| The amount of sleep needed varies according to age. The list below is for the average persons, it gives an idea of the amount of sleep one needs according to age.
a. First seven years one needs 12 to 16 hours sleep. (0-7 years old) The question: enough sleep ? is an individual matter. To find out how much sleep one needs is a matter of experimenting. The best way to figure this out is to recall the past. Remember the physical and mental reaction to short sleep and long sleep. After a short sleep, the feeling occurs of “want to sleep” all day long with moments of drowsiness, but when sleeping long the feeling of being lazy, moody, dizziness and a feeling to do nothing. |
How Much Sleep Do We Need?
The amount of sleep each person needs a night depends on many factors. Infants generally seem to need about 16 hours of sleep a day, while teenagers may seem to need about 9 hours on average but often more. For adults, 7 to 8 hours a night appears to be a reasonable amount of sleep, although some people can do with as few as 3 hours or as many as 10 hours of sleep each day.
Pregnant women need several more hours of sleep than a woman of the same age. When getting older it seems the need for sleep is lesser. About half of all people over 65 considered to have frequent sleeping problems, such as sleep disorder, and deep sleep stages in many elderly people become short or stop completely. This change is a normal part of aging, or it may be the result of medical problems that are common in elderly people and from the medications or other treatments. But sleep disorders can also be a matter of perception of the amount of sleep really needed by the elderly. Doctors and nurses (included other caregivers) still use the 8-hour sleep rule to judge sleep time. In fact, this is not right at all. When a person passes 60 years of age and does not have an active lifestyle the need of sleep is decreasing.
Separation of sleep time in two parts can be helpful for many people. It is a myth that sleep needs to be in one block only. A part in the afternoon and another part in the nighttime period. Each person has the best time to sleep. In care homes, it seems not possible to use this method which is rather remarkable as the method is most compelling for this target group.
These are signs of sleep deprivation ;
These signs are rather dangerous to the individual health and also the safety of a person. The main reason why this happens more and more often in society is the fact that people all seem to be too occupied to relax. On one hand, the social life is taking its toll and on the other side, the commercial life is putting high pressures.
Sleep depriving has become a serious problem in traffic and at the working place. A lot of accidents in traffic are happening because of sleep deprivation. Driving is an automatic activity. Most people experience automatic activities as boring. When the routine takes over and the concentration drops a sleep-deprived person feels drowsy at first and soon after that the driver experience microsleeps.
Drivers often take stimulating products such as caffeine ( in coffee, tea or as energy drinks) in the beginning these products seem to have an effect. But often the effects ware out and the person falls directly into a deeper sleep than if they should not have drunken the “simulative product”. The “energizing” products do not energize at all.
Calculation tips for sleep deprivation avoiding. Answer the following questions by writing down:
1 / How was the work performed after a couple of hours sleep?
2 / How and how much did a person sleep after the bad news? Did the person perform well the next day?
3 / After a long day in outside in nature, coming “home” was falling asleep directly or had enough energy to sit out the evening?
4 / After a boring day at the office, did you have enough energy to stay awake in the evening?
Is what commonly is known about sleep, what we think, or what we expect, correct? All over the world researchers have collected huge databases with information on who is suffering from what kind of sleep disorder. In general, it has been found a world result of the following shocking numbers – percentage in relation to the national population divided by age group/gender in these countries;
| Age / gender group | Cities | Countryside | Severe cases | periodically |
| Male child below 10 years | 1 % | 0,4% | 0,2 % | 0,3 % |
| Male child >10 and < 14 yrs | % | < 1% | < 0,3% | < 0,5% |
| Male > 14 yrs and < 21 yrs | 5- 7 % | < 4 % | 2 % | 3 % |
| Male > 21 and < 35 yrs | 10 – 17 % | < 7 – 9 % | 8 % | 7 % |
| Male > 35 and < 50 yrs | 30 – 37 % | 15 – 20 % | 17 % | 23 % |
| Male > 50 and < 65 yrs | 39 – 42 % | 25 – 30 % | 15 % | 32 % |
| Male > 65and 70 yrs | 43 – 50 % | 20 – 30 % | 18 % | 22 % |
| Male older than 70 yrs | 40 – 45 % | < 25 % | 15 % | >45% |
| Female child below 10 years | < 0,5 % | < 0,3 % | < 0,1 % | < 0,1 % |
| Female child >10 and < 14 yrs | 7 – 9 % | 4 – 5 % | 3 – 5 % | 9 % |
| Female > 14 yrs and < 21 yrs | 18 – 22 % | 12 – 15 % | 12 – 15 % | 15 % |
| Female > 21 and < 35 yrs | 32 – 40 % | 20 – 25 % | 27 % | 30 % |
| Female > 35 and < 50 yrs | 45 – 50 % | 35 – 40 % | 33 % | 42 % |
| Female > 50 and < 65 yrs | 50 – 55 % | 35 – 40 % | 37 % | 22 % |
| Female > 65and 70 yrs | 35 – 40 % | 20 – 25 % | 25 – 30 % | 20 % |
| Female older than 70 yrs | 40 – 50 % | 30 – 40 % | 35 % | 25 % |
| Given percentages are approximate and based on numbers of 2005
Bigger than, < smaller than |
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Interpreting these numbers we come to the result that in some age groups the sufferers of sleep disorders go over 40% of the (area) population.
The given numbers are not as high as due to the fact used numbers are from many different countries in the world. The numbers in cities like Tokyo, Johannesburg, New York, Shanghai, and Paris are higher than for instance in The Hague, Cambridge, Barcelona, Utah, and Bangalore. The given numbers only refer to sleep disorders without diversifying in specific forms of sleep disorder.
There is a distinguished difference between city and countryside, sleep-disorder gives a clear signal that city life is less healthy than in the countryside if this concerns to once peace of mind. Another important – and hardly ever discussed the issue – is fresh air. Most parts of the countryside give the persons a proper breathing scale and are able to inhale with lesser pollution. Pollution seems to have a serious effect on the healthy sleeping.
The woman often suffers more from sleep problems than males. One of the main reasons is based on the female characteristics such as caring, sharing, bothering, considering and responsibility feelings. A woman, when compared to the man is more in contact with her environment on emotional levels than the man. This emotional evolvement brings a natural tension. When this tension does not find a reflection in others by solving the “problems” they become like an echo sound, returning in different tunes but still in the same person.
Animal studies show that sleep is necessary for survival. Rats normally live for two to three years, those deprived of REM sleep survive only about 5 weeks on average, and rats deprived of all sleep stages live only about 3 weeks. Sleep-deprived rats also develop abnormally low body temperatures and sores on their tail and paws. The sores may develop because the rats’ immune systems become impaired. Some studies suggest that sleep deprivation affects the immune system in detrimental ways.
Sleep appears necessary for the neural systems to work properly. Too little sleep leaves a person drowsy and unable to concentrate the next day. It also leads to impaired memory and physical performance and reduced ability to carry out concentrated functions. If sleep deprivation continues (insomnia), hallucinations and mood swings develop. Sleep gives neurons which have been used while awake a chance to shut down and be repaired. Without sleep, neurons may become depleted in energy and/or polluted with byproducts of cellular activities that they begin to malfunction (this gives the hallucination feeling). Sleep gives the brain a chance to exercise important neuronal connections that might otherwise deteriorate from lack of activity. When a person is still in the growing phase during sleep new connections are created and tested.
Deep sleep coincides with the release of growth hormone in children and young adults. Many of the body’s cells show increased production and reduced breakdown of proteins during deep sleep. Since proteins are the building blocks needed for cell growth and for repair of damage like stress and ultraviolet rays, deep sleep may truly be “beauty sleep.” Activity in parts of the brain that control emotions, decision-making processes, and social interactions is drastically reduced during deep sleep, suggesting that this type of sleep help people maintain optimal emotional and social functioning while awake. A study in rats showed that certain nerve-signaling patterns which the rats generated during the day were repeated during deep sleep. This pattern repetition may help encode memories and improve learning.
Sleep has more to offer. Athletes who are in rigorous training phases unconsciously use sleep to program all muscles to cooperate in specific patterns. The neural pathways are exercising without actual movements. During sleep, the pathways are often tested and re-tested. Hormone production during sleep period is extremely important. The HGH = Human Growth Hormone is only produced during the resting/sleep phase. For athletes a good sleep boost performance a lot.