How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Hi.
Today im giving details about sleep time.
Sleep Cycles and Stages, Lack of Sleep, and How to Get the Hours You Need.
How Much Sleep Do You Need?
Humans, like all animals, need sleep, along with food, water and oxygen, to survive. For humans sleep is a vital indicator of overall health and well-being. We spend up to one-third of our lives asleep, and the overall state of our “sleep health” remains an essential question throughout our lifespan.
Most of us know that getting a good night’s sleep is important, but too few of us actually make those eight or so hours between the sheets a priority. For many of us with sleep debt, we’ve forgotten what “being really, truly rested” feels like.
To further complicate matters, stimulants like coffee and energy drinks, alarm clocks, and external lights—including those from electronic devices—interferes with our “circadian rhythm” or natural sleep/wake cycle.
Sleep needs vary across ages and are especially impacted by lifestyle and health. To determine how much sleep you need, it's important to assess not only where you fall on the "sleep needs spectrum," but also to examine what lifestyle factors are affecting the quality and quantity of your sleep such as work schedules and stress.
Sleep Time Recommendations: What’s Changed?
A new range, “may be appropriate,” has been added to acknowledge the individual variability in appropriate sleep durations. The recommendations now define times as either (a) recommended; (b) may be appropriate for some individuals; or (c) not recommended.
The panel revised the recommended sleep ranges for all six children and teen age groups. A summary of the new recommendations includes:
1. Newborns (0-3 months): Sleep range narrowed to 14-17 hours each day (previously it was 12-18)
2. Infants (4-11 months): Sleep range widened two hours to 12-15 hours (previously it was 14-15)
3. Toddlers (1-2 years): Sleep range widened by one hour to 11-14 hours (previously it was 12-14)
4. Preschoolers (3-5): Sleep range widened by one hour to 10-13 hours (previously it was 11-13)
5. School age children (6-13): Sleep range widened by one hour to 9-11 hours (previously it was 10-11)
6. Teenagers (14-17): Sleep range widened by one hour to 8-10 hours (previously it was 8.5-9.5)
7. Younger adults (18-25): Sleep range is 7-9 hours (new age category)
8. Adults (26-64): Sleep range did not change and remains 7-9 hours
9. Older adults (65+): Sleep range is 7-8 hours (new age category)
Sleep Cycles and Stages, Lack of Sleep, and How to Get the Hours You Need
When you’re scrambling to meet the countless demands of your day, cutting back on sleep might seem like the only answer. Who can afford to spend so much time sleeping, anyway? The truth is you can’t afford not to. Even minimal sleep loss takes a toll on your mood, energy, and ability to handle stress. By understanding your nightly sleep needs and what you can do to bounce back from chronic sleep loss, you can finally get on a healthy sleep schedule.
Myths and Facts about Sleep
Myth 1: Getting just one hour less sleep per night won’t affect your daytime functioning. You may not be noticeably sleepy during the day, but losing even one hour of sleep can affect your ability to think properly and respond quickly. It also compromises your cardiovascular health, energy balance, and ability to fight infections.
Myth 2: Your body adjusts quickly to different sleep schedules. Most people can reset their biological clock, but only by appropriately timed cues—and even then, by one or two hours per day at best. Consequently, it can take more than a week to adjust after traveling across several time zones or switching to the night shift.
Myth 3: Extra sleep at night can cure you of problems with excessive daytime fatigue. The quantity of sleep you get is important, sure, but it's the quality of your sleep that you really have to pay attention to. Some people sleep eight or nine hours a night but don’t feel well rested when they wake up because the quality of their sleep is poor.
Myth 4: You can make up for lost sleep during the week by sleeping more on the weekends. Although this sleeping pattern will help relieve part of a sleep debt, it will not completely make up for the lack of sleep. Furthermore, sleeping later on the weekends can affect your sleep-wake cycle so that it is much harder to go to sleep at the right time on Sunday nights and get up early on Monday mornings.
Sleeping in on the weekends isn’t enough!
Many of us try to repay our sleep debt by sleeping in on the weekends, but as it turns out, bouncing back from chronic lack of sleep isn’t that easy. One or two solid nights of sleep aren’t enough to pay off a long-term debt. While extra sleep can give you a temporary boost (for example, you may feel great on Monday morning after a relaxing weekend), your performance and energy will drop back down as the day wears on.
Tips for getting and staying out of sleep debt
While you can’t pay off sleep debt in a night or even a weekend, with a little effort and planning, you can get back on track.
1. Aim for at least seven and a half hours of sleep every night. Make sure you don’t fall farther in debt by blocking off enough time for sleep each night. Consistency is the key.
2. Settle short-term sleep debt with an extra hour or two per night. If you lost 10 hours of sleep, pay the debt back in nightly one or two-hour installments.
3. Keep a sleep diary. Record when you go to bed, when you get up, your total hours of sleep, and how you feel during the day. As you keep track of your sleep, you’ll discover your natural patterns and get to know your sleep needs.
4. Take a sleep vacation to pay off a long-term sleep debt. Pick a two-week period when you have a flexible schedule. Go to bed at the same time every night and allow yourself to sleep until you wake up naturally. No alarm clocks! If you continue to keep the same bedtime and wake up naturally, you’ll eventually dig your way out of debt and arrive at the sleep schedule that’s ideal for you.
5. Make sleep a priority. Just as you schedule time for work and other commitments, you should schedule enough time for sleep. Instead of cutting back on sleep in order to tackle the rest of your daily tasks, put sleep at the top of your to-do list.
This details collected from sleephealthjournal.org. and helpguide.
anyway sleep well :)
Thanks.
SaroEpic
Today im giving details about sleep time.
Sleep Cycles and Stages, Lack of Sleep, and How to Get the Hours You Need.
How Much Sleep Do You Need?
Humans, like all animals, need sleep, along with food, water and oxygen, to survive. For humans sleep is a vital indicator of overall health and well-being. We spend up to one-third of our lives asleep, and the overall state of our “sleep health” remains an essential question throughout our lifespan.
Most of us know that getting a good night’s sleep is important, but too few of us actually make those eight or so hours between the sheets a priority. For many of us with sleep debt, we’ve forgotten what “being really, truly rested” feels like.
To further complicate matters, stimulants like coffee and energy drinks, alarm clocks, and external lights—including those from electronic devices—interferes with our “circadian rhythm” or natural sleep/wake cycle.
Sleep needs vary across ages and are especially impacted by lifestyle and health. To determine how much sleep you need, it's important to assess not only where you fall on the "sleep needs spectrum," but also to examine what lifestyle factors are affecting the quality and quantity of your sleep such as work schedules and stress.
Sleep Time Recommendations: What’s Changed?
A new range, “may be appropriate,” has been added to acknowledge the individual variability in appropriate sleep durations. The recommendations now define times as either (a) recommended; (b) may be appropriate for some individuals; or (c) not recommended.
The panel revised the recommended sleep ranges for all six children and teen age groups. A summary of the new recommendations includes:
1. Newborns (0-3 months): Sleep range narrowed to 14-17 hours each day (previously it was 12-18)
2. Infants (4-11 months): Sleep range widened two hours to 12-15 hours (previously it was 14-15)
3. Toddlers (1-2 years): Sleep range widened by one hour to 11-14 hours (previously it was 12-14)
4. Preschoolers (3-5): Sleep range widened by one hour to 10-13 hours (previously it was 11-13)
5. School age children (6-13): Sleep range widened by one hour to 9-11 hours (previously it was 10-11)
6. Teenagers (14-17): Sleep range widened by one hour to 8-10 hours (previously it was 8.5-9.5)
7. Younger adults (18-25): Sleep range is 7-9 hours (new age category)
8. Adults (26-64): Sleep range did not change and remains 7-9 hours
9. Older adults (65+): Sleep range is 7-8 hours (new age category)
Sleep Cycles and Stages, Lack of Sleep, and How to Get the Hours You Need
When you’re scrambling to meet the countless demands of your day, cutting back on sleep might seem like the only answer. Who can afford to spend so much time sleeping, anyway? The truth is you can’t afford not to. Even minimal sleep loss takes a toll on your mood, energy, and ability to handle stress. By understanding your nightly sleep needs and what you can do to bounce back from chronic sleep loss, you can finally get on a healthy sleep schedule.
Myths and Facts about Sleep
Myth 1: Getting just one hour less sleep per night won’t affect your daytime functioning. You may not be noticeably sleepy during the day, but losing even one hour of sleep can affect your ability to think properly and respond quickly. It also compromises your cardiovascular health, energy balance, and ability to fight infections.
Myth 2: Your body adjusts quickly to different sleep schedules. Most people can reset their biological clock, but only by appropriately timed cues—and even then, by one or two hours per day at best. Consequently, it can take more than a week to adjust after traveling across several time zones or switching to the night shift.
Myth 3: Extra sleep at night can cure you of problems with excessive daytime fatigue. The quantity of sleep you get is important, sure, but it's the quality of your sleep that you really have to pay attention to. Some people sleep eight or nine hours a night but don’t feel well rested when they wake up because the quality of their sleep is poor.
Myth 4: You can make up for lost sleep during the week by sleeping more on the weekends. Although this sleeping pattern will help relieve part of a sleep debt, it will not completely make up for the lack of sleep. Furthermore, sleeping later on the weekends can affect your sleep-wake cycle so that it is much harder to go to sleep at the right time on Sunday nights and get up early on Monday mornings.
Sleeping in on the weekends isn’t enough!
Many of us try to repay our sleep debt by sleeping in on the weekends, but as it turns out, bouncing back from chronic lack of sleep isn’t that easy. One or two solid nights of sleep aren’t enough to pay off a long-term debt. While extra sleep can give you a temporary boost (for example, you may feel great on Monday morning after a relaxing weekend), your performance and energy will drop back down as the day wears on.
Tips for getting and staying out of sleep debt
While you can’t pay off sleep debt in a night or even a weekend, with a little effort and planning, you can get back on track.
1. Aim for at least seven and a half hours of sleep every night. Make sure you don’t fall farther in debt by blocking off enough time for sleep each night. Consistency is the key.
2. Settle short-term sleep debt with an extra hour or two per night. If you lost 10 hours of sleep, pay the debt back in nightly one or two-hour installments.
3. Keep a sleep diary. Record when you go to bed, when you get up, your total hours of sleep, and how you feel during the day. As you keep track of your sleep, you’ll discover your natural patterns and get to know your sleep needs.
4. Take a sleep vacation to pay off a long-term sleep debt. Pick a two-week period when you have a flexible schedule. Go to bed at the same time every night and allow yourself to sleep until you wake up naturally. No alarm clocks! If you continue to keep the same bedtime and wake up naturally, you’ll eventually dig your way out of debt and arrive at the sleep schedule that’s ideal for you.
5. Make sleep a priority. Just as you schedule time for work and other commitments, you should schedule enough time for sleep. Instead of cutting back on sleep in order to tackle the rest of your daily tasks, put sleep at the top of your to-do list.
This details collected from sleephealthjournal.org. and helpguide.
anyway sleep well :)
Thanks.
SaroEpic