Is it better to get 7.5 or 8 hours of sleep?
Having trouble getting that ideal 8 hours of sleep? So is everyone else. But there's some good news — you may only need 7 hours of it. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society (SRS) have issued a new recommendation, saying seven is the magic sleep number for most healthy adults.
As a result, doctors advised adults to get 8 to 9 hours of sleep per night, on average. (The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours for adults.)
To conclude: These two studies both very strongly support that sleeping 7 hours, instead of the much more commonly hear 8 hours, might prove to be beneficial in the long run for increased mortality and better cognitive functioning.
While sleep requirements vary slightly from person to person, most healthy adults need seven to nine hours of sleep per night to function at their best. Children and teens need even more. And despite the notion that our sleep needs decrease with age, most older people still need at least seven hours of sleep.
People should aim for 7–9 hours of sleep each night. However, the best times to go to sleep and wake up will vary among individuals. Many different factors, including a person's age, work schedule, and sleep patterns, affect the ideal sleep time.
National Sleep Foundation guidelines. See Full Reference 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.
“There is no such thing as a “fixed or ideal time” to go to bed which will suit all individuals. It is generally advisable to fall asleep between 10 pm to midnight as for most people this is when the circadian rhythm is at a point that favours falling asleep.”
Children and adolescents need more sleep than adults. Interestingly, older adults need about the same amount of sleep as younger adults — seven or more hours of sleep per night. Unfortunately, many older adults often get less sleep than they need. One reason is that they often have more trouble falling asleep.
| Age Group | Recommended Hours of Sleep Per Day | |
|---|---|---|
| Newborn | 0–3 months | 14–17 hours (National Sleep Foundation)1 No recommendation (American Academy of Sleep Medicine)2 |
| School Age | 6–12 years | 9–12 hours per 24 hours2 |
| Teen | 13–18 years | 8–10 hours per 24 hours2 |
| Adult | 18–60 years | 7 or more hours per night3 |
Myth: It Doesn't Matter When You Sleep as Long as You Sleep Enough Hours. Studies have demonstrated that the timing of sleep matters, and it's best to sleep as much as possible during hours of darkness. Sleeping at night helps align the body's circadian rhythm, or internal clock, with its environment.
Why is it so crucial to get in your 7 9 hours of sleep?
Contrary to our quiet physical state, the brain is very active during sleep, carrying out many important functions. Sleep is essential to every process in the body, affecting our physical and mental functioning the next day, our ability to fight disease and develop immunity, and our metabolism and chronic disease risk.
The Best Time to Wake Up Depends on You
They're going to bed at 8 PM to get adequate sleep, or they're running on fewer hours than required. A 4 AM wake-up time will be good for you in the same way that an 8 AM wake-up time is. As long as you get enough restful sleep, you shouldn't worry about the best time to wake up.
This is because our brain is constantly forming new connections while we are awake. The longer we are awake, the more active our minds become. Scientists believe that this is partly why sleep deprivation has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression. However, there are negative outcomes of this, too.
How to work out the ideal bedtime. If you need to wake up by 7am then count back 7.5 hours to find that bedtime is around 11.30pm. Make sure you're in bed before then so you're relaxed ready for sleep and allow yourself 15 minutes to drop off. You can use the sleep calculator to find the ideal bedtime for you.
If your school or work schedule requires you to be up between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m., these are the suggested bedtimes: School-age children should go to bed between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. Teens should try to go to bed between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. Adults should try to go to sleep between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m.
You can figure out the best bedtime for your schedule based on when you have to wake up in the morning and counting backward by 7 hours (the recommended minimum per night for adults). For example, if you need to be up by 6 a.m., you should consider winding down before 11 p.m.
Going to sleep after midnight was associated with a 25% higher risk of heart disease compared with falling sleep between 10:00 and 10:59 p.m. Going to sleep between 11:00 and 11:59 p.m. was associated with a 12% higher risk of heart disease compared with falling sleep between 10:00 and 10:59 p.m.
If you wake up at 3 a.m. or another time and can't fall right back asleep, it may be for several reasons. These include lighter sleep cycles, stress, or underlying health conditions. Your 3 a.m. awakenings may occur infrequently and be nothing serious, but regular nights like this could be a sign of insomnia.
21, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Everyone needs sleep, but too little or too much of it might contribute to declines in thinking, a new study suggests. Too little sleep was defined as four or fewer hours a night, while too much was deemed 10 or more hours a night. The ideal amount? Seven hours a night.
In addition, infection-fighting antibodies and cells are reduced during periods when you don't get enough sleep. So, your body needs sleep to fight infectious diseases. Long-term lack of sleep also increases your risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart and blood vessel (cardiovascular) disease.
How many hours of sleep do you need Harvard?
Although there is some genetic variation, most adults need between 7.5 to 8.5 hours of sleep per 24-hour period to function optimally. You can find your optimal sleep time if you set aside several days (perhaps during a vacation) to allow yourself to sleep as long as possible.
But for some of the most successful people in art, business and sports, rising early is key to their success. Apple CEO Tim Cook starts his mornings at 3:45 a.m., Ellevest CEO and co-founder Sallie Krawcheck wakes at 4 a.m. and Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and Indra Nooyi have been known to rise at the crack of dawn.
"The overall best is if you can wake up naturally because you're done sleeping," he said. On the other hand, if you're waking up early on just a few hours of sleep, you should probably try and squeeze in some more shuteye.
It may take you anywhere between 30 to 60 days to get accustomed to the habit of waking up early. Once you get used to your new sleep schedule, you won't even need an alarm to wake you up.
Ageing, an inevitable process, is commonly measured by chronological age and, as a convention, a person aged 65 years or more is often referred to as 'elderly'.
According to the research, the average American starts feeling old at the age of 47. Similarly, the average respondent starts to really worry about age-related bodily changes around 50 years old.
Age, Life Cycle and Evaluations of Personal Life
Fully 71% of those under age 50 expect their lives to be better in 10 years than they are today, as do 46% of those ages 50-64. By contrast, only about a fifth of adults ages 75 and older (19%) expect their lives to be better in the future than they are today.
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.
Preschoolers (3-5 years): 11-13 hours. School-aged children (6-13 years): 9-11 hours. Teenagers (14-17): 8-10 hours. Adults (18 and older): 7-9 hours.
As people age, the body secretes less melatonin, which is normally produced in response to darkness that helps promote sleep by coordinating circadian rhythms.
Does lying with your eyes closed count as sleep?
Although resting with your eyes closed doesn't start up your REM cycle and allow you to clock in some sleep time, it does still provide some hefty benefits. Closing your eyes calms your mind and relaxes your muscles and organs. Many refer to it as “quiet wakefulness”.
So no, having your eyes closed in bed does not count as sleep, but it's not like it's not beneficial either. Quiet wakefulness is an intermediary step for all of us to get to sleep on a healthy schedule, unless we are accustomed to being so exhausted we fall asleep within seconds of laying down.
Turning in before midnight is good for our health.
Some studies have found that people who go to bed late and have trouble waking up in the morning are more likely to have a shortened lifespan, in addition to a much higher risk of psychological disorders and diabetes.
The average adult needs between 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night to feel refreshed. However, research suggests that women tend to sleep just a little bit longer — 11 minutes, to be exact. See Full Reference — than men.
Excessive sleepiness is a common symptom of undiagnosed sleep apnea, narcolepsy, hypersomnia. See Full Reference , restless legs syndrome, and circadian rhythm disorders like shift work disorder. If your doctor suspects a sleep disorder is a reason you feel tired all the time, they may refer you to a sleep center.
How much deep sleep should you get? In healthy adults, about 13 to 23 percent of your sleep is deep sleep. So if you sleep for 8 hours a night, that's roughly 62 to 110 minutes. However, as you get older you require less deep sleep.
"Most people hit their deepest sleep between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m.," says WebMD sleep expert Michael Breus, PhD, D, ABSM, "so it's very hard to wake up during that time."
Laying on the couch, encased in soft upholstery, can help you to get comfortable. There's also the opportunity to lay with your chest higher than your legs when you sleep on the couch. Anecdotally, this can help to drain congestion and make it easier to sleep when you're ill.
What's the secret to happiness? Maybe seven hours of sleep. A recent survey of 2,000 people by mattress company Amerisleep suggests “perfectly happy” people get 7.1 hours of sleep per night. "Mostly happy" people sleep seven hours and "somewhat happy" people sleep 6.9 hours, the study shows.
So why do people think they are able to function optimally on 6 hours of regular sleep? This is because of a natural human phenomenon known as 'renorming'. Renorming means that we are only able to compare how we feel today to how we felt yesterday or the day before.
Why do I wake up easily?
What Causes Waking Up in the Middle of the Night? Most people wake up once or twice during the night. Reasons this might happen include drinking caffeine or alcohol late in the day, a poor sleep environment, a sleep disorder, or another health condition.
Although there is some genetic variation, most adults need between 7.5 to 8.5 hours of sleep per 24-hour period to function optimally. You can find your optimal sleep time if you set aside several days (perhaps during a vacation) to allow yourself to sleep as long as possible.
Retirees typically get up at 8.30am, giving them an additional one-and-a-half to two hours' sleep than their younger, still-in-work counterparts. Most over-60s do this daily, rising at the same time at weekends too, meaning every day is an opportunity for a lie-in.
Research suggests the ideal time to go to sleep is 10 p.m. But you should focus more on having a consistent schedule and routine when it comes to hitting the hay.
National Sleep Foundation guidelines. See Full Reference 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.
| Wake-up time | Bedtime: 7.5 hours of sleep (5 cycles) | Bedtime: 9 hours of sleep (6 cycles) |
|---|---|---|
| 4 a.m. | 8:15 p.m. | 6:45 p.m. |
| 4:15 a.m. | 8:30 p.m. | 7 p.m. |
| 4:30 a.m. | 8:45 p.m. | 7:15 p.m. |
| 4:45 a.m. | 9 p.m. | 7:30 p.m. |
Sleep needs can vary from person to person, but in general, experts recommend that healthy adults get an average of 7 to 9 hours per night of shuteye. If you regularly need more than 8 or 9 hours of sleep per night to feel rested, it might be a sign of an underlying problem, Polotsky says.
In order to get a healthy eight hours of sleep, which is the amount that many people need, you need to be in bed for 8.5 hours.
Adults. The recommended number of hours is 7 to 9 hours, with 6 hours or 10 hours of sleep deemed appropriate on either side. It is not a good idea to get 6 hours or less of sleep.
The average sleep need stands at 8 hours and 10 minutes, with 13.5% of the general population requiring nine hours or more of shut-eye every night. As such, seven hours of sleep is typically not enough for the average individual.
Why am I still tired after 8 hours of sleep?
Most likely, you're still tired after eight hours of sleep because of these three factors: (1) you don't know your sleep need, (2) you're not taking into account your sleep efficiency, and (3) you carry sleep debt.
This is because our brain is constantly forming new connections while we are awake. The longer we are awake, the more active our minds become. Scientists believe that this is partly why sleep deprivation has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression. However, there are negative outcomes of this, too.
For adults, getting less than seven hours of sleep a night on a regular basis has been linked with poor health, including weight gain, having a body mass index of 30 or higher, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and depression.
| Age Group | Recommended Hours of Sleep Per Day | |
|---|---|---|
| Newborn | 0–3 months | 14–17 hours (National Sleep Foundation)1 No recommendation (American Academy of Sleep Medicine)2 |
| Teen | 13–18 years | 8–10 hours per 24 hours2 |
| Adult | 18–60 years | 7 or more hours per night3 |
| 61–64 years | 7–9 hours1 | |
If you have concerns about sleeping more than 9 hours nightly or not getting enough sleep (less than 6 hours), you should contact your healthcare provider to discuss your individual health needs. How can you know if you should be concerned? Watch for these signs of too little or poor sleep quality: Daytime sleepiness.
Most adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep. In people over the age of 65, experts recommend 7 to 8 hours of sleep each day. While these recommendations outline how much sleep most people in each age group need, individuals' sleep needs will vary.
