13 Dec Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Health Adult.
Joint consensus statement of the american academy of sleep medicine and sleep research society on the recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult methodology and discussion.
Sleep is vital to human health, necessary for life,1,2 and it serves critical roles in brain functions including neurobehavioral, cognitive and safety-related performance,3–13 memory consolidation,14,15mood regulation,16,17 nociception18,19 and clearance of brain metabolites.20,21 Sleep is also critically involved in systemic physiology, including metabolism,22–26 appetite regulation,27,28 immune and hormone function,29–33 and cardiovascular systems.34–37 Sleep duration is associated with mortality risk38–40 and with illnesses ranging from cardiovascular41 and cerebrovascular42 disease to obesity,43diabetes,44 cancer,45,46and depression.47
Sleep duration shows substantial intra- and inter-individual variation. Twin studies show sleep duration heritability between 31% and 55%, suggesting substantial genetic influences on sleep need.23,48,49 Environmental factors, such as occupational duties and commute time, family responsibilities, and social and recreational opportunities, can lead to substantial discrepancies between the amount of sleep needed and the amount of sleep obtained.50 A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis shows that between 1985 and 2012 mean sleep duration decreased and the percentage of adults sleeping ≤ 6 hours in a 24-hour period increased. This trend represents a near doubling in the number of U.S. adults sleeping ≤ 6 hours in a 24-hour period from 38.6 million to 70.1 million.51 The CDC presently considers this progressive decline in sleep duration a public health epidemic.52
In 2013, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society received a one year grant, renewable annually for up to five years, from the CDC entitled the “National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project.” This Project addresses the four sleep health objectives from Healthy People 2020,53 a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services initiative to improve the nation’s health. Objective four is to “increase the proportion of adults who get sufficient sleep.” In the course of stakeholder discussions on this objective it became evident that the fields of sleep research and sleep medicine lack a clear recommendation regarding what constitutes “sufficient” sleep. The absence of such guidance has wide ranging implications for personal and public health. Sleep restriction is the most common cause of sleepiness in society, yet clinicians struggle to tell their adult patients how much sleep is necessary to improve alertness. Public policy initiatives addressing operator fatigue and transportation safety are likewise hindered by the absence of evidence-based guidance regarding healthy habitual sleep duration in adults. The sleep medicine and research community stresses the importance of sleep for health, but this message is likewise undermined by the lack of consensus regarding healthy sleep duration in adults. The absence of such a consensus ultimately weakens the message that sleep is essential for health. Thus, clinical, public policy, and public health activities would all benefit from a consensus recommendation addressing the amount of sleep necessary to support optimal health and functioning in an adult.