Dozing Demands

How much sleep do we really need?

- Lisa Bendall

IT TYPICALLY TAKES Dale Kerr a couple of hours to fall asleep, and she often wakes in the night. So when the 57-year-old engineer was given a Fitbit activity tracker by her husband, she decided to use the wearable technology to find out how much shut-eye she was getting. “I’m a bit surprised that it records only about six hours a night,” says the resident of Newmarket, Ont., who’d rather be clocking eight. Kerr sometimes dozes off in front of the TV or takes brief daytime naps—both signs that she isn’t well-rested.