Just as I regress into a ten-year-old if I go too long without eating, a busy week filled with lack of sleep can make me grumpier than a grandma with hemorrhoids. I know that for myself, anything less than six hours a night makes me run for caffeine first thing in the morning.
According to the California Center for Sleep Disorders, I’m not alone. Women age thirty to sixty are the most sleep deprived in our society, getting an average of less than seven hours per night. This doesn’t come as a big surprise since many women try to do it all: work, keep the house, mother, and support their loved ones.
But women aren’t the only ones missing out on Zs. As a culture, we’re sleep deprived, and UCSF Medical Center says that it’s affecting forty million of us with chronic sleep disorders and another twenty million with sleeping problems. But there’s reasoning behind this madness, and a lot of it stems from our genetic make-up, our personality, what stage of life we’re in, and whether we listen to our body when it’s screaming for a feather pillow and drawn shades.
Seven Hours or Ten?
The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) admits that there is no specific number of hours of sleep that will work for all of us because some of us require more and some less. What is certain is that there are important issues related to getting a good night’s sleep:
- Basal sleep need is what one person needs each night to get her best performance throughout the day
- Sleep debt occurs when problems exist due to awakening, bad sleep habits, and illness
- Circadian rhythm is our twenty-four hour cycle, which has dips that are biological in nature and make us more sleepy. Dips most commonly occur in the afternoons (my excuse for chocolate) and in the middle of the night.
According to NSF, two studies showed adults need seven to eight hours each night for their basal sleep need. But sleep debt of a few nights of less than seven hours can make those circadian dips more frequent, which is probably why coffee shops are crowded again in the afternoon hours. Recurring sleep debt affects our ability to combine information and remember daily details. It also harms our productivity, which explains why mistakes can happen in reports, for example, and why others might fall into the chicken nod while at their desks. If sleep debt becomes too much, more serious accidents happen and personal safety can become threatened, which is more than enough reason to get plenty of sleep. Some research shows that sleep debt might be able to be worked off if people pay attention to their sleep needs and patterns.
In a different study at the University of California, San Diego, researchers broke adult sleep patterns down into two groups. Long sleepers slept more than eight hours and short sleepers slept less than seven hours. Both of these groups reported more problems with their sleep than those who slept in a consistent range of seven to eight hours a night. Their research also showed that women tend to be long sleepers compared to men, which can result in issues around falling asleep, middle of the night internal wake-up calls, getting up earlier than normal, and feeling tired throughout the day.
Who Needs What?
The NSF developed a sleep needs spectrum according to age, but they recommend trying different hours of sleep each night to see which mornings you feel the most refreshed. (Try skipping the alcohol the night before and caffeine the next day for best results.)
Their recommendations are:
- Newborns (one to two months old): 10.5–18 hours
- Infants (three to eleven months old): 9–12 hours during the night, and thirty minute to two-hour naps one to four times a day
- Toddlers (one to three years old): 12–14 hours
