Failure to get enough sleep will affect your physical and mental health negatively. Your daily life will also be affected such as your emotional balance, productivity, heart health, creativity, brain health and your weight.
How Many Hours Of Sleep Do You Need?
Here is the number of hours you need to sleep depending on your age.
- Newborns – Infants between 0 to 3 months of age need to sleep around 14 to 17 hours every day.
- Infants – Those between 4 to 11 months old need to sleep around 12 to 15 hours every day.
- Toddlers – Between 1 to 2 years need to sleep between 11 to 14 hours every day.
- Preschoolers – Between 3 and 5 years old should sleep between 10 to 13 hours.
- School age children – Between 6 to 13 years of age should sleep between 9 to 11 hours every day.
- Teenagers – Between 14 to 17 years old should sleep between 8 to 10 hours every day.
- Young adults – Between 18 to 25 years of age should sleep between 7 to 9 hours every day.
- Adults – Between 26 to 64 years should sleep between 7 to 9 hours every day.
- Older adults – Above 65 years of age should sleep between 7 to 8 hours every day.
Common Misconceptions About Sleep
- Getting One Hour Less Of Sleep Each Night Will Not Affect Your Quality Of Daytime Activities – You might not appear noticeably sleepy during the day but losing an hour of sleep will affect your ability to think and respond quickly. It might also affect your energy balance, ability to fight infections and cardiovascular health.
- Your Body Adjusts Quickly To Different Sleep Schedules – For most people, it’s easy to adjust their biological clocks by at most 2 hours. It will take a while to adjust your biological clock after traveling to another time zone.
- Extra Sleep Can Help Reduce Daytime Fatigue – The amount of sleep you get is important but the quality of your sleep is also crucial. You might sleep 8 or 9 hours every night but still feel fatigued when you wake up. That’s because you have had a poor quality sleep.
- You Can Make Up For Lost Sleep During The Week By Sleeping In During The Weekend – This sleeping pattern will relieve some of your sleep debt it will not make up for complete lack of sleep. Sleeping more on the weekends will affect your biological clock so you will have a harder time waking up on Monday mornings.
How To Improve Your Sleeping Patterns
Well, if you have identified that you are not getting enough sleep, you need to correct your sleeping patterns immediately. Here are a few ways to do that effortlessly.
• Rule out any medical issues that might be causing your sleep problems. It could be a symptom of a medical condition or a side-effect of medication so visit a doctor and rule these out.
• Follow a regular sleep schedule. You need to go to bed and wake up at the same time, even on the weekends for the best results.
• Be careful about what you eat such as sugary drinks, alcohol and caffeine since they can affect your sleeping patterns.
• If you are feeling stressed, your sleep schedule will also be affected. You need to get the necessary help with stress management to avoid any disruptions in your sleep.
• Make sure your bedroom is dark, quiet and cool if you want to sleep well. Reserve your bed for only sleeping to avoid any disruptions.
That’s all you need to know about how much sleep you need and how to improve your sleep schedule for the best results!