While the recommendation to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night has not changed, researchers at Finders University discovered that over 30% of adults are sleeping (or not sleeping) outside of the suggested range.

The study published in Sleep Health on thousands of adults found that only 15% are sleeping the recommended 7 to 9 hours per night for five or more nights each week. In those who were able to average 7 to 9 hours each night during a 9-month evaluation period, roughly 40% of the nights were not within the ideal range. 

Flinders University researcher Dr Hannah Scott notes, "This is crucial because regularly not sleeping enough—or possibly too much—are associated with ill effects and we are only just realizing the consequences of irregular sleep.”

She goes on to say, "Clearly getting the recommended sleep duration range frequently is a challenge for many people to achieve, especially during the working week."

An under-mattress sensor to evaluate sleep durations over the 9-month monitoring period was used for sleep tracker data collected by the Finders research group in nearly 68,000 adults globally.

Subjects included 67,254 adults (52,523 men, 14,731 women), primarily in Europe and North America. Recordings of sleep were monitored by the Withings under-mattress Sleep Analyzer.

Multiple chronic health conditions such as hypertension, obesity, and heart disease as well as increased mortality are linked to sleeping less than 6 hours per night.

Sleeping too little (below 7 hours) or too much (over 9 hours) has been associated with poor health and well being such as digestive and neuro-behavior issues.

Women typically had longer sleep cycles than men, and middle-aged participants recorded lower sleep duration cycles than younger or older subjects.

Co-author Professor Danny Eckert, an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) leadership fellow and director of Sleep Health research at Flinders University, says, "Based on these findings, public health and advocacy efforts need to support the community and individuals to achieve more regular sleep within the recommended range for their age."

"Given what we know about the importance of sleep to health, we also need to assist people to resolve chronic sleep difficulties and encourage all people to make sleep a priority."

Chronic snoring is also linked with hypertension, based on a recent study by Finders University.

The Flinders sleep researchers' tips to achieve a better sleep regime include:

• In the short term, people are advised to try and maintain a sleep schedule that is sufficient for them to feel rested enough, as often as they possibly can. Keeping a fixed wake-up time, even on weekends, and going to bed when you feel sleepy will help ensure you frequently get enough restorative sleep.

• If people can't keep a consistent sleep schedule due to unavoidable commitments (e.g. shift work), then catch-up sleep is recommended.

• Watch for the symptoms of insufficient sleep such as daytime drowsiness, fatigue, struggling to maintain concentration, poor memory, and potentially making errors while driving. This may be due to not sleeping enough, or the sleep not being restorative enough due to poor sleep quality -- as occurs with obstructive sleep apnea, for example.

• People who feel like they might not be sleeping enough, especially those currently sleeping less than seven hours, could test whether allowing a longer sleep schedule or naps helps them sleep longer and results in them feeling more rested.

• For those without a sleep disorder, following good sleep hygiene may be beneficial. Avoiding caffeine and alcohol in the afternoon/reducing their caffeine and alcohol consumption across the day, and/or avoiding a heavy meal close to bedtime may help people fall asleep faster and sleep for longer. Others may not see much benefit from following sleep hygiene advice, but it is worth trying as it may be a relatively simple fix to their sleep problems.

• People should consult their GP in the first instance if they are concerned about their sleep. Treatment options are available through referrals to sleep specialists for a variety of sleep disorders such as sleep apnea and insomnia.

Lisa Andrews, MEd, RD, LD

Reference:

1. Hannah Scott, Ganesh Naik, Bastien Lechat, Jack Manners, Josh Fitton, Duc Phuc Nguyen, Anna L. Hudson, Amy C. Reynolds, Alexander Sweetman, Pierre Escourrou, Peter Catcheside, Danny J. Eckert. Are we getting enough sleep? Frequent irregular sleep found in an analysis of over 11 million nights of objective in-home sleep data. Sleep Health, 2024; 10 (1): 91 DOI: 10.1016/j.sleh.2023.10.016