Sleep Quality vs Quantity - What’s More Important?
Have you ever gone to bed early & slept in only to find yourself more tired than a night when you only got 5 hours of shuteye? The great debate…does the length of your sleep matter more or does the quality of your sleep reign supreme? Science tells us that while getting an adequate amount of sleep nightly is crucial to maintain critical functions, the quality may be even more important.
Quantity - How MUCH sleep should you be getting on average per night?
Based on guidelines from Sleep.Org, below are the suggested amounts of sleep humans should be getting at different stages of life. Of course these are averages and every person and biochemistry is unique.
Newborns (0-3 Months): 12-16 hours (including naps) per 24 hours
Infants (4-12 Months): 12-16 hours (including naps) per 24 hours
Toddlers (1-2 Years): 11-14 hours (including naps) per 24 hours
Preschoolers (3-5 Years): 10-13 hours (including naps) per 24 hours
School-Age Children (6-12 Years): 9-12 hours per 24 hours
Teenagers (13-18 Years): 8-10 hours per 24 hours
Adults (18-60 Years): 7-9 hours per night
Adults (61-64 Years): 7-9 hours per night
Adults (65+ Years): 7-8 hours per night
Quality - How GOOD is the sleep you are achieving every night?
This is when sleep hygiene comes into play or the routines and habits that led to more restful, restorative and recovery-focused nights of sleep. Our bodies and minds do an incredible amount of work while we’re sleeping so the better we can assist our bodies, the better they can perform these automatic functions. These functions then lead to feeling and performing better during our waking hours. The wake/rest cycle is an interesting one as from the moment we open our eyes, we can be optimizing our day to provide a more restorative sleep to end the day.
Poor sleep can have serious health consequences both in the short term and the long term. It may increase your risk of developing concerns such as:
Cognitive, memory, and performance deficits
Increased stress and irritability
Depression and anxiety
Hypertension, high cholesterol, heart disease, and stroke
Weight gain and obesity
Immune system issues
Diabetes and insulin resistance
The more you can improve your sleep quality, the more likely you are to wake up feeling more refreshed, happy and energized to conquer your day.
The Final Verdict?
Our pick is…drumroll please…..
Quality
while both are extremely important to maintaining an optimized lifestyle, we’d take 6 hours of high quality deep rest than 8 hours of interrupted, light sleep any day.
