“I’ll rest until I’m dead.” This appears to be a popular saying for the ambitious people of the world. In actual fact I’d bet that you’ve heard of at least one extremely successful person who takes pride in their ability to consistently beat their targets with only 3 or 4 hours sleep each the night.
Perhaps you’ve said something similar to this during times when your life is chaotic or thrilling to think about taking a break from productive time to catch some Zzzzs. If you’re seeing others succeed by sleeping in a solitary state, maybe you are able to also. However, you’ll be left wondering, “how much sleep do I need to keep my high-achieving standing without sleeping away?”
The most important aspect to answer that question is determine your personal sweet spot which factors into your ideal restorative sleep duration, your current lifestyle and a sustainable level of daily functioning.
Here, I’ll outline an easy 3-step method to determine and understand the amount of sleep you require to attain the impossible trifecta of performance well-being, happiness, and overall health.
How Do You Get Sleep?
Step 1: Determine Your Target
Resources for sleep health, like those from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and SleepFoundation.org Lay out the simple tables on how much you should sleep and the minimum recommended hours for each age group.
The information can vary little from one site to the next to site, and for ease of use I’ve decided to present it in the following manner:
- Ages 18-64 Seven to nine to nine hours nightly
- For those 65 or older: 7 or eight hours each night
The ranges might appear straightforward at first. But when we try to incorporate them into our daily situations, they could become ambiguous and uninspiring, which is not useful.
As an example, let’s say you’re an adult in the 18-64 age range. Your lifestyle demands that you leave the bed at 6 am every morning. According to these guidelines it is recommended that you fall asleep between 9 until 11 pm each night. A two-hour difference may appear to be insignificant when you think about it, however if we use this method to determine a sleeping schedule there is actually quite a little space for personal adjustment.
If you’re ready to be more thoughtful and deliberate about your routines of sleep There are some crucial questions to ask about the time you are currently sleeping. Do you make your decision based on an idea of what your ideal bedtime be? Do you make your decision based on the number of tasks you might be able to complete in the two hours? Do you choose to take a slack approach and simply work into tasks until you fall asleep off every evening?
Then, consider what your current routine (or absence of it) has been serving you. This is the first step towards making a change that is effective. These steps will assist you determine your ideal sleeping hours.
Step 2: Simplify Your Needs
To add to the confusion of these charts of sleep recommendations is the wide age ranges that are that are listed.
Like many are, I am more attuned with my sleeping needs today as compared to when my younger years. When I was in my 20s, life was all about paying rent, hanging out in with my friends and trying to find my place and what I wanted to do in a world I was unable to navigate. In my 40s, I am a bit more settled my life is focused on homeschooling a teenager and tween, enhancing my skills and talents to advance my career as well as strengthening the bonds that have formed over a long period of time relationship with my spouse, and learning to master the skills of an adult that I thought were only for “old individuals.”
While I may have needed more rest than I did as a young adult The demands and obligations of my current life demands even more rest and recovery in order to be successful in everything I do. If you take time to reflect, you may realize that the same is true for you.
Take a look at all the factors you are currently experiencing in your phase of your life. Do you have children living at your home? Are they older (and thus, extremely needing of you time and effort) or more independent?
Maybe your children have grown up and you’re now responsible for taking care of your grandchildren. Or maybe you don’t have any children all the time. You’re the caretaker of the elderly parents of yours or perhaps you’re one of the over 10% of multigenerational caregiving adults in America that are responsible for taking care of both your children and parents. Incredibly, this segment in the community is reported to sleep for a quarter of an hour less per night than other individuals within the same age range.
The rest of your time is likely to be a blur of professional and personal development endeavors making sure you have an environment of security for your family’s long-term future, and enhancing those relationships that matter the most to you.
It’s tempting to consider all of these tasks as a legitimate justification to get more sleep. It is the busiest times of the year that make it difficult to find enough time in our schedules to sleep, aren’t we? I encourage you to consider this from a different point of view. Sleeping in a restorative way is beneficial to your mental, physical emotional, as well as spiritual wellbeing.
But you’re not the only one accountable for this. Your health is essential in sustaining the performance, energy and perseverance necessary to be your best self in all aspects in your daily life. When you take into consideration the effects of not getting enough sleep and examine the situation objectively it is much simpler to decide which part of the range you should strive for.
Step 3: Expose Sneaky Sleep Deprivation Symptoms
As you will see, guidelines aren’t always the strict cookie-cutter guidelines that we may think or believe to see them as. Instead, it’s useful to consider them as guidelines that aid in creating your personal benchmark.
In this light, what do you improve your performance? It is here that a consistent habit of self-awareness can make an enormous difference. Being aware of the amount of sleep you require requires paying attention to your body and brain signals. These can be very insignificant. They are also not related to sleep, which is why it is a matter of determination and perseverance to understand.
Here are a few indicators that your current sleeping routine isn’t in line to your needs
- Crying for caffeine or carb-heavy food items (bread cake, cakes, cookies crackers and potatoes)
- An increase in appetite
- Are you feeling cranky? (either without any apparent reason, or for something that is logical)
- Feeling unrested or groggy upon awakening
- Inattention or forgetfulness
- Inspiration or motivation are less enthralled.
- Insufficiency during exercise or tasks that are routine
- Daytime drowsiness
If you are experiencing any of these symptoms this is a clear indicator that your sleep requirements aren’t being fulfilled. After taking the initial two steps towards achieving the ideal amount of sleep, it’s now time to test your determination of time for bed and adjust if necessary.
Writing down your sleep habits can assist you in gaining clarity about any symptoms that persist. In a positive way it may also highlight changes that are beginning to take shape. Whatever the case, tracking is a crucial tool to setting your ideal level of sleeping.
Bottom Line
Sleep-related disorders are affecting 50 to 70 million Americans across all ages and socioeconomic class. These problems could range from serious health issues, such as sleep apnea, chronic insomnia and even and benign conditions which we accept as a normal aspect of life as we get older. No matter how severe or insignificant the problem, it can affect our productivity or mood, joy achievement, interpersonal abilities and the overall quality of our lives.
By adjusting the guidelines of professionals according to our specific needs, we will be sure we aren’t prone to the risks of sleeping less as we require.
Do you want to know a second benefit to actively forming our ideal sleep schedules? Adequate quality sleep supports our longevity. So, by letting go of the false notion of putting off sleeping until we end our lives, we can be at ease knowing that we’re assisting in avoiding that unwelcome condition of endless rest until the longest time is possible.
