How many hours do you sleep a day

How Much Sleep Do I Need?

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How Many Hours of Sleep Do You Need?

The amount of sleep a person needs depends on many things, including their age. In general:

But experts say that if you feel drowsy during the day, even during boring activities, you haven’t had enough sleep.

Sleep Deprivation and Sleep Debt

The amount of sleep a person needs goes up if they’ve missed sleep in previous days. If you don’t have enough, you’ll have a «sleep debt,» which is much like being overdrawn at a bank. Eventually, your body will demand that you start to repay the debt.

We don’t really adapt to getting less sleep than we need. We may get used to a schedule that keeps us from getting enough sleep, but our judgment, reaction time, and other functions will still be off.

Why You Need REM Sleep and Deep Sleep

There are four stages of sleep, based on how active your brain is. The first two are light.

Stage three is “deep sleep,” when your brain waves slow down and it’s harder for you to wake up. During these periods, your body repairs tissues, works on growth and development, boosts your immune system, and builds up energy for the next day.

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, or stage R, usually starts about 90 minutes after you fall asleep. Brain activity increases, your eyes dart around quickly, and your pulse, blood pressure, and breathing speed up. This is also when you do most of your dreaming.

REM sleep is important for learning and memory. It’s when your brain handles information you’ve taken in during the day and stores it in your long-term memory.

Continued

Signs of Sleep Deprivation

Common signs that you haven’t gotten enough sleep include:

How to Know if You’re Getting Enough Sleep

To find out whether you’re getting enough sleep at night, ask yourself:

The Effects of Sleep Deprivation

Too little sleep can cause:

Studies make it clear that sleep deprivation is dangerous. People who missed some sleep before getting into a driving simulator or doing a hand-eye coordination task perform as badly as or worse than people who had been given alcohol.

Sleep deprivation also changes how alcohol affects your body. If you drink while you’re tired, you’ll be more impaired than somebody who got enough rest.

Driver fatigue caused about 83,000 car accidents between 2005 and 2009 and 803 deaths in 2016, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Continued

The National Sleep Foundation says you’re probably too drowsy to drive safely if you:

How to Get the Sleep You Need

Healthy habits can help you sleep better and longer.

Sources

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: “Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency.”

Cedars Sinai: “Sleep Deprivation.”

American Thoracic Society: “What Is Sleep Deprivation?”

American Academy of Sleep Medicine: “Sleep Deprivation Fact Sheet.”

Cleveland Clinic: “What Happens to Your Body When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep.”

National Sleep Foundation: “The Connection Between Sleep and Overeating.”

CDC: “Tips for Better Sleep.”

Harvard Medical School: “Repaying your sleep debt.”

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Hirshkowitz, M., Sleep Health, March 2015.

UCI Health: “Are you getting enough sleep?”

Victoria State Government Better Health Channel: “Sleep deprivation.”

SleepFoundation.org: “How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?”

Sleep.org: “Understanding Sleep Cycles: What Happens While You Sleep.”

Columbia University Department of Neurology: “Sleep Deprivation.”

UpToDate: “Stages and architecture of normal sleep.”

How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?

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Scientific research makes clear that sleep is essential at any age. Sleep powers the mind, restores the body, and fortifies virtually every system in the body. But how much sleep do we really need in order to get these benefits?

National Sleep Foundation guidelines advise that healthy adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night. Babies, young children, and teens need even more sleep to enable their growth and development. People over 65 should also get 7 to 8 hours per night.

Knowing the general recommendations for how much sleep you need is a first step. Then it’s important to reflect on your individual needs based on factors like your activity level and overall health. And finally, of course, it’s necessary to apply healthy sleep tips so that you can actually get the full night’s sleep that’s recommended.

Recommended Sleep Times By Age Group

Recommended sleep times are broken down into nine age groups. In each group, the guidelines present a recommended range of nightly sleep duration for healthy individuals. In some cases, sleeping an hour more or less than the general range may be acceptable based on a person’s circumstances.

How Much Sleep Do You Need?

These guidelines serve as a rule-of-thumb for how much sleep children and adults need while acknowledging that the ideal amount of sleep can vary from person to person.

For that reason, the guidelines list a range of hours for each age group. The recommendations also acknowledge that, for some people with unique circumstances, there’s some wiggle room on either side of the range for “acceptable,” though still not optimal, amount of sleep.

Deciding how much sleep you need means considering your overall health, daily activities, and typical sleep patterns. Some questions that you help assess your individual sleep needs include:

Start with the above-mentioned recommendations and then use your answers to these questions to home in on your optimal amount of sleep.

How Were the Recommendations Created?

To create these recommended sleep times, an expert panel of 18 people was convened from different fields of science and medicine. The members of the panel reviewed hundreds of validated research studies about sleep duration and key health outcomes like cardiovascular disease, depression, pain, and diabetes.

After studying the evidence, the panel used several rounds of voting and discussion to narrow down the ranges for the amount of sleep needed at different ages. In total, this process took over nine months to complete.

Other organizations, such as the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and Sleep Research Society (SRS) have also published recommendations for the amount of sleep needed for adults and children. In general, these organizations closely coincide in their findings as do similar organizations in Canada.

Improve Your Sleep Today: Make Sleep a Priority

Once you have a nightly goal based on the hours of sleep that you need, it’s time to start planning for how to make that a reality.

Start by making sleep a priority in your schedule. This means budgeting for the hours you need so that work or social activities don’t trade off with sleep. While cutting sleep short may be tempting in the moment, it doesn’t pay off because sleep is essential to being at your best both mentally and physically.

Improving your sleep hygiene, which includes your bedroom setting and sleep-related habits, is an established way to get better rest. Examples of sleep hygiene improvements include:

If you’re a parent, many of the same tips apply to help children and teens get the recommended amount of sleep that they need for kids their age. Pointers for parents can help with teens, specifically, who face a number of unique sleep challenges.

Getting more sleep is a key part of the equation, but remember that it’s not just about sleep quantity. Quality sleep matters, too, and it’s possible to get the hours that you need but not

feel refreshed because your sleep is fragmented or non-restorative. Fortunately, improving sleep hygiene often boosts both the quantity and quality of your sleep.

If you or a family member are experiencing symptoms such as significant sleepiness during the day, chronic snoring, leg cramps or tingling, difficulty breathing during sleep, chronic insomnia, or another symptom that is preventing you from sleeping well, you should consult your primary care doctor or find a sleep professional to determine the underlying cause.

You can try using our Sleep Diary or Sleep Log to track your sleep habits. This can provide insight about your sleep patterns and needs. It can also be helpful to bring with you to the doctor if you have ongoing sleep problems.

How Much Sleep Do Adults Need – Healthy Amount of Sleep

We spend on average 24 years of our lives on sleep. That is a huge number. So, you definitely want to spend all these years well – to make your sleep as healthy and productive as possible. How do you do this?

How Many Hours of Sleep Do You Need?

If you ask some of your friends and relatives: “How many hours do you need to sleep in order to stay awake during the day?” – their answer will most likely be like: “Of course you need 8 hours, which is known.” It is truly a common thought. However, some scientists do not agree.

Professor of Psychiatry Daniel Kripke, who conducted many studies of sleep, says:

“People, who sleep for 6.5 to 7.5 hours, live longer than others. They are more productive and happy. An excessive sleep may be harmful for your health. So, you will feel worse if you sleep for more than 8.5 hours, than if you have slept for 5 only.”

Try to experiment and reduce your sleep to 7.5 hours; carefully listen to your feelings and ask yourself, if you see a difference.

Of course, the duration of sleep is a personal thing. You cannot say that everyone needs, for example, 7 hours – no more, no less. You need to find you own best variant. That is why you should experiment. However, do it on weekends or holidays, so that you have had a time to restore your regime.

According to prof. Kripke, it is a good idea to reduce your sleep time for a half of an hour each night. Perhaps, what you think is the lack of sleep is actually a surplus.

By the way, there is a little lifehack on how to wake up faster without setting a dozen of alarms. You should plan to do something on the exact time. For example, take a shower at 8.00 and not a minute later.

Minimum Hours of Sleep

Considering mentioned in the first paragraph, you might have thought that if you sleep for five hours a day, you are all good. That is not true though. Remember how you have felt after had been sleeping for 8 hours in a row? We bet it feels much better than it does with five only.

However, even if you have slept for 4 hours, you can remain as attentive as the man who have slept all 8. That is because the problem is not always in sleeping well. From time to time, your brain loses focus on the task. If you have slept well, it can immediately turn on again. If you have not, you are in trouble of feeling drowsiness.

As Professor Clifford Sapper of Harvard claims, the brain of a man who have not slept well works fine, but from time to time it is knocked out.

Biologically, when you lose focus and your attention is dissipated, your brain starts a process of reactivation (some parts do that). Without having a good amount of sleep, this activity is barely visible. However, the parts of the brain that affect fear are activated well, so that you get an adrenaline dose and do not fall asleep. Physically it is manifested by muscle tension, sweaty palms, rumbling in stomach, unstable emotional state.

Nevertheless, the problem is also that a sleepy person may not notice a drop in his/her productivity. There may be a false sense of security and correctness of actions, which sometimes has serious consequences.

That is why you should not drive at all if you have not had enough sleep.

So. Sleeping too much is bad; sleeping not much is even worse. That is why you need to find your ideal schedule.

Here are some advices to make it best:

Now that we have considered the basic rules of a good sleep, let us find out how good are the exact hours.

8 Hours of Sleep

As it is the most common sleep time, considered the best, you should try it first. Perhaps, you will need more or less, but 8 hours are often just fine. It is absolutely ok to sleep like this every night, if it fits your regime. For most people, 8 hours are enough to rest after a hard day.

Are 7 Hours of Sleep Enough?

If you feel a bit drowsy after 8 hours of sleep, it may be too much for you. Then you should try 7 hours. It is still a proper amount for many people, so you will hardly feel a difference from the first try. Anyway, as we have mentioned, 7 or 7.5 hours of sleep are the best variants.

Are 6 Hours of Sleep Enough?

6 hours sleep is probably an edge. Some people may still find it the best amount, but for the others it might not be enough. Once again, it is just a personal thing. It also depends on how much time you spend on physical activities. If it is not much, 6 hours will most probably fit you. However, you will need to get used to it first.

5 Hours of Sleep

Some people claim that 5 hours of sleep are best for them. It can be true in certain situations, but you should know that sleeping for 5 hours only every day is harmful. For example, you can do it five days a week and rest with an 8 hours sleep on the weekend.

Are 4 Hours of Sleep Bad?

If you sleep for 4 hours every day, it is definitely not good. Eventually you will find yourself too drowsy to do something. That is a signal to change your regime. Even though 4 hours are enough for once, regularly it is harmful for health.

3 Hours of Sleep

Now we have reached the amount when you will probably ask yourself: “should I go to sleep at all this night”. Well, it depends on how you feel better. If you do go to sleep, waking up will be a very difficult process, even if you set a hundred of alarms. However, without any sleep at all your day will turn into a drowsy half-dream. Anyway, such amount of sleep is bad for your health and you should not sleep like that regularly.

How to Function on 2 Hours of Sleep?

If you have happened to sleep for 2 hours only, it will be very hard for you to do anything that day. The best thing is to do something urgent and go to sleep after that. Your regime might get disturbed, but with 2 hours of sleep, you will have no productiveness. If there is nothing urgent, try to go to sleep in the early evening. However, you will most probably sleep for more than 9 hours that night.

A nice and healthy sleep is one of the most important parts of our lives. Without it, some diseases or even mental disorders will occur sooner or later. That is why you need to find the best sleep time for yourself and try to stick to it. How many hours do you spend on sleeping and how do you feel about it? Tell us in the comment section!

News & Articles

thensf October 1, 2020 Sleep and You

Getting enough sleep is doable and important for your health. Read on for how many hours to strive for at every age.

Sleep is essential to feeling rested and alert. Getting the right amount for your mind and body feels great and helps you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to go. Every person is different when it comes to the exact amount of sleep that’s optimal for them, but most people fall within a range, depending on their age. These guidelines can help you determine how much sleep you really need, while providing some easy ways to achieve it.

How Many Hours of Sleep Do You Need?

There is no precise number of minutes or hours of sleep at night that guarantees you will wake up feeling totally refreshed. But based on your age and lifestyle, what’s recommended for you likely falls within a certain range. To help yourself stay alert during the day, try sticking with these guidelines.

Newborns: From 0-3 months, babies need between 14 and 17 hours of sleep. This includes daytime naps, since newborns rarely sleep through the night. Older infants (4-11 months) need about 12 to 15 hours of sleep each day.

Toddlers: Between the first and second year of life, toddlers need between 11 and 14 hours of sleep each night.

Children: Preschoolers (3-5 years) should get 10 to 13 hours, while school-age kids (6-13 years) should strive for nine to 11 hours each night.

Teenagers: As kids get older, their need for sleep decreases slightly. Teens (14-17 years) require about eight to 10 hours of nightly sleep.

Adults: Between the ages of 18 and 64, adults should aim for seven to nine hours of nightly sleep. If you’re older than 65, you may need a little less: seven to eight hours is recommended.

Build in Some Flex Time

Some people can function well on the lower end of the range and others will need every minute of the upper limit. In fact, an additional hour or two on either side of a given range may be appropriate, depending on the person. Still, straying too far from the recommended amount could lead to a variety of health issues. For example, shortchanging sleep has been associated with weight gain, reduced immunity, high blood pressure, and depression.

The negative effects of too little or too much sleep aren’t just physical—they can also interfere with your mental health. Your outlook, mood, and attention span all depend on getting the right amount of sleep, and without it, your job performance (not to mention your personal life) can suffer.

Easy Ways to Get More Sleep

If getting enough sleep seems like an uphill battle, there are a few tips you can try. To start, head to bed at the same time every night, to allow your body to settle into a regular sleep-wake schedule. Just the way kids benefit from a set schedule, adults who stick to a regular pre-sleep routine that includes reading, meditation, journaling, and a warm bath may find it easier to wind down in the evening.

How Many Hours Do You Need to Sleep?

Many people don’t assess how much sleep they need to function at their best; they just know they don’t get enough. Each person’s sleep requirement is different. Some people find that they only need 5-6 hours of sleep, while others need 10-11 hours for optimal performance. The average adult functions best with 7-8 hours of sleep a night; however, it is important to consider how much sleep you need on an individual basis.

The number of hours needed to sleep is a matter of «circadian rhythm,» or the biological clock function which regulates our sleep-wake cycles.

Humans are evolved to be «diurnal» creatures, as opposed to nocturnal, that is we are hard-wired to operate optimally in the daytime; sleeping at night.

As newborns, we are essentially neither diurnal or nocturnal, having sleep-wake cycles which are frequent and evenly spaced during any 24-hour period; sleeping for 3-4 hours, waking for 1-2 hours, around the clock.

During the first year, this pattern progresses toward consolidation of the sleep period, trending toward increased nocturnal sleep and daytime wakefulness. At one year the infant typically sleeps about 10 hours from around 7 pm until about 5 am, with a couple of naps in the early and late afternoon, respectively.

By age 4-5, the child has lengthened the nocturnal period to about 11-12 hours with one nap in the afternoon.

At age 10, time of sleep onset is somewhat delayed to 8 or 9 pm, and sleep lasts until 6 or 7 am; the nap disappearing.

For most adults, 7 to 8 hours a night appears to be the best amount of sleep, although the amount ranges from 5 hours to 10 hours of sleep each day depending on the individual. It should be noted that a recent research study conducted by Boston University School of Medicine found that study participants that reported sleeping less than 6 hours or more than 9 hours a day had an increased incidence of diabetes, compared to those who slept 7-8 hours

Senior adults were long considered to have further shortened sleep requirements, but it is now thought that this is only because they tend to get less sleep due to increasing intrinsic sleep disturbance, such as sleep apnea, or musculoskeletal pain, which may interrupt or truncate the sleep interval.

The need to nap is not a clear-cut issue, as some cultures agree that a «siesta» in the afternoon is «natural,» and people of all ages in those cultures normally take a mid-day snooze.

Sleep lab data suggest strongly that if adults get 8.1 hours of undisturbed sleep in a 24 hour day, that a nap will not be needed. This varies based upon the quality of sleep obtained, and other factors such as state of general health, levels of stress, or fatigue due to prolonged exertion.

There are as Many Sleep Pattern Preferences As People Out There

Here are some ideas about personal preferences from posts on the sleep-related forums.

«On a work night I sleep 7-8 hours. In the holidays or at the weekend, I sleep about 9 hours. I also have a nap every day after work! I need to nap when I feel tired, sometimes 1-2 times a day. I think it may just be a bad habit, though. 7-8 hours definitely isn’t enough for me.»

«You should not always follow the ‘8 hour rule’. It does not apply to everyone. Remember everyone’s body chemistry is different. The important thing is if you’re tired the whole day after even 8 hours of sleep. This means that you need more. If you feel fine with 6 hours of sleep and you’re fresh everyday, you’re fine.»

«Sleep is a real problem for me. Very often I only get about four hours and I’m doing well if I get 6 off and on. I’d love to be able to get 8 hours, preferably unbroken, just to see what it’s like! I’m reluctant to take sleeping tablets although I have done from time to time. I’ve tried the usual alternative therapies but they don’t seem to work either. The problem is waking up frequently and/or too early. I’m not expecting any of you to have a magic answer but I do feel that I’m far from being alone and that it’s a big problem for many people. I’m convinced that many people in this day and age and for many divers reasons do not get enough sleep and that it could be a contributory factor in a lot of our society’s problems.»

«I have never slept well. For one reason or another, sleep has always seemed like a grand waste of time. I work out of my home, so going to sleep and waking up has never been an issue. I get maybe 3 to 4 hours of sleep per night. I have never been cranky, never felt tired or un-rested. Some people need sleep, some people don’t. If my wife doesn’t get her 8 hours, she is a raving bitch (as an example, and it is not reflective of her wonderful nature) Maybe it is genetic, my father never needed to sleep either.»

So, as you can see, each person sleeps different hours and they feel different about it. What’s important is to find your own sleeping pattern that works for you. If your body demands more sleep you may just have to give it those hours.