Sleep – How Much is Enough?

We know that an adequate amount of deep sleep every night is essential to our health, and lack of it can lead to disease as well as cause daytime drowsiness leading to accidents and poor work performance. So, how much sleep is enough?

Plenty of research and sleep studies have shown that those who sleep between 6.5 and 7.5 typically live longer than all others. People who get less sleep than this range, as well as those who sleep longer, on average have a shorter lifespan. I thought we were supposed to sleep 8 hours!! Traditional wisdom has suggested that everyone needs about 8 hours sleep per night, and these results indicate otherwise. Sleep clinics report that quite often, their patients feel like they should sleep between 8 – 9 hours nightly, which adds stress at bedtime, often resulting in restlessness and insomnia – causing them to lay in bed watching the clock, and worrying.

Many controlled sleep study results in various the U.S. and other countries over time show that staying out of bed when not sleepy, and actually restricting the amount of time actually in bed, can help people sleep much better.

So, it appears that the quality of sleep is a far greater factor than number of hours in bed, and reaching the deepest stages over a few nightly cycles is the best thing for our health – of course for most of us, completion of these sleep cycles require several hours to accomplish. Try keeping track of how you feel – your energy level and alertness on days after sleeping 6, 7, or 8 hours – you may find that your optimal level is less than you expect!