Are You Aware Of Exactly How Much Sleep You Should Be Enjoying Each Night?

You might think that this should be an easy question, but have you ever considered whether you are getting enough sleep each night?

Just how much sleep you need every night will very much depend on your age and your state of health. But sleep is not only about the time spent sleeping, but is also very much a question of the quality of that sleep. Accordingly, if you are enjoying the correct amount of sleep and are waking up in the morning feeling tired and going through your day unable to fully concentrate, and perhaps being a bit touchy, then there is a very good chance that you are not enjoying sufficient deep sleep and may well be suffering from insomnia.

When it comes to age, newborn babies obviously need the greatest amount of sleep and will frequently sleep in cycles of about four hours, waking when it is time to be fed and changed. On average, a newborn baby requires in the region of fourteen to sixteen hours sleep every day.

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

To most people's surprise older children and even teenagers 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 time it has been believed that children, and particularly teenagers, who sleep for more than about eight hours every day are just lazy, but this is in fact far from true. Bearing in mind the amount of activity which most children are involved in every day, both in their spare time as well as at school, and the fact that their bodies are growing and changing rapidly, there is a very real need for more than the traditional eight hours of sleep if they are to enjoy the best possible conditions for development.

For most adults in the region of eight to eight and a half hours of sleep a night is about right and this should be enough to permit 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. This again is not true, unless there are also accompanying health problems, in which case additional sleep could be needed. A tendency for older individuals to nap during the day is frequently taken as a sign that they need more sleep but in reality a daytime nap is almost always offset by sleeping less at night.

An exception to the rule is that of pregnant women, who should usually increase their sleep during this time by approximately two or three hours.

The test of whether or not you are enjoying sufficient sleep is a fairly simple one and consists of merely judging whether or not you feel refreshed when you get out of bed in the morning and are able to function normally and focus on the tasks at hand during the day. If you find yourself unable to concentrate or doze off during the day then you are probably not enjoying sufficient sleep.

Missing out on the odd few hours of sleep here and there will not do you any harm but if you find that you are regularly missing out on sleep then there could be serious consequences. everyone suffers from insomnia occasionally, but insomnia which continues for more than about a month or six weeks can have a significant affect on your health and general quality of life.

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