Sleep disorders, including sleep apnea, insomnia, or periodic limb movements, occur more commonly in the elderly, each possibly impacting sleep quality and duration. A 2017 review indicated that older adults do not need less sleep, but rather have an impaired ability to obtain their sleep needs, and may be able to deal with sleepiness better than younger adults. Some people may have a DNA mutation that allows them to function normally on very little sleep, says Dr. Venkata Buddharaju, a sleep specialist, board certified sleep physician and author of Better Sleep, Happier Life. "These natural short sleepers, even sleeping between around six hours, have no negative health consequences, are not sleepy and work well while awake," he explains. The objective of this narrative review paper is to discuss about sleep duration needed across the lifespan. Sleep duration varies widely across the lifespan and shows an inverse relationship with age.
Sleep duration recommendations issued by public health authorities are important for surveillance and help to inform the population of interventions, policies, and healthy sleep behaviors. However, the ideal amount of sleep required each night can vary between different individuals due to genetic factors and other reasons, and it is important to adapt our recommendations on a case-by-case basis. Sleep duration recommendations are well suited to provide guidance at the population-level standpoint, while advice at the individual level should be individualized to the reality of each person. A generally valid assumption is that individuals obtain the right amount of sleep if they wake up feeling well rested and perform well during the day. Beyond sleep quantity, other important sleep characteristics should be considered such as sleep quality and sleep timing (bedtime and wake-up time). In conclusion, the important inter-individual variability in sleep needs across the life cycle implies that there is no "magic number" for the ideal duration of sleep.
However, it is important to continue to promote sleep health for all. Sleep is not a waste of time and should receive the same level of attention as nutrition and exercise in the package for good health. Self-reported sleep duration is typically used in population health surveillance studies, because it provides several advantages . However, the concession is that sleep duration recommendations are then largely based on self-reported data. So, are you sending your child off to bed early enough? If those numbers are surprising to you, you're not alone.
Working and single parents, especially, are often forced to get by on 5, 6, or even fewer hours of sleep each night. This is likely impacting your own social and mental functioning, as well as increasing your risk for other health problems. It might be tempting to think that your children can also get by with less sleep than they need, or that they should be able to cope fairly well with a few skipped hours here and there.
However, all children thrive on a regular bedtime routine. Regular sleep deprivation often leads to some pretty difficult behaviors and health problems—irritability, difficulty concentrating, hypertension, obesity, headaches, and depression. Children who get enough sleep have a healthier immune system, and better school performance, behavior, memory, and mental health. Although sleep duration recommendations are based on the best available evidence and expert consensus, they are still largely reliant on observational studies using self-reported sleep duration. For example, genetic differences between individuals can explain some of the variability in sleep needs.
Stage three of the sleep cycle stages, slow-wave sleep , is a crucial part of your cognitive functioning. It plays a major role in memory consolidation and brain restoration. Because of its importance for your overall health, you must increase your amount of deep sleep by allowing yourself to have enough total sleep time each night. Additionally, exercise and a healthy diet are a couple of different methods you can try to help increase your slow-wave sleep. The quality of sleep may be evaluated from an objective and a subjective point of view.
Objective sleep quality refers to how difficult it is for a person to fall asleep and remain in a sleeping state, and how many times they wake up during a single night. Poor sleep quality disrupts the cycle of transition between the different stages of sleep. Subjective sleep quality in turn refers to a sense of being rested and regenerated after awaking from sleep. Harvey et al. found that insomniacs were more demanding in their evaluations of sleep quality than individuals who had no sleep problems. 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.
And despite the notion that our sleep needs decrease with age, most older people still need at least seven hours of sleep. Since older adults often have trouble sleeping this long at night, daytime naps can help fill in the gap. Modern humans often find themselves desynchronized from their internal circadian clock, due to the requirements of work , long-distance travel, and the influence of universal indoor lighting.
Even if they have sleep debt, or feel sleepy, people can have difficulty staying asleep at the peak of their circadian cycle. Conversely, they can have difficulty waking up in the trough of the cycle. A healthy young adult entrained to the sun will fall asleep a few hours after sunset, experience body temperature minimum at 6 a.m., and wake up a few hours after sunrise. In summary, there is no magic number or ideal amount of sleep to get each night that could apply broadly to all. The optimal amount of sleep should be individualized, as it depends on many factors. However, it is a fair assumption to say that the optimal amount of sleep, for most people, should be within the age-appropriate sleep duration recommended ranges.
Future studies should try to better inform contemporary sleep duration recommendations by examining dose–response curves with a wide range of health outcomes. As discussed in this article, there is no magic number for all in terms of the ideal sleep amount to obtain each night. Sleep duration recommendations are meant for public health guidance, but need to be individualized to each patient in the clinic. Sleep needs are determined by a complex set of factors, including our genetic makeup, environmental and behavioral factors.
For example, high-performance athletes need more sleep to perform at high level and recover from their intense physical training. Objectively, our current evidence of sleep need is based on circadian, homeostatic, and ultradian processes of sleep regulation and sleep need. A meta-analysis of objectively assessed sleep from childhood to adulthood was also published by Ohayon et al46 in 2004 to determine normative sleep values across the lifespan. A total of 65 studies representing 3,577 healthy individuals aged 5–102 years were included. Polysomnography or actigraphy was used to assess sleep duration in the included studies. They observed that total sleep time significantly decreased with age in adults, while it was the case in children and adolescents only in studies performed on school days.
How To Sleep 8Hrs In 1 Hrs This pattern suggests that, in children and adolescents, the decrease in total sleep time is not related to maturation but to other factors such as earlier school start times. The natural shift in a teen's circadian rhythms is called "sleep phase delay." The need to sleep is delayed for about two hours. At first, teens may appear to be suffering from insomnia. They will have a hard time falling asleep at the usual time. While they begin going to sleep later, they still need an average of nine hours of sleep at night. Because most teens have to wake up early for school, it is important for them to go to bed on time.
If they go to bed late, they will be unable to get the sleep that they need. With some extra care, teens will quickly adjust to the new sleep schedule of their bodies. Studies have shown that slow-wave sleep is facilitated when brain temperature exceeds a certain threshold.
It's believed that circadian rhythm and homeostatic processes regulate this threshold. An unusually low, short-term carbohydrate diet in healthy sleepers promotes an increase in the percentage of slow-wave sleep. This includes a production in the percentage of dreaming sleep , when compared to the control with a mixed diet.
It's believed that these sleep changes could very well be linked to the metabolism of the fat content of the low carbohydrate diet. In addition, the ingestion of antidepressants and certain SSRI's can increase the duration of slow-wave sleep periods; however, the effects of THC on slow-wave sleep remain controversial. Total sleep time in these instances is often unaffected due to a person's alarm clock, circadian rhythms, or early morning obligations. Insomnia is a general term for difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep. Insomnia is the most common sleep problem, with many adults reporting occasional insomnia, and 10–15% reporting a chronic condition.
Insomnia can have many different causes, including psychological stress, a poor sleep environment, an inconsistent sleep schedule, or excessive mental or physical stimulation in the hours before bedtime. Insomnia is often treated through behavioral changes like keeping a regular sleep schedule, avoiding stimulating or stressful activities before bedtime, and cutting down on stimulants such as caffeine. The sleep environment may be improved by installing heavy drapes to shut out all sunlight, and keeping computers, televisions, and work materials out of the sleeping area.
Promoting sleep information specific to the athlete's sport such as sleep need, adjusting to training times and emphasis on the impact of sleep on performance is key to create buy-in and behavioural change. The introduction section covers the need for sleep, including sleep architecture and the restorative benefits of sleep for the brain and body. Pitfalls and challenges measuring athlete sleep are reviewed, and practical recommendations provided. The following section, entitled sleep and the athlete, covers the influence of sleep inadequacy and sleep extension on athletic performance. We review the evidence that elite athletes are particularly susceptible to sleep inadequacy, for example, during intensified training and in those reporting symptoms of over-reaching and overtraining.
The term "sleep hygiene" refers to a series of healthy sleep habits that can improve your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. When people struggle with insomnia, sleep hygiene is an important part of cognitive behavioral therapy , the most effective long-term treatment for people with chronic insomnia. CBT for insomnia can help you address the thoughts and behaviors that prevent you from sleeping well.
It also includes techniques for stress reduction, relaxation and sleep schedule management. Short sleep duration and poor sleep quality are prevalent among Canadian adults. About one-third sleep fewer hours per night than recommended for optimal physical and mental health. This group also experiences poor sleep quality more frequently than do those who sleep the recommended number of hours.
Additional research is needed to determine the prevalence of adverse health outcomes among short and poor sleepers. Sleep duration estimates for Canadian children and adolescents have recently been published,Note 8Note 9 but updated figures for adults are lacking. This study provides more recent estimates of sleep duration and quality in the context of sleep duration guidelines, based on the Canadian Health Measures Survey from 2007 to 2013 . Sleep health can be improved through implementing good sleep hygiene habits. Having good sleep hygiene can help to improve your physical and mental health by providing your body with the necessary rejuvenation only restful sleep can provide. Another way to greatly improve sleep hygiene is by creating a peaceful and relaxing sleep environment.
Sleeping in a dark and clean room with things like a white noise maker can help facilitate restful sleep. Consuming high amounts of the stimulant caffeine can result in interrupted sleep patterns and sometimes sleep deprivation. This vicious cycle can result in drowsiness which can then result in a higher consumption of caffeine in order to stay awake the next day. This cycle can lead to decreased cognitive function and an overall feeling of fatigue.
A 2010 review of published scientific research suggested that exercise generally improves sleep for most people, and helps sleep disorders such as insomnia. The optimum time to exercise may be 4 to 8 hours before bedtime, though exercise at any time of day is beneficial, with the exception of heavy exercise taken shortly before bedtime, which may disturb sleep. However, there is insufficient evidence to draw detailed conclusions about the relationship between exercise and sleep. Sleeping medications such as Ambien and Lunesta are an increasingly popular treatment for insomnia.
Although these nonbenzodiazepine medications are generally believed to be better and safer than earlier generations of sedatives, they have still generated some controversy and discussion regarding side effects. White noise appears to be a promising treatment for insomnia. This is a short period of sleep that one might take during the daytime, in order to get the necessary amount of rest.
As we start taking naps at a young age, most people assume you grow out of this phase of sleeping pattern. Yet around one-third of American adults partake in this, daily. The right amount of nap time is around 10–20 minutes, as researchers have proven that it takes at least 30 minutes to enter the slow-wave sleep where one is at their deepest of sleep.
If one naps for too long, getting into the slow wave cycles, it can be hard to awake from this nap and leaving one feeling unrested. This is called sleep inertia, which means that one would be in a state of drowsiness for a period of time. Although the amount of sleep you get each day is important, other aspects of your sleep also contribute to your health and well-being. Signs of poor sleep quality include not feeling rested even after getting enough sleep, repeatedly waking up during the night, and experiencing symptoms of sleep disorders . Improving sleep quality may be helped by better sleep habits or being diagnosed and treated for any sleep disorder you may have.
Most people feel a mild need for sleep in the afternoon. Because of this set rhythm in your body, the urge to sleep will be triggered at these times of day. This occurs no matter how much sleep you got the night before.
But a lack of quality sleep can also make you tired at the wrong times of day. Teens can throw off their body clocks by often staying up late at night. Their clocks will also be off if they are always changing their schedule of when the sleep and wake-up.
When their internal clocks are not set right, teens can become very sleepy when they should be wide awake. This can cause them to fall asleep at school, at work, or while they are driving. Good sleep hygiene—sleep hygiene includes the habits necessary to have good sleep quality and daytime alertness. When I sleep with my girlfriend, I get the most amazing, restorative, inconceivably best sleep of my life.
Despite the only time its ever happened is in the worst conditions for ideal sleep. A hotel bed, with tropical summer heat, in a different time zone to throw off circadian rhythm, with no exercise that day, and a low carb diet. And despite 6-7 hours of sleep, it is the most well rested I've felt in my life, led me to naturally wake up without an alarm, didn't need to use melatonin to help myself fall asleep. The effect of sleep duration on somatic growth is not completely known. One study recorded growth, height, and weight, as correlated to parent-reported time in bed in 305 children over a period of nine years (age 1–10).
It was found that "the variation of sleep duration among children does not seem to have an effect on growth." Slow-wave sleep affects growth hormone levels in adult men. During eight hours of sleep, men with a high percentage of slow-wave sleep (average 24%) also had high growth hormone secretion, while subjects with a low percentage of SWS (average 9%) had low growth hormone secretion. Gartenberg says that, according to one of his Penn State colleagues, eight and a half hours should be considered "the new eight hours." Why? Because even people without chronic insomnia spend about 10 percent of our time in bed not sleeping--we're either falling asleep or slowly waking up. "If you're in bed for eight hours, a healthy sleeper might actually sleep for only about 7.2 hours," he explains. That's why, in order to get eight hours of actual sleep, which is what many people need, normal sleepers need eight and a half hours between when they close their eyes and when the alarm goes off.
