Understanding what constitutes a good night's sleep can be broken down into three critical elements: duration, continuity, and depth.
1. Duration: Adults typically need 7-9 hours of sleep per night to function optimally. Ensuring you schedule enough time for sleep is crucial for your overall health.
Required sleep according to life stage:
- Older Adults - 7-8 hours
- Young Adults - 7-9 hours
- Teenagers - 8-10 hours
- School-aged children - 9-11 hours
- Preschoolers - 10-13 hours
- Toddlers - 11-14 hours
- Infants - 12-15 hours
- Newborns - 14-17 hours
2. Continuity: Your sleep needs to be long and uninterrupted, even if you are still getting your required hours of sleep a night if you are waking up multiple times this can affect the overall quality of your sleep.
There are four stages of sleep that humans go through each night:
- Stage 1 – A light sleep that only lasts a few minutes and is a transition period between wakefulness and sleep. Our body and brain start slowing down.
- Stage 2 – Occurs when the body starts transitioning from a light sleep to a deeper sleep. Our bodily functions continue to slow down, muscles relax, eye movement stops and our body temperature reduces. On top of this brain waves slow down further.
- Deep Sleep – Our heart rate and breathing rate are at their lowest during this part of the sleep cycle. The muscles and eyes are also very relaxed, and the brain waves become even slower.
- REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep – Occurs roughly 90 minutes after falling asleep, this is closer to a state of wakefulness with our breathing and heart rate increasing as well as our eyes start to move rapidly side to side behind our eyelids, this is when most of our dreams occur.
3. Depth: The two latest stages of sleep are known collectively as "slow wave sleep". Slow wave sleep is attributed to play a pivotal role in brain restoration and recovery as well as memory consolidation, whilst also producing human growth hormone which repairs tissues and cells in our bodies. Ensuring your sleep environment supports deep, uninterrupted sleep is key.
Improving these three aspects of your sleep will enhance your health, cognitive function, and general well-being. Consider setting a routine that supports these elements and addresses any disruptions you encounter.
