Conditions & Treatments

Insomnia - Other Information

How much sleep do we need?

There is no ‘normal’ amount of sleep; more importantly, it is how well you sleep, not how long your sleep is. Sleep requirements change during the course of a lifetime.

Babies sleep for about 17 hours a day.
Older children require nine or 10 hours per day.
Most middle-aged people function best on seven to nine hours of sleep, though some do well with as little as four hours, while others need up to 11 hours.

Older people need the same amount of sleep, but will often only have one period of deep sleep during the night - usually in the first three or four hours, after which they wake more easily.

We also tend to dream less as we get older. Older people also often find that their sleep at night is broken, particularly if they take naps during the daytime.

What if I do not sleep?

The occasional night without sleep will make you feel tired the next day, but it will not harm your physical or mental health.

However, after several sleepless nights, you will start to find that:

You are tired all the time
You drop off to sleep during the day
You find it difficult to concentrate
You find it hard to make decisions
You start to feel depressed

This can be very dangerous if you are driving or operating heavy machinery. A lack of sleep may also make us more vulnerable to high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes.