NSF defines optimal sleep durations by age
WASHINGTON — The National Sleep Foundation, along with a multidisciplinary expert panel, recently issued its new recommendations for appropriate sleep durations. The report recommends wider appropriate sleep ranges for most age groups. The results are published in Sleep Health: The Official Journal of the National Sleep Foundation.
The National Sleep Foundation convened experts from sleep, anatomy and physiology, as well as pediatrics, neurology, gerontology and gynecology, to reach a consensus from the broadest range of scientific disciplines. The panel revised the recommended sleep ranges for all age groups. A summary of the new recommendations includes:
Newborns (0-to-3 months): Sleep range narrowed to 14-to-17 hours each day (previously it was 12-to-18);
Infants (4-to-11 months): Sleep range widened two hours to 12-to-15 hours (previously it was 14-to-15);
Toddlers (1-to-2 years): Sleep range widened by one hour to 11-to-14 hours (previously it was 12-to-14);
Preschoolers (3-to-5 years): Sleep range widened by one hour to 10-to-13 hours (previously it was 11-to-13);
School-age children (6-to-13 years): Sleep range widened by one hour to 9-to-11 hours (previously it was 10-to-11);
Teenagers (14-to-17 years): Sleep range widened by one hour to 8-to-10 hours (previously it was 8.5-to-9.5);
Younger adults (18-to-25 years): Sleep range is 7-to-9 hours (new age category);
Adults (26-to-64 years): Sleep range did not change and remains 7-to-9 hours; and
Older adults (65+ years): Sleep range is 7-to-8 hours (new age category).
“This is the first time that any professional organization has developed age-specific recommended sleep durations based on a rigorous, systematic review of the world scientific literature relating sleep duration to health, performance and safety,” stated Charles Czeisler, chairman of the board of the National Sleep Foundation, chief of sleep and circadian disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. “The National Sleep Foundation is providing these scientifically grounded guidelines on the amount of sleep we need each night to improve the sleep health of the millions of individuals and parents who rely on us for this information.”
A new range, “may be appropriate,” has been added to acknowledge the individual variability in appropriate sleep durations. The recommendations now define times as either (a) recommended; (b) may be appropriate for some individuals; or (c) not recommended.
“The National Sleep Foundation Sleep Duration Recommendations will help individuals make sleep schedules that are within a healthy range. They also serve as a useful starting point for individuals to discuss their sleep with their health care providers,” said David Cloud, CEO of the National Sleep Foundation.
The recommendations are the result of multiple rounds of consensus voting after a comprehensive review of published scientific studies on sleep and health.
“The NSF has committed to regularly reviewing and providing scientifically rigorous recommendations,” said Max Hirshkowitz, chair of the National Sleep Foundation Scientific Advisory Council. “The public can be confident that these recommendations represent the best guidance for sleep duration and health.”