• Lie-ins are good for you
False: A short lie-in won't do you any harm, but longer ones aren't particularly beneficial and might make you feel groggy.
What the body really wants is regularity, and anything that moves you away from that starts causing the body a problem.
The body enjoys getting more sleep so restarts its natural cycle - and you may wake up in an inappropriate stage of sleep, which throws us.
• The more you sleep, the healthier you are
True: in America survey of older Americans, the better the health of older adults; the more likely they are to sleep well.
The reverse is also held to be true. Sleep researchers stated that sleep-deprived people are less happy and more stressed than those getting eight hours a night.
• The older we get, the less sleep we need
False: Or rather, it's hard to tel. We know that young people sleep more than older people, but how an individual changes over age isn't well known.
Many times when you talk to the elderly they'll say they only sleep for six hours a night but are actually having two hours in day, so it's hard to tell. There is no definitive science to back up the claim.
• It's dangerous to wake a sleepwalker
False. It isn't dangerous in the sense that it won't seriously harm the sleepwalker, but sleep experts say that it could alarm or confuse them. It is probably best to try to get the sleepwalker back to bed.
• Some people need very little sleep
True. Bill Clinton snatched just five to six a night and Napoleon didn't need much. Possibly most famous of all short-sleepers is Margaret Thatcher, who was happy leading the Conservative Party on just four hours a night - "provided that about one day a week you have a night when you can have longer," as she told Brian Lamb in a BBC interview.
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