"When I die, I'll go to sleep." This appears to be a common motto among the world's achievers. Actually, I'm willing to bet that you've heard of at least one really successful somebody who takes great satisfaction in their ability to routinely surpass their goals while only getting three or four hours of sleep each night.
When life feels too hectic or exciting to even consider interrupting productive wakeful hours to catch up on some Zzzzzs, you may have said something similar yourself. Maybe you can succeed if others are getting by on little sleep. "How much sleep do I need to maintain high-achiever status without snoozing my life away?" is a question you may still have.
Finding your own sweet spot that takes into account your ideal amount of restorative sleep, your present way of life, and your ability to function on a daily basis sustainably is the key to answering this issue.
In this post, I'll go over a straightforward three-step method for figuring out how much sleep you need to attain the tantalizing but elusive trifecta of happiness, health, and high performance.
How Much Sleep Do You Need?
Step 1: Determine Your Target
Basic figures showing the amount of sleep required by age are provided by sleep health resources such as SleepFoundation.org and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Since the details differ significantly from one website to another, I've chosen to offer them as follows for simplicity's sake:
- Ages 18 to 64: seven to nine hours per night
- Ages 65+: seven to eight hours per night
At first look, these ranges can appear simple. But they can wind up feeling ambiguous when we try to incorporate them into everyday life, which is not very beneficial.
As an illustration, suppose you are an adult between the ages of 18 and 64. According to these instructions, you should be sleeping between 9 and 11 p.m. every night because your situation requires you to get out of bed by 6 a.m. every day. On paper, a two-hour difference might not seem like much, but when applying this rule to create a sleep schedule, there is actually a lot of flexibility for individual customization.
There are some crucial issues to think about regarding your present bedtime when you're ready to start being more intentional and strategic with your sleep habits. Do you make decisions based on preconceived ideas about when you should go to bed? Do you base your decision on the number of chores you might be able to finish in those two hours? Do you adopt a passive strategy and simply continue working on your tasks until you begin to nod asleep every night?
Next, consider how effective your current routine—or lack thereof—has been for you. The first step toward successful transformation is to address this. You can further determine how many hours of sleep you should be getting by following these steps.
Step 2: Narrow Down Your Needs
The wide age ranges stated in these sleep advice charts further add to their uncertainty.
I am more aware of my sleep needs today than I was when I was younger, like many others. Making rent, going out with friends, and trying to find my place and purpose in an adult world that I felt unprepared to handle were the main activities of my twenties. As a forty-something, my life consists of educating a teen and tween, developing my talents and abilities to further my job, fortifying the ties of a two-decade relationship with my partner, and mastering the advanced adulting skills I once believed were reserved for "old people."
The demands and obligations of my current lifestyle necessitate even more deliberate rest and recuperation in order for me to flourish in everything I do, even if I most likely did require more sleep than I was receiving in my early adulthood. You may discover that the same is true for you if you pause to think about it.
Think on every aspect of your present stage of life. Do you still have kids living with you? Are they more independent or younger (and hence very demanding of your time and energy)?
Perhaps you are now caring for your grandchildren after your own children have grown up. You might not even have children. You are caring for your elderly parents, or you are among the almost 10% of multigenerational caregivers in America who must simultaneously look for your parents and your children. It's interesting to note that people in this demographic are known to sleep for nearly 30 minutes less every night than people in their age group.
Your remaining time is likely divided between pursuing professional and personal development, securing your family's future, and strengthening the bonds with those who are most important to you.
It could be tempting to view all of these responsibilities as a good excuse to choose to get less sleep. After all, our busiest seasons frequently prevent us from finding time in our schedules for relaxation, don't they? I ask you to consider this from a different perspective. Your physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual health are all enhanced when you get enough restful sleep.
However, you are not solely accountable for that. Maintaining the everyday energy, performance, and patience needed to be your best self in all area of your life depends critically on your well-being. It is simpler to decide which end of the sleep spectrum to target when you honestly evaluate the effects of not getting enough sleep.
Step 3: Expose Sneaky Sleep Deprivation Symptoms
As you can see, guidelines are not necessarily the strict, uniform regulations that we may think or anticipate. Rather, it may be helpful to see them as benchmarks that help you establish your own baseline.
How can you further refine in light of this? A strong self-awareness practice is crucial in this situation. Being able to recognize your body's and brain's signals is essential to knowing how much sleep you need. These can be very subtle at times. Additionally, they may appear to have nothing to do with sleep, so mastering them requires dedication and a little patient investigation.
Here are some signs that your current sleep regimen is not aligned with your needs:
- – Cravings for caffeine and/or carb-heavy foods (bread, cake, cookies, crackers, potatoes)
- – Increased appetite
- – Feeling cranky (either for no apparent reason, or more than seems rational)
- – Grogginess or feeling unrested upon waking
- – Forgetfulness or distractibility
- – Decreased inspiration or motivation
- – Lowered endurance during workouts or routine tasks
- – Daytime drowsiness
It's obvious that your sleep demands aren't being satisfied if you experience any of these symptoms. It's time to practice sticking to your chosen bedtime and making any necessary adjustments after completing the first two steps toward determining your ideal sleep duration.
Maintaining a sleep diary can assist you in gaining understanding of any lingering symptoms. Positively, it might also draw attention to advancements that are just beginning. In any case, tracking is a crucial tool for determining how much sleep you need.
Bottom Line
An estimated 50 to 70 million Americans of various ages and socioeconomic backgrounds suffer from sleep-related issues. These problems can vary from serious illnesses like sleep apnea and chronic insomnia to little symptoms that we often take for granted as we get older. These annoyances, no matter how minor or serious, can have a detrimental effect on our general quality of life, productivity, accomplishment, happiness, and attitude.
We can prevent ourselves from falling victim to the dangers of sleep deprivation by tailoring the professional recommendations to our own particular requirements.
Do you want to discover one more benefit of planning our ideal sleep schedules in advance? Getting enough good sleep helps us live longer. Thus, we can be confident that we are contributing to delaying that undesirable state of perpetual slumber for as long as possible by letting go of the mistaken ideal of delaying sleep till after death.
Reference
| [1] | ^ | Sleep Foundation: How Much Sleep Do We Really Need? |
| [2] | ^ | Pew Research: More Than One in Ten US Parents Are Also Caring for an Adult |
| [3] | ^ | NCBI: Sleep Quality and Spiritual Wellbeing in Hemodialysis Patients |
| [4] | ^ | SleepHealth.org: The State of Sleep Health in America |
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