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how much sleep should i be getting
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it's actually very hard to say exactly
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how much sleep a person should be
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getting
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because an individual's sleep need is
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determined by a number of factors
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with genetics being only one factor of
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many now you've probably heard that you
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should get eight hours of sleep and are
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wondering
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if this is what you should be getting
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but in short the answer is
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well it depends in 2015 the us national
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sleep foundation
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brought together a bunch of sleep
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experts from different health fields and
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created
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guidance on the recommended sleep ranges
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for different age groups
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the interesting thing here is that for
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many age groups the recommended sleep
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times are actually widened
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to reflect the growing recognition that
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there's a lot of individual variability
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in sleep need
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when you look at this guidance a rule of
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thumb would be that the younger end of
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the age range
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should be getting the higher amount of
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sleep so
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for example young adults 18 to 25 the
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recommended sleep range is 7 to 9
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hours and generally speaking the 18 year
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olds would be more towards the 9 hours
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and the 25 year olds more towards the
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seven hours it's worth noting here as
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well
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that there is also research on the
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amount of sleep that is associated with
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longevity
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or not dying early that research
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suggests that around seven
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hours is the optimal sleep for adults
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with a risk of dying from
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all-cause mortality or just anything
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going up when you get too little sleep
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and
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also when you get too much sleep
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the point that often gets missed when
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talking about how much sleep you should
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get
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is that sleep quality is usually more
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important than sleep
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quantity most people would agree that
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six hours of sleep with minimal
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awakenings is preferable
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to eight hours of sleep when you're
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woken up say every hour on the hour
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so in order to get really good sleep
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quality the best strategy is to listen
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to your body
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and to go to bed when sleepy not because
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you heard someone say that you should be
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getting a certain number of
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hours of sleep per night