What is the average amount of sleep you need

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. In each group, the guidelines present a recommended range of nightly sleep duration for healthy individuals.

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. 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.

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. In general, these organizations closely coincide in their findings as do similar organizations in Canada. Start by making sleep a priority in your schedule. 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:. Pointers for parents can help with teens, specifically, who face a number of unique sleep challenges. 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.

Eric Suni has over a decade of experience as a science writer and was previously an information specialist for the National Cancer Institute. His research and clinical practice focuses on the entire myriad of sleep disorders. A nighttime cough is the cold symptom most likely to interfere with sleep. Learn how to sleep with a cough…. Learn more about the causes and underlying mechanisms of REM rebound, a phenomenon in which a person temporarily experiences more….

Keeping track of your sleep schedule may not be a top priority, but getting enough sleep is critical to your health in many ways. You may not realize it, but the amount of sleep you get can affect everything from your weight and metabolism to your brain function and mood.

What time you go to sleep, however, tends to vary depending on your social life, work schedule, family obligations, the newest show streaming on Netflix, or simply when you start to feel tired. But if you know what time you have to get up, and you know you need a specific amount of sleep to function at your best, you just need to figure out what time to go to bed. How much sleep you need changes throughout your lifetime.

An infant may need up to 17 hours of sleep each day, while an older adult may get by on just 7 hours of sleep a night. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC , these are the general sleep guidelines for different age groups:. Some people may need at least 9 hours of sleep a night to feel well rested, while others in the same age group may find that 7 hours of sleep is just right for them.

The biggest question is how you feel when you get various amounts of sleep. Sleep deprivation is a real thing for some, especially as work and life stress builds up. A sleep study showed that sleep deprivation doubled the odds of making placekeeping errors and tripled the number of lapses in attention. Sleep and mental health are closely connected, with sleep disorders contributing to depression and anxiety. Maternal physiology. Elsevier; Cirelli C.

Insufficient sleep: Definition, epidemiology, and adverse outcomes. Kryger MH, et al. Normal sleep. In: Atlas of Clinical Sleep Medicine. Saunders Elsevier; Watson NF, et al. See also Tips for better sleep 8 ways to improve sleep quality as you age Alzheimer's sleep problems Can psoriasis make it hard to sleep? Sleep and psoriatic arthritis Healthy heart for life: Avoiding heart disease Heavy menstrual bleeding: 3 tips to sleep better Hidradenitis suppurativa and sleep: How to get more zzz's How a sleep diary can transform how you feel How to sleep well during time changes I have atopic dermatitis.

How can I sleep better? Lack of sleep: Can it make you sick? Sleep: The foundation for healthy habits Sleep: The healthy habit that promotes weight loss Sleep tips Sleep-tracking devices: Dos and don'ts Stressed out? Because sleep is not simply a lack of consciousness, but a rhythmic cycle of distinct neural patterns, it is a challenge to distinguish whether an animal sleeps or takes a rest.

Although many people struggle to get the amount of sleep they need to feel refreshed, some regularly sleep longer than their body needs. One might think this could endow these individuals with superpowers.

However, researchers identify a link between longer sleep durations and poorer health. For instance, one study , which followed adults for 6 years, concluded:.

This finding held even when the scientists controlled the analysis for age, sex, and baseline body mass index. Sleep duration might also impact mortality, according to some researchers. There is no record of anyone dying from sleep deprivation. In theory, it may be possible, but as far as scientists can ascertain, it is improbable.

It is understandable why this myth may have taken root, though. Sleep deprivation, as many people can attest, can feel horrendous. However, the case of Randy Gardner demonstrates that extreme sleep deprivation is not fatal.

In , when Gardner was just 16, he was part of a sleep deprivation experiment. In total, he stayed awake for 11 days and 24 minutes, which equates to During this time, he was monitored closely by fellow students and sleep scientists.

As the days rolled on, sleep deprivation symptoms worsened, but he survived. So why has this myth persisted? The belief that sleep deprivation can kill might have its roots in a study from the s. Rechtschaffen and colleagues found if they deprived rats of sleep with a particular experimental method, they would die after 2—3 weeks.

In their experiments, the researchers placed rats on a disc suspended above water. They continuously measured their brain activity. Whenever the animal fell asleep, the disc would automatically move, and the rat would need to act to avoid falling in the water.

Rats deprived of sleep using different methods do not die. Also, other researchers who used the disc method on pigeons found it was not fatal for these creatures.

Sleep deprivation is not painless for humans, though. They asked Lieutenant Commander John J. Ross from the U.