How Much Of Sleep Do You Really Need?

Insomnia: Sleep Disorder > How Much Of Sleep Do You Really Need?

An adult needs an average of eight hours of sleep every night.

Where do you think this magic number comes from?

In 1993, a study conducted by Thomas Wehr at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda concluded that eight hours is the optimal amount of sleep you really need each night.

In this study, 16 volunteers lay in bed in a darkened room for 14 straight hours a day for four weeks.

At first, the volunteers slept for more than 12 hours a day on average.

After a few weeks, most reduced their sleep time to somewhere between seven and a half to nine hours.

But, this research does not tell you how much sleep is crucial for your good health.

It only indicates the number of hours a person will sleep when he has nothing else to do.

Another reason why this number is important because your brain takes around eight hours to re-energizes your body while you sleep.

When your brain could not complete its night time duties, you will not be able to perform at your best the next day.

How much sleep you need changes over your lifetime.

Newborn babies usually sleep for about 17 hours each day while older children need 9 or 10 hours a night.

And adults sleep about 7 to 8 hours each night.

As you gets older, you will need the same amount of sleep but only have the first 3 or 4 hours of deep sleep during the night making you easily awaken after 5 hours of sleep.

You are the best person to know what it is like to inhabit your body.

If, all this while you have been sleeping for 10 hours every night and did not feel terrible about it, you should continue with this sleep routine.

Do not stumble around exhausting yourself and feeling miserable the next morning just because a study tells you that you really need eight hours of sleep each night.

Even if you have slept less than eight hours each night and feel great about it, you should still continue with this sleep routine.

You may have one night of insomnia or the whole week of it, research shows that the number of sleep hours you get throughout the year usually averages out to a normal amount.

Try your best to get a decent amount of sleep you can and not to let the eight hours sleep myth keep you up all night.

Posted by: Mo Salle

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