How Many Hours Of Sleep Do We Need Per Night?
We all know that we need a certain amount of sleep to stay functional during the day, but how many of hours of sleep do we need a nightly basis?…
Tired exhausted secretary employee business woman in shirt sitting work sleep laid her head down on office desk with pc laptop show thumb up gesture, isolated on blue color background wall in studio
We all know that we need a certain amount of sleep to stay functional during the day, but how many of hours of sleep do we need a nightly basis? Some people think that sleep is an option and get whatever they can before starting another hectic day.
With so much stress and anxiety in the modern world, getting restful sleep can be a challenge. When you finally get to bed and find yourself tossing and turning for a long time waiting to fall asleep, that means you're probably not enough.
There are people that claim that they require very little sleep to function well. I recall hearing a network tv morning show host claiming that he only need 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night. That seems crazy and probably very unlikely because he was used to the crazy hours and functioning at lower level than are optimum.
Sleep scientists know that if we don't get the minimum amount of sleep per night it will be very detrimental to our over all health. That includes the possibility of living a shorter life. Which is very scary and should be (pardon the pun) a wake up call for everybody.
Here's how many hours of sleep we need per night
Oregon Health & Science University researchers found sleeping fewer than seven hours nightly correlates with reduced life expectancy across all 3,000-plus U.S. counties studied from 2019 to 2025. The pattern held regardless of income levels, healthcare access, or urban versus rural locations.
Sleep insufficiency ranked as the second-strongest predictor of shortened lifespans after smoking, surpassing physical inactivity and diabetes. “I didn’t expect it to be so strongly correlated to life expectancy,” said senior author Andrew McHill, Ph.D. “People really should strive to get seven to nine hours of sleep if at all possible.”
If that sounds daunting to you, then you should consider ways of adjusting your life around getting at least 7 hours of sleep per night. That might mean being honest with yourself and determining if you have any health related issues that could be limiting your sleep, or are there stressors that are the culprit. Either way, it's worth figuring it out for a longer happy life.
