Table of contents:
- Why sleeping a lot is as bad as a little
- How much sleep do you need to be productive and healthy?
- When to go to bed to get enough sleep
2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44
Scientists have named a specific time for each.
At first glance, it seems that everything is simple: to get a good sleep, you just need to sleep longer. But if you are a fan of these "simple" solutions, Lifehacker has bad news for you.
Why sleeping a lot is as bad as a little
Lack of sleep has a lot of side effects: from fatigue and loss of concentration to the inability to feel human without being filled with caffeine. They are known to anyone who has passed difficult sessions or is too familiar with the phrase "tomorrow morning is the deadline." However, the overfill is fraught with serious troubles.
In the course of a large-scale study Sleep Duration and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies, which covered almost one and a half million adults, an interesting statistical pattern was established. People who sleep less than 6 hours a night have a 12% greater risk of dying prematurely from any health problem than those who rest the standard 8 hours. But for those who like to sleep longer than 9 hours every day, the risks of dying prematurely are even higher - up to 30%!
And the desire to spend more than 8-9 hours in sleep, if it accompanies a person constantly, is a dangerous marker of Self-Reported Sleep Duration and Quality and Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality: A Dose-Response Meta-Analysis of cardiovascular diseases.
In general, sleeping a little longer is sometimes, of course, a good option. But it is better not to flirt and try to keep sleep within certain limits. Moreover, these norms have already been calculated.
How much sleep do you need to be productive and healthy?
Specialists of the American National Sleep Foundation took this issue seriously. They formed an expert group from among the world's leading scientists - sleep professionals, as well as representatives of the most authoritative organizations in the field of health: neurologists, psychiatrists, gerontologists, pediatricians …
For two years, researchers have carefully studied scientific publications and reports related to sleep and its effects on the body and well-being. As a result, there are updated guidelines for How Much Sleep Do We Really Need? concerning the length of rest depending on the age.
Here's how much sleep you need to be productive and healthy:
- Newborns (0-3 months) - 14-17 hours.
- Infants (4-11 months) 12-15 hours
- Toddlers (1-2 years old) - 11-14 hours.
- Preschoolers (3-5 years old) - 10-13 hours.
- Younger schoolchildren (6-13 years old) - 9-11 hours.
- Teenagers (14-17 years old) - 8-10 hours.
- Boys and girls (18–25 years old) - 7–9 hours.
- Adults (26–64 years old) - 7–9 hours.
- Seniors (65 years and older) - 7-8 hours.
The spread in numbers is associated with the individual characteristics of each person. And this is understandable, because the amount of sleep we need depends not only on age, but also on lifestyle, activity level, and general health.
However, the boundaries of healthy sleep are still quite categorical. If you sleep more or less than the time indicated for your age group, we are most likely talking about sleep disorders - with some kind of health consequences.
The only way to start getting enough sleep is to try to "fit" the duration of sleep into a healthy framework.
When to go to bed to get enough sleep
Most often, the problem of lack or excess of sleep is caused by two things:
- You cannot go to bed on time.
- You cannot wake up in time.
And if the solution to the first point is largely related to self-discipline, then in the second case the situation is more complicated. It often happens that, having honestly gone to bed at 23:00, we wake up when the alarm goes off, for example, at 6:30. But at the same time, we feel completely overwhelmed - although the recommended rate seems to have been met.
Summary: to wake up quickly and vigorously, set the alarm correctly. The time for which to start it can be calculated independently - for example, using the Lifehacker's sleep calculator.
Another option is to use one of the mobile apps that track your sleep quality and wake you up at the right time.
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