Individuals vary in their sleep needs but most adults require between 7 and 9 hours a night to feel properly refreshed and function at their best the next day. Many try to get away with less sleep. There are some who are genuine short sleepers while others may require considerably more than the average requirement.
For most of us, five hours of sleep is not OK. Most adults need about eight hours of sleep. And while some people need five hours, it's extremely rare. For most of us, five hours of sleep can lead to chronic sleep deprivation, low energy, poor focus, and long-term health issues.
While some people regularly function on short periods of sleep, research mostly agrees that six hours of sleep is not enough for most adults. Experts recommend that most adults need at least seven hours of sleep every night.
Recommended Hours of Sleep
Most teenagers should sleep at least eight hours per day, but some teens will need more sleep to be at their best. For adults, experts generally recommend seven or more hours of sleep.
Most adults need around 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep. But this number will look different for everyone, and it can even change from night to night. We bring sleep research out of the lab and into your life.
Having trouble getting that ideal 8 hours of sleep? So is everyone else. But there's some good news — you may only need 7 hours of it. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society (SRS) have issued a new recommendation, saying seven is the magic sleep number for most healthy adults.
There are many reasons why you might be waking up too early. They include external factors, such as environmental disturbances like temperature, light, and noise. They also include internal factors, like your circadian rhythm, sleep disorders like sleep apnea, and/or medical issues, like heartburn.
How Much Sleep Is Too Much? Sleep needs can vary from person to person, but in general, experts recommend that healthy adults get an average of 7 to 9 hours per night of shuteye. If you regularly need more than 8 or 9 hours of sleep per night to feel rested, it might be a sign of an underlying problem, Polotsky says.
Now, he makes an effort to sleep at least six hours per night, he said in an interview with CNBC's David Faber on Tuesday. “I've tried [to sleep] less, but ... even though I'm awake more hours, I get less done,” Musk said. “And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours [of sleep per night].”
We may feel a strange buzz of energy from not sleeping much, but that is because the brain has formed too many connections and requires sleep to filter itself. We are more likely to hallucinate or even have seizures when we are sleep deprived.
The bare minimum of sleep needed to live, not just thrive, is 4 hours per 24-hour period. Seven to 9 hours of sleep are needed for health, renewal, learning, and memory. Disruption of the sleep cycle from shift work creates problems for the quality and quantity of sleep.
Sleep and Aging
Older adults need about the same amount of sleep as all adults—7 to 9 hours each night. But, older people tend to go to sleep earlier and get up earlier than they did when they were younger. There are many reasons why older people may not get enough sleep at night.
Then why is it that some people feel great after sleeping only 4 to 5 hours, but feel terrible if they sleep 7 to 8 hours? In many cases, they'll just wake up automatically after 5 hours without any alarms. Here's one possible explanation: Normally during sleep, you'll go through 4 to 5 sleep cycles.
If you wake up early feeling alert, should you just get up? It depends how early it is. If it is 3am, you should do your best to get back to sleep because if you don't, you're likely to feel tired and irritable later.
According to a new study, the best time to sleep is from 10pm to 4am. People going to bed before 10 or after 11 are at greater risk for heart disease, compared to the average person. In this timeframe people have a 25-percent lower chance of developing heart disease than those who fall asleep after midnight.
So if you wake up at 3 AM, when Liver energy peaks, you may be suffering from Liver Qi stagnation, which could be related to an unhealthy diet, excess alcohol consumption, unresolved anger or high levels of stress.
So why do people think they are able to function optimally on 6 hours of regular sleep? This is because of a natural human phenomenon known as 'renorming'. Renorming means that we are only able to compare how we feel today to how we felt yesterday or the day before.
If you or a loved one feel sleepy or fatigued, despite having 7-8 hours of sleep, it could indicate poor sleep quality or be a sign of an underlying sleep disorder. If you have questions or concerns about your sleep health, please speak with your primary care provider.
Meet Your Sleep Need
Getting more sleep at night doesn't just help with subcutaneous fat, it can help you not gain visceral fat, too. One study found switching from sleeping six hours or less a night to sleeping seven to eight hours a night would lead to gaining almost 1 square inch less visceral fat.
So 8 hours sleep.