The National Sleep Foundation has released new recommendations for sleep times. How much sleep you need depends on your age. Find out how much you need!
To create the new guidelines, the National Sleep Foundation gathered a panel of experts in the science of sleep as well as anatomy and physiology, pediatrics, neurology, gerontology and gynecology. The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Sleep Health: The Official Journal of the National Sleep Foundation.
Sleep deprivation comes with a slew of health concerns. Living with sleep debt can cause anxiety, depression, and even increase your risks for breast cancer and heart disease. Getting too much sleep may be just as bad as getting too little, however. Sleeping more than 10 hours a night has increased risk of obesity, stroke, diabetes, and poor mental health.
When it comes to kids, sleep ranges are a whole different story. Those growing bodies and developing brains need a lot more rest than we do. You’ll see that newborns need around twice as much sleep as adults, and that amount tapers as they get older.
The changes to sleep recommendations focused on children and teens, and the panel added two new age categories based on findings about sleep needs: Younger Adults and Older Adults. They narrowed and widened the sleep ranges for newborns, infants, toddlers, preschoolers, school age children, and teenagers. The only sleep range that didn’t change was for adults ages 26-64. Here the new recommendations:
Age Sleep Recommendation
Newborns 0-3 mo. 14-17 hrs
Infants 4-11 mo. 12-15 hrs
Toddlers 1-2 yrs. 11-14 hrs
Preschoolers 3-5 yrs. 10-13 hrs
School Age Kids 6-13 yrs. 9-11 hrs
Teenagers 14-17 yrs. 8-10 hrs
Younger Adults 18-25 yrs. 7-9 hrs
Adults 26-64 yrs. 7-9 hrs
Older Adults 65+ yrs. 7-8 hrs
Source: Becky Striepe, Care2.com
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