Sleep: the third of adults who do not get enough
About one in three American adults regularly sleeps less than the seven hours a night that health experts recommend.
Sleep is the habit people most often trade away. A deadline, a new baby, a long commute, a phone in bed, a worry at 3 a.m. — each takes an hour from the night, and the hours add up. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measures how much sleep Americans get through a large telephone survey of health habits.
The numbers
Sleep experts recommend that adults aged 18 to 60 sleep at least seven hours a night. In the CDC’s analysis of data from more than 400,000 adults, about 65% reported usually getting that much. The other 35%, roughly one adult in three, reported sleeping less than seven hours on a typical night.
The share sleeping too little varied a great deal by state, by ethnic group and by circumstances. Adults who were unemployed or unable to work, and adults who were not married, were somewhat more likely to report short sleep. Adults with a college degree were more likely to sleep enough.
What short sleep is linked to
The CDC notes that sleeping less than seven hours a night is linked to a higher risk of several chronic conditions, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and frequent mental distress. Tiredness also has immediate effects: slower reactions, poorer concentration and more mistakes. Drowsy driving causes thousands of crashes every year.
As with many health habits, cause and effect run both ways. Illness, pain, depression and stress all disturb sleep, and poor sleep makes each of them worse. That is part of why sleep problems so often appear alongside other problems, and why improving sleep helps with more than tiredness.
Why sleep gets lost
Most adults know they need more sleep. What gets in the way is usually one of a few things:
- Work. Long hours, shift work and second jobs take hours from the night directly.
- Children. The first years of parenthood are a long stretch of broken nights.
- Stress and worry, about money, work or relationships, are among the most common causes of lying awake.
- Habits. Late screens, caffeine and alcohol all shorten and lighten sleep. Alcohol in particular helps people fall asleep and then disturbs the second half of the night.
The good news is that sleep responds to change quickly. Regular hours, a dark and quiet room and fewer late screens help many people within weeks.
Questions people ask
How much sleep do adults need? Seven or more hours a night for adults aged 18 to 60, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society, whose guidance the CDC uses. Teenagers need more, about eight to ten hours.
Can you catch up on sleep at the weekend? Partly. Sleeping longer after a short week reduces tiredness, but research suggests it does not fully undo the effects of regular short sleep, and it can make falling asleep on Sunday night harder.
Does sleeping too long matter? Regularly sleeping much more than nine hours is also linked to poorer health, though often because illness causes both. For most adults, the problem is too little.
In One Life
Sleep in One Life is one of the habits the game tracks every year, alongside exercise, drinking, smoking and stress. The choices that cost sleep are ordinary ones: staying late to finish the work, the night out, the baby that will not settle, the argument that keeps you awake. Each is small. Over years they show up in mood, in stress, in how well a body holds up and in how a life is scored at the end. The game awards a badge called Rested to lives that look after it.