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According to the National Sleep Foundation, people need different amounts of sleep depending on their age:
- Newborns (0-3 months) - 14-17 hours
- Infants (4-11 months) - 12-15 hours
- Children (1-2 years old) - 11-14 hours
- Preschoolers (3-5 years old) - 10-13 hours
- Children (6-13) - 9-11 hours
- Teenagers (14-17 years old) - 8-10 hours
- Adults (18-64) - 7-9 hours
- Elderly people (65+) - 7-8 hours
Pregnancy and various illnesses can increase your daily need for sleep. Older people sleep a little less and tend to have shorter periods of deep sleep, which is necessary for the body to recover. With age, the risk of sleep disorders also increases, and primarily insomnia (insomnia). It is also known that people over 65 years of age are more susceptible to mental disorders that occur due to lack of sleep.
How long does it take to sleep
Modern health standards indicate that an adult needs a minimum of 7-8 hours of sleep to get enough sleep. Getting a good night's rest is important for maintaining health and productivity.
The opinion that the more sleep the better is also wrong. Although this process is an important part of our daily life, too much sleep can have a negative impact on the body. Among the side effects, doctors highlight a tendency to obesity and depression.
If you constantly need to sleep 9-11 hours, this is a reason to think about your health.
How much sleep does an adult need?
According to participants at the World Congress of Sleep Medicine, the average adult needs 6-9 hours of sleep per day. This need is determined genetically and is satisfied within the specified time for 97% of the planet's population. As you can see, the range is quite large, because each person needs different amounts of time to sleep. Moreover, this need can change from day to day. That is, today 7 hours is enough for you, but tomorrow you need at least 8.5.
USEFUL INFORMATION: The dangers of lack of sleep: what will happen if you sleep little
Since childhood, many of us have been brought to the consciousness of the “3 to 8” rule: 8 hours a day must be spent on work, 8 hours must be rested, 8 must be left for sleep. This approach is considered correct, because the average person has an 8-hour biorhythm.
Interestingly, women need more sleep than men. This is because the brain of girls (as well as girls and women) is more complex than a man’s, and its “reboot” takes on average 20 minutes a day longer.
American experts from the National Sleep Foundation conducted a series of studies to determine how many hours of sleep people of different ages need, entering the data into a table. There are no general rules and no exceptions.
Many famous people are also known for how much sleep they preferred to sleep per night. Napoleon considered it an unaffordable luxury to devote a third of his life to rest; he usually spent no more than 5 hours on it. At the same time, Einstein’s brilliant brain needed as much as 12 hours to get enough sleep and “recharge.” The genius of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, had a very busy life, so he could be found sleeping every 4 hours, but only for 15 minutes, that is, only 1.5 hours a day.
What are the dangers of lack of sleep for a person?
Lack of sleep is fraught with many dangers, both for the human body and for his mood. Chronic lack of sleep clearly affects your appearance, in particular your face. The skin turns pale, blue circles and bags appear under the eyes, and the whites of the eyes turn red. Hair becomes dull, nails become brittle.
Popular negative consequences of lack of sleep also include:
- stress,
- irritability,
- slowness,
- weakened immunity,
- decreased creativity
- constant pain in the body,
- memory problems,
- headache,
- depression,
- persistent drowsiness,
- chills,
- high blood pressure,
- nausea,
- Digestive problems.
How to get enough sleep in 6 hours
In urban life, when you need to combine several activities at once, time for sleep is limited. The question arises: is it possible to get enough sleep in 6 hours? Answer: yes, you can. In night rest, the main thing is not the number of hours, but their quality. To get a productive 6 hours of sleep, you should follow a few simple rules and techniques.
Don't eat 2-3 hours before bedtime
Before going to bed, the body should be in a calm, relaxed state. The feeling of overeating will interfere with the feeling of comfort before falling asleep. The body will not be able to completely relax. In addition, instead of the proper rest, the internal organs must devote all their energy to digesting food. That is, the body continues to work when it is given a period of time to recover, even if you are sleeping. As a result, the body will not have time to rest in the allotted interval, which will certainly affect the quality of sleep.
It is also recommended to avoid drinking alcohol and caffeine at least 4 hours before bedtime. You should quit nicotine an hour before bedtime.
Sleep without clothes
Even if pajamas or a shirt seem to you as convenient and comfortable as possible, you should still give it up. The fact is that clothing interferes with relaxation and disrupts blood circulation.
The second reason in favor of naked sleep is that clothing warms the body, while it needs lower temperatures. This is confirmed by a number of studies. Cool conditions are needed to improve metabolism and burn excess fat. It also reduces stress, improves mood and improves well-being.
Mental attitude
Stress directly affects the quality of your sleep. Restless thoughts will interfere with sleep and can wake a person in the middle of the night, interfering with further rest. In the evening, you should put your thoughts in order, calm down, and solve all important current affairs. Of course, sometimes events happen that haunt you. These include problems with loved ones and difficulties at work. Try to learn to leave bad thoughts in the past day. The calmer you feel, the better your rest will be.
Warm shower
Taking a warm shower will allow your body and brain to relax and switch from worries to pleasant thoughts. If you have a sedentary job and by the end of the day there is pain in the neck, shoulders and head, then warm water will help to cope with this. Under its influence, the blood vessels will dilate and blood circulation will improve. This will lead to muscle relaxation.
Comfortable sleeping place
The right place to sleep is not much like a soft feather bed. The best option is a hard surface. No matter how strange it may seem, it is the hard surface that gives the body complete relaxation; on it the spine receives maximum unloading. A soft mattress will only increase discomfort and pain in the body. Choose hard or orthopedic mattresses.
Sleeping positions
Each sleeping position has both pros and cons. There are the most favorable options, but if you feel as rested as possible in the morning, and nothing hurts after sleeping in the “wrong” position, then you don’t need to change anything. If there are problems, then you should think about changing your position.
63% of people choose to sleep on their side. The left side is considered a better choice than the right. This is due to the internal structure of the body. The organ system is positioned in such a way that sleeping on the left side improves blood circulation, digestion, and reduces heartburn.
A night spent on your back indicates that the body is resting in the most natural position, with no parts pressing on each other.
Resting on your back is not recommended for those who suffer from snoring because it will only worsen the problem.
Lying on your stomach reduces snoring, but otherwise this is the most unfavorable position. After it, pain appears in the neck and lower back, because the head and spine are in unnatural positions.
Darkness
You should start avoiding bright light a couple of hours before bedtime in order to better prepare for it. The rest itself should be carried out in complete darkness, since all light sources will serve as irritants for the body.
Ventilation of the room
Low temperatures are favorable for high-quality restoration. Before going to bed, you should thoroughly ventilate the room. This is done both to reduce the temperature and to eliminate extraneous odors that could interfere with the process.
The ideal temperature for a room at night is 20-22 degrees.
Correct hours to sleep
The quality of rest depends not only on “how”, but also on “when” to start it. 6 hours in the interval between 01:00 at night and 07:00 in the morning and 6 hours in the interval from 22:00 to 04:00 are fundamentally different in results.
Every hour of rest before midnight is equal to two hours of rest after midnight. Thus, the body will receive full recovery when sleep begins at 22:00 and within 6 hours it will feel qualitatively reloaded. Sleeping from 01:00 at night to 07:00 in the morning will not give such an effect; the person will feel “broken.”
How many hours of sleep does a woman really need?
Scientists from Duke University believe that women need more sleep than men.
Researchers recently discovered that lack of sleep may be more physically harmful for women than for men. Scientists at Duke University conducted a study that tracked 210 middle-aged men and women who had never been diagnosed with a sleep disorder. Study participants were not using any medications, including hormone replacement therapy, and all participants were non-smokers
Research Basics
Participants who met the above criteria were tracked in two ways. They were asked to record their sleep habits and how they felt each morning upon waking, and they provided blood samples so that specific biomarkers could be tracked
The study found that more than 40% of people who didn't usually think they had a sleep problem actually did. These “problems” were classified as having trouble falling asleep each night and waking up frequently. Of this group, the majority of people who had these problems were women.
Poor sleep can harm a woman.
Women who recorded poor sleep habits reported more emotional turmoil in their lives, had frequent bouts of depression, and believed that they were angry too often. Surprisingly, men who had poor sleep did not report the same problems.
Physically, the women also had significant changes in their blood tests when they were sleep deprived. High levels of CRP were found in women with poor sleep. In fact, 33 percent of women with poor sleep in the study had such high levels of c-reactive protein in their system that they were at high risk of heart disease.
In addition, these same women had high levels of insulin in their blood. These high levels, over time, can lead to insulin resistance and type II diabetes.
Further research is currently being conducted to find out why poor sleep affects women differently than men. Scientists theorize that this may be due to certain levels of hormones or amino acids in the body, which vary greatly between the sexes.
For optimal health, women should try to sleep at least seven hours a night, with nine hours being the ideal amount.
This isn't the first study to suggest that women need more sleep than men. In fact, one of the UK's leading sleep researchers concluded that women actually take twenty minutes longer to fall asleep due to women's multitasking brains.
“One of the main functions of sleep is to allow the brain to recover and repair itself,” said Professor Jim Horne, director of the Center for Sleep Research at Loughborough University, UK.
“During deep sleep, the cerebral cortex, responsible for thoughts, memory, language, etc., is freed from feelings and goes into recovery mode.
“The more of your brain you use during the day, the more it needs to be repaired and therefore the more sleep you need.
“Women tend to multitask—they do a lot of things and are flexible—and so they use more of their actual brain than men. Because of this, their need for sleep is greater.
"A man who has a complex job that involves making a variety of decisions and lateral thinking may also need more sleep than the average man, although probably still not as much as women."
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Rules for falling asleep easily
It happens that the body simply does not want to “switch off” when it is needed. There are several techniques to help him.
First, make sure that your body is as comfortable and light as possible. For this:
- Relax your body parts gradually, from top to bottom. Start with the muscles of the face and neck.
- If the jaw is clenched, it should be lowered.
- Take the load off your shoulders, lower them too.
- Look at each hand in turn and feel a wave of relaxation flow through them.
- Let the wave go further through the body, alternately relaxing the chest, stomach, hips, legs, reaching the fingertips.
When the body has reached maximum relaxation, proceed to visualization. To quickly fall asleep, mentally imagine different scenes with your eyes closed. Here are some options:
- Start peering into the darkness, look at various patterns and shapes, the outlines of objects. Soon you will have an imaginary “cartoon”.
- Imagine any ordinary object in monotonous motion. For example, a board on the water. Watch how she swings on the waves and stays in place.
- Draw in your imagination, in as much detail as possible, a lake overgrown with water lilies. Imagine being in a boat in the middle of its waters. The boat rocks slowly as you lie on your back and look up at the blue sky.
It is worth considering that perfect sleep may not happen the first time. It's important to understand that this is normal. Any body needs time to readjust. Just keep trying and analyze your condition to understand what is best for you.
