Good quality sleep helps the body remain healthy, stave off diseases and promote proper brain function, allowing abilities to concentrate, think clearly and process memories. Sleep loss of a mere couple of hours can reduce performance following the second night.
According to a worldwide survey of 1 million people, on average, we get 7 hours and 12 minutes sleep each night. However, there is a wide variation in the actual requirements: “Long sleepers”, like Albert Einstein, who needed 10 hours sleep each night, or “Short sleepers”, like Margaret Thatcher who only needed 4 hours sleep per night. The amount of sleep needed per night by an individual is driven by a number of factors but at its core it is genetic.
The need for sleep builds during the waking hours. This is known as sleep propensity. Sleep propensity is strongly linked to the time since the last sleep. Sleep plays an important role in the recover alertness, memory consolidation and physiological recovery. There are different stages of the sleep cycle. Stages 1 and 2 are drowsy and light sleep. If woken during these stages, the individual often does not recognise they were asleep. Stages 3 and 4 are slow wave deep sleep. This is when the recovery of alertness occurs, which means that in order to properly recover alertness, an individual needs to be asleep for a sufficient amount of time to move to these later stages. All these stages of Non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep are associated with the slowing of physiological activity such as heart rate and breathing.
In contrast Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, breathing and heart rate is increased and the brain is active. This is the stage of sleep that is associated with dreaming and also when procedural memory is consolidated.
Aside from genetics, age and culture have the biggest impact on the amount of sleep needed. Residents of countries in the Far East such as Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Malaysia spend less than 6 hours and 45 minutes in bed each night. By comparison, New Zealand, Finland, Australia and Belgium spend an average time in bed of more than 7 hours and 30 minutes. Interestingly, there is a link correlation between the wealth of a nation (GDP) and the amount of sleep. Residents of most rich countries (Luxembourg, Norway, Ireland, Switzerland and the US) tend to be more rested. But this relationship breaks down in Japan and Singapore.
Total sleep time and total nightly amounts of sleep stages vary with age, as do the amount of time spent in each sleep stage. This means the increasing age reduces the amount of recuperative slow wave sleep. The Sleep Foundation have published guidance on the recommended hours of sleep. During infancy the recommended sleep is between 11 and 17 hours per day. This falls to between 7 and 9 during adulthood.
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With the average sleep being 7 hours and 12 minutes, this means that many adults are not meeting their sleep needs.
Knowing the general recommendation for sleep based on age can be helpful. However, amongst these general trends based on age and culture, there are many individual factors that affect the need for sleep. These include activity levels, overall health and work patterns.
Whilst we may try to get our “full quota” of sleep, there are many factors that affect the duration and quality of sleep. Each of these detract from the recommended hours of sleep and will affect our mental and physical performance. Fatigue is cumulative and it can take around three nights to return to normal after a single “bad night’s sleep”. We already know that age is a factor, but what are other factors affecting sleep?
The effect of each of these factors are specific to the individual and so understanding how these affect you are a good start to knowing your own sleep needs. In doing so, you might also consider the following:
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