{"id":37233,"date":"2026-11-10T09:48:38","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T17:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/?p=37233"},"modified":"2026-11-10T09:48:41","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T17:48:41","slug":"4-hours-a-night-sleep-researcher-featured-in-bbc-article-on-short-sleepers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/2026\/11\/10\/4-hours-a-night-sleep-researcher-featured-in-bbc-article-on-short-sleepers\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Hours a Night: Sleep Researcher Featured in BBC Article on Short Sleepers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine researcher Hans Van Dongen, PhD, was featured in a BBC article exploring the science of short sleepers, people with a rare genetic mutation who only need 4\u20136 hours of sleep per night to feel rested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In contrast to short sleepers, most people experience worse cognitive performance with just 4\u20136 hours of sleep. They also become increasingly unaware of the impairment, Van Dongen explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Dongen is a professor in the college\u2019s Department of Translational Medicine and Physiology and a core faculty member and former director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wsu-cta wsu-spacing-after--xsmall\" >\n\t<a \t\t\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/article\/20261029-the-people-who-only-need-four-hours-sleep\"\t\n\t\tclass=\"wsu-button  wsu-button--size-small\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\tRead the Article\t\t\t<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading wsu-spacing-after--none\">Featured Faculty<\/h2>\n\n\n<div \n\tclass=\"wsu-people-list 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4\u20136 hours of sleep per night to feel rested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25158,"featured_media":37234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":null},"categories":[16],"tags":[89,29],"wsuwp_university_location":[],"wsuwp_university_org":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37236,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37233\/revisions\/37236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37233"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=37233"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=37233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}