Here Is How Much Sleep We Really Need According To Your Age

By Sughra Hafeez in Health and Fitness On 15th June 2018
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Health benefits

Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. For example, sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Sleep makes you feel better, but its importance goes way beyond just boosting your mood or banishing under-eye circles. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.

Dr. Merrill Mitler, a sleep expert, and neuroscientist at NIH said:

"Sleep services all aspects of our body in one way or another: molecular, energy balance, as well as intellectual function, alertness, and mood. Loss of sleep impairs your higher levels of reasoning, problem-solving and attention to detail."

He added:

"Sleep affects almost every tissue in our bodies, It affects growth and stress hormones, our immune system, appetite, breathing, blood pressure and cardiovascular health."

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Sleep deprivation

Sleep helps your body to fight back. Sleep can help you maintain your weight. Sleep puts you in a better mood. Not having enough causes sleep deprivation, it can be either chronic or acute.

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Serious potential problems

Some of the most serious potential problems associated with chronic sleep deprivation are high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, heart failure or stroke. Also, research links a lack of sleep to an increase in the stress hormone cortisol in the body. Sleep deprivation also impairs cognitive functioning, decision-making, and reaction times, which is why sleep deprivation increases the risk of vehicle accidents. Sleep deprivation is also believed to hasten the effects of aging and reduce the skin's ability to heal.

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How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?

The National Sleep Foundation released its newest guidelines for how much sleep you really need at each age. According to the foundation's statement. The recommendations were made based on "multiple rounds of consensus voting after a comprehensive review of published scientific studies on sleep and health."

Age and sleep

Newborns (0-3 months): 14-17 hours each day (previously it was 12-18)

Infants (4-11 months): 12-15 hours (previously it was 14-15)

Toddlers (1-2 years): 11-14 hours (previously it was 12-14)

Preschoolers (3-5): 10-13 hours (previously it was 11-13)

School-age children (6-13): 9-11 hours (previously it was 10-11)

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It didn't change its recommendations of seven to nine hours of shuteye for adults, all other age groups saw some slight tweaks in the normal range.

Teenagers (14-17): 8-10 hours (previously it was 8.5-9.5)

Younger adults (18-25): 7-9 hours (new age category)

Adults (26-64): Sleep range did not change and remains 7-9 hours

Older adults (65+): Sleep range is 7-8 hours (new age category)

Improve Your Sleep Today:

In order to get proper sleep, you need to know what activities to avoid before bed so that you can fall asleep quickly and easily.

Here are some of the ways you can maximize your sleep effectiveness:

Don't use your phone an hour before sleeping. Turn off electronics a few hours before bed, and keep them off during the night so they don’t awaken you with notifications.

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Sleep schedule

Stick to a sleep schedule of the same bedtime and wake up time, even on the weekends. This helps to regulate your body's clock and could help you fall asleep and stay asleep for the night.

Nap Early—Or Not at All.

Power napping may help you get through the day, but if you find that you can't fall asleep at bedtime, eliminating even short catnaps may help.

Sleep in a completely dark room or use an eye mask.

If you sleep in a completely dark room, not only will it aid your sleep time but you will also have a much deeper sleep helping you to recover quickly.

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Get a workout.

Adding exercise to your daily regimen helps with all kinds of things that may interfere with your sleep, like anxiety and depression, but it also provides specific physiological boosts to sleep itself.

Balance Fluid Intake.

Drink enough fluid at night to keep from waking up thirsty—but not so much and so close to bedtime that you will be awakened by the need for a trip to the bathroom.

Limit Alcohol.

Although alcohol may help bring on sleep, after a few hours it acts as a stimulant, increasing the number of awakenings and generally decreasing the quality of sleep later in the night.

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Avoid Caffeine.

Caffeine is a stimulant that can keep you awake. So avoid caffeine (found in coffee, tea, chocolate, cola, and some pain relievers) for four to six hours before bedtime.