefit) than the average person.
A few signs you may be highly sensitive include:
For some neurodivergent people, we can experience sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and sleep apnea; restless leg syndrome (RLS), limb movement disorders, and periodic limb movement disorder; insomnia, including difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep; circadian rhythm sleep disorders (CRSD); melatonin ...
The koala is famous for sleeping around 20-22 hours a day, which is about 90% of the day, due to their low-energy diet of eucalyptus leaves that requires extensive digestion. Other extremely sleepy animals include the sloth (up to 20 hours) and the brown bat (around 20 hours), with some snakes like the ball python also sleeping up to 23 hours daily.
The difference is that SPD can cause decreased motor function,6 which is not a characteristic of HSPs. In addition, SPD can cause under-responsiveness to sensory stimuli, whereas it's characteristic of HSPs to over-respond. Autism: High sensitivity is not a form of autism.
The frequent confusion about the interplay of sensitivity and trauma is certainly understandable. While being an HSP is not caused by trauma, difficult life experiences are amplified by high sensitivity.
HSPs feel as if they register more details of their environment than less sensitive people do—including sounds, sights, or emotional cues. Though such stimuli can feel overwhelming, modifying the environment to suit their needs can be empowering.
On average, Japanese sleep about 7 hours and 20 minutes a night, - the least among 33 OECD member countries. And the number of insomniacs is growing. But even as more people suffer from insomnia, help can be hard to find.
In his piece, he revealed that through his years of research, he's found that rumination is the biggest thing that causes poor sleep. He says that being worried about something at night has affected his own ability to fall asleep.
Depending on one's age and individual needs, the National Sleep Foundation (USA) states that adults need seven to nine hours of good quality sleep per night to remain healthy and alert. School-age children require between nine and eleven hours, while older adults may need only seven to eight.
Long sleepers need more sleep than the average adult, typically over 9 hours. In some people, longer periods of sleep may signal an undiagnosed illness or sleep disorder. Long sleepers may use a sleep diary to track their sleep patterns and daytime sleepiness.
Kobe Bryant stated in a 2014 interview that he used to "get by on three or four hours a night", before increasing the amount to between six and eight.
10 hours before bed: No more caffeine. 3 hours before bed: No more food or alcohol. 2 hours before bed: No more work. 1 hour before bed: No more screen time (shut off all phones, TVs and computers).