How much sleep is enough?

I chose this topic because I enjoy sleeping...a lot. And I see that others can do well with just few hours on their back...so a question popped up: how much sleep is it needed for our body?

The following table will show us the necessary number of hours to be slept in order to function well the next day.

Age and condition	Average amount of sleep per day
Newborn	up to 18 hours
1–12 months	14–18 hours
1–3 years	12–15 hours
3–5 years	11–13 hours
5–12 years	9–11 hours
Adolescents	9–10 hours
Adults, including elderly	7–8 (+) hours
Pregnant women	8 (+) hours

It is said that less than 7 hours and more than 11 hours is not good for our health:

Researchers from the University of Warwick and University College London have found that lack of sleep can more than double the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, but that too much sleep can also double the risk of death. Professor Francesco Cappuccio said, "Short sleep has been shown to be a risk factor for weight gain, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes, sometimes leading to mortality; but in contrast to the short sleep-mortality association, it appears that no potential mechanisms by which long sleep could be associated with increased mortality have yet been investigated. Some candidate causes for this include depression, low socioeconomic status, and cancer-related fatigue. …In terms of prevention, our findings indicate that consistently sleeping around seven hours per night is optimal for health, and a sustained reduction may predispose to ill health." From Wikipedia.

I think that we should definitely sleep around 8 or 9 hours per night in order for our body to restore its energy levels.

A good night's sleep is often the best way to help you cope with stress, solve problems, or recover from illness. Sleep is prompted by natural cycles of activity in the brain and consists of two basic states: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM (NREM) sleep, which consists of 4 stages.

To read more about the stages of sleeping click here: http://www.revolutionhealth.com/conditions/sleep/sleep-basics/what-happens/index

But not only is the quantity of hours important but also the quality of it. More information about our sleeping you can see in this video: http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/271.3/popup/index.php?cl=2108703&t=em&sid=0

After reading this stuff and seeing the importance of sleeping I’ll think twice when I want to say no to sleep and yes to studying or working. I think that life and health are more important than anything..be that work. So we should leave our problems at our bedroom‘s door and have a good and long enough sleep.