MIAMI.- While experts recommend getting 8 hours of sleep a night, quality sleep and lack of interruptions may be more important for some people, researchers have revealed.
Sleeping for this period of hours has become a rule within the decalogue of habits for a healthier life.
However, this could be difficult to achieve due to the modern pace of life, which in many cases requires nocturnal activities that impair sleep or due to tendencies rooted in each person’s daily life. In most cases, not meeting this goal generates concern when, according to what studies suggest, efforts should be made to address the quality of sleep.
According to the National Institute of Health (NIH) of the United States, the most recommended thing for an adult is to sleep seven to nine hours per night: “Adults who sleep less than seven hours per night may have more health problems than those who sleep seven hours or more per night,” they explain. Meanwhile, they establish that sleeping more than nine hours a night “is not necessarily harmful and may be useful for young adults, people recovering from lack of sleep, and sick people.”
Sleep quality
However, the quality of sleep is more important than counting the hours of rest, said Reena Mehra, director of sleep disorders research at the Cleveland Clinic.
The specialist recognized that consciously focusing on trying to sleep a certain number of hours can be counterproductive, which adds stress to the natural sleep process.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that quality sleep is defined by episodes that include “no frequent awakenings and that the number of hours of sleep each person needs could be a inherited characteristic.”
Thus, the ideal night’s sleep time varies depending on the individual due to genetic factors and other reasons, which make a personalized approach necessary.
Sleeping well, a status symbol
Nowadays, achieving those eight hours of rest has become a status symbol, even supported by technological devices that activate the non-compliance bell, becoming in many cases an obsession.
Shelby Harris, associate clinical professor of neurology and psychology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, emphasizes that maintaining sleep patterns and routines is more important than obsessing over the aforementioned eight hours. Harris emphasizes that it is vital to maintain some flexibility with this issue and in the evaluation consider the quality of the quantity of time we sleep.
Different sleep needs for each person
A National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) study that looked at the ideal amount of sleep concluded: “Recommendations on sleep duration issued by public health authorities are important for monitoring and help inform to the population about healthy sleep interventions, policies and behaviors. “However, the ideal amount of sleep required each night can vary between different individuals due to genetic factors and other reasons, and it is important to adapt our recommendations on a case-by-case basis.”
Another team of researchers from Frontiers, the third-largest research publisher and open science platform, analyzed two studies to determine the effects of sleeping too long. The participants had the opportunity to sleep 14 hours per night and in the other, they were able to sleep 12 hours per night, and another four hours during the day.
Participants slept for longer periods of time during the first one to three nights as they caught up on the lost sleep they had accumulated. Afterwards, however, no individual consistently slept more than 10 hours.
Experts say the best course of action regarding sleep is to relax and remember that humans have always been able to sleep peacefully before the advent of medications and technology.
“The pressure we put on ourselves is making sleep worse,” concluded Harris, who emphasizes the importance of rest without adding additional pressures.
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Source: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL /INFOBAE / CLEVELAND CLINIC / DIARIO LAS AMÉRICAS EDITORIAL
