How does the amount of sleep affect your health?

Since child­hood, every­one knows the axiom that good sleep is the key to health. And indeed it is. After all, sys­tem­at­ic lack of sleep threat­ens not only chron­ic fatigue, increased irri­tabil­i­ty and apa­thy for every­thing, but also a weak­en­ing of the immune sys­tem and an increased risk of devel­op­ing var­i­ous dis­eases. The norm of sleep has always been con­sid­ered an occa­sion for heat­ed sci­en­tif­ic dis­cus­sions and the sub­ject of detailed study. And almost always, researchers came to the con­clu­sion that the norm of sleep for an adult healthy per­son is an aver­age of 8 hours. But this is only an aver­age indi­ca­tor, which can vary both up and down, depend­ing on the phys­i­o­log­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of the body of each per­son. Med­AboutMe will tell you what sleep indi­ca­tors are con­sid­ered nor­mal for dif­fer­ent age cat­e­gories and whether it is pos­si­ble to iden­ti­fy any dis­or­ders in the body by the ratio of the dura­tion of sleep and wake­ful­ness of a per­son.

What is the sleep rate for children?

Healthy sleep for chil­dren is the key to nor­mal growth, phys­i­cal and men­tal devel­op­ment. The rec­om­mend­ed dura­tion of sleep and the fea­tures of the for­ma­tion of its reg­i­men are deter­mined depend­ing on the age of the child:

• 0–3 months. The need for sleep is great­est at this age. It is at first 17–18 hours, then grad­u­al­ly by three months it decreas­es to 15. The esti­mat­ed dura­tion of sleep in new­born babies is a total sum, since chil­dren at this age, as a rule, do not sleep for more than 3–4 hours in a row.
• 3–6 months. The norm of sleep for such babies is 15 hours. At the same time, approx­i­mate­ly 10 hours of sleep are allo­cat­ed at night, and 5 hours are divid­ed into two day­time sleeps. If the child has not yet learned to sleep through the night, the num­ber of hours of night wake­ful­ness must be com­pen­sat­ed dur­ing the day.
• 6–9 months. The need for sleep in chil­dren of this age is reduced by only an hour, and the dura­tion of unin­ter­rupt­ed night rest is approx­i­mate­ly 7 hours.
• 9–12 months. The aver­age dura­tion of sleep in such babies is 10–12 hours at night, and 3–4 hours dur­ing the day, divid­ed into two rests. For strict adher­ence to the rec­om­mend­ed norm, it is nec­es­sary to prop­er­ly orga­nize the baby’s sleep sched­ule, observ­ing it, both day and night.
• 12–18 months. As before, the dura­tion of a night’s sleep in a child should be 10–12 hours. The need for two naps at this age also remains. But already clos­er to a year and a half, you can grad­u­al­ly pre­pare the child for the tran­si­tion to a reg­i­men with one day­time sleep. To do this, you can start alter­nat­ing days with one day­time sleep and two.
• 18–24 months. The need for sleep in chil­dren at this age is 12–14 hours (10–12 hours at night and about 2 hours dur­ing the day). But the need to sleep 1 or 2 times depends on the indi­vid­ual char­ac­ter­is­tics of the child, so it is impor­tant to observe your baby and adjust the reg­i­men to his pref­er­ences.

For school­child­ren, sleep norms dif­fer depend­ing on age. So, Rospotreb­nad­zor rec­om­mends:

• chil­dren in grades 1–4 sleep an aver­age of 10–10.5 hours;
• 5–7‑graders take 9.5–10 hours for a night’s rest;
• chil­dren in grades 6–9 sleep 9–9.5 hours;
• and stu­dents in grades 10–11 should devote 8–9 hours to sleep.

The meaning of sleep for a teenager

For teenagers, a healthy sleep of approx­i­mate­ly 10 hours plays the most impor­tant role. This is due to the active phys­i­cal devel­op­ment observed in ado­les­cence in chil­dren. The main cause of lack of sleep in ado­les­cents can be not only a devi­a­tion from the rec­om­mend­ed sleep dura­tion, but also the wrong dai­ly rou­tine. So, in ado­les­cence, chil­dren often fall asleep late. Study­ing at school or uni­ver­si­ty becomes the rea­son for ear­ly awak­en­ing. Fail­ure to com­ply with the reg­i­men of day­time activ­i­ty and night­time rest can lead to sleep depri­va­tion, in which a per­son ceas­es to feel sat­is­fac­tion from him, wak­ing up in the morn­ing in a depressed and tired state. In addi­tion, this leads to increased irri­tabil­i­ty, which does not bode well for the phys­i­cal and men­tal health of a teenag­er.

How much sleep do adults need?

The norm of sleep in adults refers to the dura­tion of a night’s rest, after which a per­son feels com­plete­ly rest­ed and alert. For each such indi­ca­tor is indi­vid­ual, and can vary from 5–6 to 10–12 hours. On aver­age, the norm of sleep for an adult is 8 hours. Lack of prop­er sleep caus­es irrepara­ble harm to health.

Invol­un­tary devi­a­tions from the norm may indi­cate the pres­ence of any health prob­lems. So, there is the con­cept of a patho­log­i­cal increase or decrease in the dura­tion of sleep (hyper- and insom­nia). Hyper­som­nia is accom­pa­nied by increased irri­tabil­i­ty, depres­sion, mus­cle pain and cause­less anx­i­ety that occurs even after a long night’s rest. Insom­nia is more com­mon. In this case, sleep dis­tur­bances can be observed when falling asleep, wak­ing up, or dur­ing the night. Insom­nia can be a sign of both men­tal and phys­i­cal ill­ness. The for­mer include neu­ro­sis, alco­holism and drug addic­tion, depres­sion, while the lat­ter include dis­tur­bances in the endocrine sys­tem, chron­ic dis­eases of the liv­er, kid­neys, der­ma­to­log­i­cal dis­eases, osteo­chon­dro­sis, etc. If a per­son notes that even with a nor­mal sleep sched­ule, he does not feel rest­ed, or he has prob­lems with insom­nia, it is nec­es­sary to con­sult a doc­tor and under­go an appro­pri­ate exam­i­na­tion.

Sleep and health: interesting facts

• Accord­ing to research, the norm of sleep for a teenag­er should be at least 9 hours. Lack of sleep for peo­ple of this age cat­e­go­ry can cause sig­nif­i­cant harm to health, both phys­i­cal and men­tal. Good sleep for a teenag­er is very impor­tant. In its absence, the risk of ear­ly obe­si­ty, depres­sion and the devel­op­ment of var­i­ous seri­ous dis­eases is sig­nif­i­cant­ly increased.
• Researchers from the Vir­gin Pulse Insti­tute have found that almost one in six office work­ers at least once a week, due to a lack of night­ly sleep, falls asleep right at the work­place. More­over, the rea­sons for the lack of a nor­mal night’s sleep for all respon­dents were dif­fer­ent, but they boiled down to incon­ve­nience caused by some exter­nal fac­tors. The authors of the study note that lack of sleep caus­es a state sim­i­lar to intox­i­ca­tion. This pre­vents a per­son from ful­ly work­ing and mak­ing the right deci­sions.
• A study con­duct­ed by sci­en­tists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia showed that sys­tem­at­ic vio­la­tion of the norm of sleep increas­es the lev­els of inflam­ma­to­ry mark­ers in the human body. That is, the lack of 7–8 hours of sleep leads to an increase in the lev­el of interleukin‑6 and C‑reactive pro­tein. The lat­ter can also sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the risk of heart dis­ease, hyper­ten­sion, and type 2 dia­betes.
• Sci­en­tists from the Max Planck Insti­tute con­duct­ed an exper­i­ment in which 160 adult vol­un­teers took part. Spe­cial­ists stud­ied the fea­tures of changes in the sig­ma rhythm (sleep spin­dles) that appear dur­ing sleep. In addi­tion, dur­ing the exper­i­ment, the IQ indi­ca­tors of male and female par­tic­i­pants were deter­mined. Sci­en­tists have con­clud­ed that in women in the deep sleep phase, men­tal abil­i­ties improve. In men, an increase in IQ occurs dur­ing super­fi­cial sleep (drowsi­ness).
• Researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton found that the hours a per­son sleeps are just as impor­tant to health as the length of sleep itself. The researchers con­duct­ed an exper­i­ment on lab­o­ra­to­ry rodents. Accord­ing to its results, sci­en­tists have found that with the same dura­tion of sleep at dif­fer­ent hours, the ben­e­fits for the body will dif­fer. That is, not observ­ing the sleep reg­i­men threat­ens a per­son with impaired immune response of the body, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­es the risk of devel­op­ing var­i­ous dis­eases.