Health Preventive Health Sleep This Is How Much Sleep You Need Every Single Night, According to Experts To stay happy and healthy at any age, you need as much sleep as they say. By Maggie Seaver Maggie Seaver Maggie Seaver is the digital health and wellness editor at Real Simple, with seven years of experience writing lifestyle and wellness content. She spends her days writing and editing stories about sleep, mental health, fitness, preventive health, nutrition, personal development, relationships, healthy habits, and beyond. She loves demystifying complicated health topics, debunking wellness fads, and sharing practical, science-backed solutions for healthy living. Real Simple's Editorial Guidelines Updated on April 18, 2023 Medically reviewed by Samina Ahmed Jauregui, PsyD Medically reviewed by Samina Ahmed Jauregui, PsyD Samina Ahmed Jauregui is a specialty trained sleep psychologist with expertise in non-pharmaceutical, behavioral treatment of sleep disorders. Other areas of mental health expertise include chronic illness management, pain management, and mood and anxiety difficulties that impact physical health and wellness. Dr. Ahmed has five years of experience in the field of sleep psychology. Learn More Fact checked by Haley Mades Fact checked by Haley Mades Haley is a Wisconsin-based creative freelancer and recent graduate. She has worked as an editor, fact checker, and copywriter for various digital and print publications. Her most recent position was in academic publishing as a publicity and marketing assistant for the University of Wisconsin Press Our Fact-Checking Process Share Tweet Pin Email Sleep is more than a sweet escape or rare reward to enjoy; it's vital to nearly every facet of overall health. While it remains a mysterious phenomenon, we do know sufficient sleep is essential for letting the brain and body reset and recharge. While you sleep, you store and wipe information, encode memories, regenerate cells, and regulate complex systems (like your metabolism and immune system). Needless to say, you need sleep—and probably more of it. This allows your brain and body to get the REM sleep and deep sleep you need (multiple cycles of both types are essential for adequate nightly slumber). 6 Nightly Techniques to Help You Fall Asleep Fast, According to Sleep Experts To experience optimal benefits, you need the right amount of sleep—every night. How much sleep depends on individual factors, including your age, health, and even DNA. The National Sleep Foundation provides recommended sleep duration guidelines by age, based on scientific research conducted over two years by 18 different sleep experts. Their verdict: Adults between 18 and 64 years old should get seven to nine hours of sleep every night. Newborns and infants need the most sleep to optimize postnatal development: 14 to 17 hours, and 12 to 16 hours; respectively. There's also scientific validation for teenagers' notoriously heavy sleeping habits: 14-to-17-year-olds need a solid eight to 10 hours of sleep per 24 hours. (So let them sleep!) Sleep Is Key, But Are You Getting Too Much? Here's What to Know About Oversleeping Starting around age 65, older adults only require seven to eight hours, so not quite as much as they may need in early and middle adulthood. Some adults find seven hours to be a perfectly sufficient amount of sleep, while others need closer to nine (maybe even 10) hours to feel fully rested. And remember, while some people may pride themselves on being able to function on five or six hours of sleep, the truth is, they're likely severely sleep-deprived without realizing it. The effects of insufficient sleep can be immediate, but can also accumulate gradually and manifest in myriad health problems. If you find yourself tossing and turning at night, you might need to evaluate your sleep hygiene and make adjustments, such as limiting your use of electronics before bed or investing in high-quality bed linens, like cooling pillows, to help keep you comfortable. Our Sleep Needs Change a Lot as We Age—Here's How to Get Proper Sleep in Your 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s If you're getting less than seven hours of sleep a night, that could be impacting your cognitive abilities. Being awake for 17 hours is similar to having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05 percent, which is the level some countries use for drunk driving violations. Another sleep study found that losing just 16 minutes of sleep can be detrimental to alertness and concentration—so imagine what regularly losing hours of sleep could do. Here's a full breakdown of how much sleep you need at every age, straight from the National Sleep Foundation's published research. When in doubt, adults should aim for seven to nine hours of shut-eye to stay as happy and healthy as possible. But speak to your doctor or a sleep specialist if you're worried about chronic sleep deprivation or other sleep disorders keeping you from getting the rest you need and deserve. Newborns (0 to 3 months): 14 to 17 hours each dayInfants (4 to 11 months): 12 to 15 hoursToddlers (1 to 2 years): 11 to 14 hoursPreschoolers (3 to 5): 10 to 13 hoursSchool-age children (6 to 13): 9 to 11 hoursTeenagers (14 to 17): 8 to 10 hoursYounger adults (18 to 25): 7 to 9 hoursAdults (26 to 64): 7 to 9 hoursOlder adults (65 and older): 7 to 8 hours 11 Healthy Habits That Can Actually Help You Sleep Better Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit Sources Real Simple is committed to using high-quality, reputable sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts in our articles. Read our editorial guidelines to learn more about how we fact check our content for accuracy. Hirshkowitz M, Whiton K, Albert SM, et al. National Sleep Foundation's sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health. 2015;1(1):40-43. doi:10.1016/j.sleh.2014.12.010 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Risks from not getting enough sleep: impaired performance. Lee S, Buxton O, Ross A, Almeida D. Bidirectional associations of sleep with cognitive interference in employees' work days. Sleep Health. 2019;5(3):298-308. doi:10.1016/j.sleh.2019.01.007