 |
How much sleep do I need?
This depends mainly on how old we are.
- Babies sleep for about 17 hours each day.
- Older children only need 9 or 10 hours a night.
- Most adults need around 7-8 hours sleep each night.
- Older
people need the same amount of sleep, but will often only have one
period of deep sleep during the night, usually in the first 3 or 4
hours, after which they wake more easily. We also tend to dream less as
we get older.
There are also differences between people of the same age.
Most
of us need 7-8 hours a night, but some (a few) people can get by with
only 3 hours a night. It's not helpful to regularly sleep more than 7-8
hours each night.
The short periods of being awake feel much
longer than they really are. So it's easy to feel that we are not
sleeping as much as we actually are.
|
|
