As a follow up to last week’s post on sleep hygiene, it’s also worth considering how many hours of sleep your body typically needs. This information can help you set ideal bedtimes and realistic plans on when to get up.

The National Sleep Foundation recently came out with some general recommendations based on age groups. Find a summary here and the detailed article here. As you can see from the summary, requirements will vary from person to person. It will also likely vary depending on the exertion level from your day’s activities and your quality of rest over the past several days. Sleep requirements also appear to decrease as you age. Teenagers can easily sleep ten hours while patients in their 70s or above frequently report less than seven hours of sleep.

The range of recommended durations can be wide even in the same age bracket. You can however estimate your own personal needs - it’s easy to do on your own and requires no special equipment. The steps that I personally recommend are as follows:

Find a ~2 week block of time when you have good control of your bedtime and when you can wake up. This is probably the hardest part.
Set an arbitrary bedtime for that 2 week block.
Let your body wake up when it chooses to. No alarms.
Record when you wake up over the 2 weeks.
Assuming no major changes in your life over that 2 week span, the average number of hours you sleep in the last few days of your 2 week block is probably a rough estimate of your requirements.

Hopefully the combination of better sleep hygiene and an understanding of how much sleep you actually need forms a good foundation for getting a decent night’s rest. As always, if you have more questions, feel free to talk to your Magenta Health family doctor.

Complaints about poor sleep and insomnia come up multiple times a day. This isn’t surprising as the quality and duration of sleep is associated with a wide variety of ailments. Obstructive sleep apnea, depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and cardiovascular disease are just some of the examples.

The concept of “Sleep Hygiene” is therefore something that I talk a lot about. To me, good sleep hygiene is a set of habits that can contribute to better sleep quality and sleep initiation. In my experience, not all sleep problems can be solved by good sleep hygiene, but it is an important starting point.

So if you’re having sleep issues, try these changes:

No caffeine after 12:00 PM - Depending on one’s metabolism, caffeine can stick around the bloodstream for a long time. Beware of popular energy drinks!
Avoid stimulants (ex. soft drinks) and alcohol ~4 hours before bedtime
Although regular exercise seems to promote better sleep, avoid exercising 4-5 hours before bedtime.
Have a regular bedtime.
No bright lights (laptops, tablets, phones, TV etc.) around 1 hour before bedtime. Go old school, read text from a physical book.
No flashing LED lights in your room. Make your room as dark as possible. Lights from electronic devices and flashing electronic gizmos seem to suppress melatonin, a sleep promoting hormone.

As always, if you have more questions, feel free to talk to your Magenta Health family doctor. Finally, click here to read a lot more about sleep.