The Definitive Amount Of Sleep Needed At Every Age

Yahoo Health

Get enough Zzs at every stage of your life! (Photo: Getty Images)

Thanks to newly released guidelines from the National Sleep Foundation, you can now know exactly how many hours of sleep you need at every stage in your life.

The recommendations, published in Sleep Health: The Official Journal of the National Sleep Foundation, widen the sleep ranges for children between the ages of four months and seventeen years of age. The sleep range for newborns, however, has been narrowed — they say that newborns to 3-month-olds should get 14  to 17 hours of sleep a day, as opposed to the previously recommended 12 to 18 hours.

The recommendations for adults of all ages, from 18 to over 65, remained unchanged, at seven to nine hours each night.

Related: 4 Non-Negotiable For A Better Night’s Sleep

Here are the updated recommendations for each age group:

  • Newborns (0 to 3 months ): Sleep range narrowed to 14 to 17 hours each day (previously it was 12 to 18).

  • Infants (4 to 11 months): Sleep range widened two hours, to 12 to 15 hours (previously it was 14 to 15).

  • Toddlers (1 to 2 years): Sleep range widened by one hour, to 11 to 14 hours (previously it was 12 to 14).

  • Preschoolers (3 to 5 years): Sleep range widened by one hour, to 10 to 13 hours (previously it was 11 to 13).

  • School age children (6 to 13 years): Sleep range widened by one hour, to nine to 11 hours (previously it was 10 to 11).

  • Teenagers (14 to 17 years): Sleep range widened by one hour, to eight to 10 hours (previously it was eight-and-a-half to nine-and-a-half).

  • Younger adults (18 to 25 years): Sleep range is seven to nine hours (new age category).

  • Adults (26 to 64 years): Sleep range did not change and remains seven to nine hours.

  • Older adults (65+ years): Sleep range is seven to eight hours (new age category).

The study is groundbreaking: “This is the first time that any professional organization has developed age-specific recommended sleep durations based on a rigorous, systematic review of the world scientific literature relating sleep duration to health, performance and safety,” NSF board chairman Charles Czeisler, PhD, MD, a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School and the chief of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said in a statement.

The recommendations by the NSF were made by a panel of six sleep experts with the review and additional input of experts from the American Association of Anatomists, the American College of Chest Physicians, the American Neurological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Gerontological Society of America, the Society for Research in Human Development, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Geriatrics Society, the American Physiological Society, the American Thoracic Society, and the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society.

Many Americans get less than the recommended amount of sleep and they aren’t exactly addressing the issue correctly.

“The solution is not going out and drinking a couple of cans of Red Bull,” Stuart Quan, a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, tells WebMD, “The solution is to get more sleep.”

As little as one night of poor sleep can alter the way hormones regulate appetite function, and obesity rates are higher in those who consistently don’t get enough shuteye. Furthermore, there may be a correlation between lack of sleep and lack of exercise. Quan led research observing a group of children in Tucson, which showed that children who do not get enough sleep at night are more likely to become obese within five years.

Related: The Price We Pay For Lack Of Sleep Gets Steeper As We Age

Furthermore, a 2011 research review published in the European Heart Journal found that individuals who do not get enough sleep “had a 48 percent increased risk of developing or dying from coronary heart disease (CHD) in a seven to 25-year follow-up period … and a 15 percent greater risk of developing or dying from stroke during this same time.”

But it’s not just those short on sleep who are at risk. The same review showed that, “long sleepers — those who averaged nine or more hours a night — also showed a 38 percent increased risk of developing or dying from CHD and a 65 percent increased risk of stroke.”

Too little sleep also increases the risk of diabetes, headaches, and depression, and also worsens sex drive, skin aging, memory, judgment, and reaction time.

Want to make sure you’re getting just the right amount of shut-eye to maximize your health? The Mayo Clinic recommends sticking to a regular sleep schedule (even on holidays and weekends), not going to bed either hungry or too full, creating a regular bedtime ritual, and including physical activity as part of your daily routine.

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