An average human spends one-third of his/her life sleeping. Sleep is an important component of your well-being; a lack of sleep can have adverse effects on your health eventually. However, too much sleep is also not good.

So, how do you find out the optimal duration of sleep required for your body to function smoothly? Experts say that there isn’t a standard which can be applied to all, since sleep duration depends on various factors such as age, health, activity, genetics, diet, etc., and every person is different. The National Sleep Foundation, however, has laid some guidelines according to age, which can be used as a reference.

The most sleep in a day is clocked by new-borns, with 14-17 hours of sleep in a day. This is to support their rapid development. They are followed by infants who are asleep for 12-15 hours. Infants also go through something called ‘four-month regression’, a phase during which their sleep decreases and they stay awake for longer.

Sleep required goes on decreasing from here and by school-going age, a child normally puts in 9-11 hours of sleep daily. For teenagers, their sleep is as irregular as their schedule with late night activities being a common occurrence. A teen is likely to put in 8-10 hours of sleep each day.

Adults

Adulthood is divided into two categories: Younger adults (18-25 years) and adults (26-64 years). For both, 7-9 hours of sleep is required to remain alert and active during the day.

Older adults

A person above 65 years of age falls in this bracket. Older adults require a minimum sleep duration of 5 hours daily, but unfortunately, most never sleep for that long. The reason might be the effect ageing has on the production and secretion of melatonin, a hormone which facilitates sleep.

Now that you know how much sleep is required at what age, plan your hours wisely.