How much sleep do you need? Hours by age, from newborns to adults over 65

How many hours of sleep does each age group need?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes one table of daily sleep by age. It is the table most people mean when they search for how much sleep they need.¹ Hours are per 24 hours, so naps count for the youngest groups.

Notice the pattern: the range narrows and shifts down as you age. A newborn’s range is 14 to 17 hours. A person 65 or older is advised 7 to 8.¹

How much sleep do adults need?

Three institutional sources speak to adults, and they agree on the floor. The CDC says 7 or more hours for ages 18 to 60.¹ The NHLBI says experts recommend 7 to 9 hours, and that adults who sleep less than 7 hours a night may have more health issues than those who sleep 7 or more.² The joint consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society says adults should sleep 7 or more hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health.⁴

The sources differ on the top of the range. A separate NHLBI table, which reflects AASM recommendations endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, lists 7 to 8 hours for adults 18 and older.³ So 7 to 8 and 7 to 9 are both in use. Plan around 7 as the minimum and treat 8 as a common target.

Is more than 9 hours too much?

The NHLBI says sleeping more than 9 hours is not necessarily harmful and may be helpful for young adults, people recovering from sleep deprivation and people who are sick.² The consensus statement says more than 9 hours may be appropriate for young adults, and that for others it is uncertain whether it is linked to health risk.⁴ The NHLBI also says to talk with your doctor if you sleep more than 8 hours but do not feel well rested, since you may have a sleep disorder or other health problem.³

What the 18 to 25 and 40 to 50 searches are really asking

People search by single ages such as 19, 23, 40 or 50. None of the institutional tables splits adults finer than 18 to 60, then 61 to 64, then 65 and older.¹ If you are 19 or 50, the CDC floor is the same: 7 or more hours.¹ Individual need varies inside the range, as the next sections explain.

How much sleep do adults over 60 need?

The CDC lists 7 to 9 hours at ages 61 to 64 and 7 to 8 hours at 65 and older.¹ Older adults are not advised to sleep much less than younger ones. What changes is the structure of the night.

A meta-analysis in the journal Sleep by Ohayon and colleagues pooled 65 studies of healthy people aged 5 to 102. In adults, total sleep time, sleep efficiency and the percentage of slow-wave and REM sleep all decreased with age, while time awake after falling asleep increased.⁵ Only sleep efficiency kept falling after age 60.⁵ In plain terms, a lighter, more broken night is common later in life, which is why hours in bed and hours asleep can differ more than they used to.

If you are over 60 and your night is shorter, check two things: how you feel during the day, and whether you wake often. The CDC lists trouble falling asleep, waking repeatedly and feeling tired even after enough sleep as signs of poor sleep quality, and advises talking to a health care provider about sleep problems.¹

Worked example: what the table adds up to in a week

Hours per night are easier to plan when you turn them into a weekly total. The arithmetic below uses the CDC ranges.¹

Now check a real week. Say you slept 6 hours on five weeknights and 8 hours on two weekend nights. That is 6 × 5 = 30 hours plus 8 × 2 = 16 hours, so 46 hours. Against the 49 hour weekly floor for adults, you are 3 hours short. The next guide, on sleep debt, explains why that gap does not clear in one lie-in.

How to find your own number inside the range

Tables give ranges, not a personal answer. A study in Scientific Reports by Kitamura and colleagues found that optimal sleep duration varies among individuals, and that the gap between optimal and habitual sleep, which they call potential sleep debt, tracked sleepiness more closely than hours slept did.⁶ So use the range as a frame and your own mornings as the test.

1. Set a fixed wake time. Pick a time you can keep every day, weekends included. The NHLBI advises limiting the difference between weeknights and weekends to about an hour.⁷
2. Open a sleep window of at least 7 hours. Count back from the wake time and go to bed then. Do not count time spent scrolling in bed.
3. Keep a two week log. Write down bedtime, wake time, how long you think you took to fall asleep, and how rested you feel on a simple 1 to 5 scale.
4. Read the log. If you feel rested at 7 hours, you are in range. If you still feel tired after 7 to 8 hours of real sleep, talk to a clinician rather than adding hours.

A band can fill the log automatically. Treat its total sleep time as the most reliable number, and take its stage labels as rough. The sleep score guide shows how makers turn those numbers into a score.

What happens when you sleep less than you need?

The NHLBI says sleep deficiency is linked to many chronic health problems, including heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity and depression.⁸ It also says one in three U.S. adults reported not getting enough rest or sleep every day, citing the CDC.⁸ The consensus statement says regularly sleeping fewer than 7 hours is associated with adverse health outcomes.⁴

Sleep deficiency can also interfere with work, school and driving. You may have trouble learning, focusing and reacting.⁸ Sleepiness while driving is responsible for serious car crash injuries and death.⁸

These are associations from population research, not a prediction for any one person. Their use is simple: they are the reason adult guidance has a floor at 7 hours. For how to build up the hours, see how to improve sleep quality.

Frequently asked questions