Are You Aware Of Exactly How Much Sleep You Should Be Enjoying Each Night? - By: Don Saunders

Exactly how much sleep you should be getting each night will depend very much on your age and your state of health. But sleep is not only a question of the time which you spend sleeping, but is also a question of the quality of the sleep which you get. Accordingly, if you are enjoying the right amount of sleep and are still getting up in the morning feeling tired and going through the day unable to concentrate fully, and perhaps being a little bad-tempered, then there is a very good chance that you are not enjoying sufficient deep sleep and may well be suffering from insomnia.

In terms of age, newborn babies clearly need the greatest amount of sleep and will often sleep in cycles of about four hours, waking when it is time to eat. On average, a newborn baby requires between fourteen and sixteen hours sleep each day.

Once babies reach the age of approximately four to six months they should be sleeping through the night and will begin to spend longer periods awake during the day when they will start to take a greater interest in what is going on around them and begin to play. At this time their requirementneed for sleep will drop somewhat, but they will still require anywhere from about ten to fourteen hours sleep each day.

To most people's surprise older children and even teenage children should also be enjoying the same amount of sleep and ten hours sleep each day for children is a good figure to aim for.

For some years it has been said that children, and especially teenagers, who sleep for more than about eight hours a day are just lazy, but this is in fact not true. Taking into consideration the level of activity which most children are involved in each day, both in their free time as well as at school, and that their bodies are growing and changing rapidly, there is a very real need for more than the traditional eight hours sleep if they are to enjoy the best possible conditions for their development.

For most adults in the region of eight to eight and a half hours sleep a night is just about right and this should be sufficient to allow the body to recharge its batteries and to have you up and about, alert and refreshed each morning.

Another myth is that the older we are the more sleep we need. Once again this is not true, unless there are also accompanying health problems, in which case more sleep might be needed. A tendency for older individuals to take a nap during the day is generally taken to be a signal that they require more sleep but in fact a daytime nap is invariably offset by less sleep at night.

One exception in the case of adults is that of pregnant women, who should normally increase their sleep during pregnancy by some two or three hours.

The test of whether or not you are enjoying sufficient sleep is a fairly simple one and consists of merely deciding whether or not you feel refreshed when you get up in the morning and are able to function normally and focus your attention on the tasks at hand during the day. If you find yourself unable to focus or doze off during the day then it is likely that you are not enjoying sufficient sleep.

Missing out on a few hours of sleep now and again will not do you any harm but if you find that you are regularly missing out on sleep then there could be serious consequences. Everybody suffers from the occasional insomnia, but insomnia which carries on for more than about a month or six weeks can have a significant affect on both you quality of life and health.

About the Author

Help-Me-To-Sleep.com looks at various sleep disorders and covers everything from finding a natural cure for insomnia to the use of daily meditation

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