How much sleep do we really need? Everyone knows that sleeping is very important. Sleeping is important for our health, well being, and how we perform. A recent study with more than 1600 people in it proved that being sleep deprived leads to poorer attention and thinking. Sleeping also affects our mood. Recent studies showed that insufficient sleep can even affect the microorganisms in your gut.
We all know that sleeping is important, but how much sleep is enough? If you search it on Google, the most common answer is eight hours. 8 hours seems pretty straightforward, but how did they get this number? We’re told that we should drink eight glasses of water per day, but is that the same to everyone? How much water we need to drink depends on our body’s conditions and what we do.
We can think about sleep the same way. How much sleep we need depends on our body’s current needs. To come up with a guide saying how much sleep you need to get, sleep experts used scientific data to determine the appropriate amounts of sleep for each age group. In the end, they said things, “For teens, we recommend 8 to 10 hours, but anywhere from 7 to 11 hours may be appropriate.” They didn’t say that everyone needed 8 hours. They specified the age group they were talking about. For babies, the range is from 11 to 18 hours. For people over 65 years old, it’s from five to nine hours. This shows that different people need different amounts of sleep.