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Sam Ionescu

Professor Rebecca Morean

English Composition 1201.5T5

April 11, 2021

Literature Review: How many hours of sleep is healthy for a human being?

Many people around the globe suffer from bad sleeping habits , have those days that you

can't sleep or just want to stay up late. But what effect does the lack of sleep have on you? And

what happens when it happens repeatedly? These are all questions I had myself considering I get a

very little amount of sleep most nights, which is why I decided to research this topic.

In the first study I found,written by Allison Deshong, published by a credited source

Sleep.org, that conducts studies about sleep and mental illness caused by lack of sleep(science

related to sleep). Most sources show the recommended hours of sleep people in certain age groups

should get, however, in Allisons article, she goes in depth as to why it is important for these age

groups. Ages ranging from 1-13 years old should get on average at least nine to ten hours of sleep

each night. Above that, ages 14-18 should get about 8-9 hours of sleep every night. After those ages

, anywhere from 6-7 hours is considered enough. The answer to why this is the recommended

amount is fairly obvious, growth/development. An infant should be sleeping a lot more than a 60

year old, this is because the infant is in critical brain development. Having abnormal sleep can

cause the infant more issues opposed to the 60 year old which would most likely just be sleepy.

However, another thing I thought about was what if this continues to occur, staying up late

and not getting any sleep? According to Eric Sunni from the sleep foundation, who like sleep.org,
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conduct in depth studies on how sleep affects the human body. They concluded that getting below

the recommended hours of sleep is not necessarily a bad thing for you. According to their studies,

roughly 57% of people ages above 18 get less than the recommended hours of sleep. However, not

all of the 57% slept a reasonable amount of hours. The study also showed 13% of this population

got less than 4 hours of sleep a night. The sleep foundation studied these people and came to the

conclusion that nearly all of the people accounted for, almost all had either insomnia or some sort

of mental disorder (depression, ADHD, ADD, anxiety, etc). However, the scientists of the sleep

foundation believe that it's not the lack of sleep causing the mental illness, rather the mental illness

is causing the individual to stay up. This shows that the symptoms between both lack of sleep and

many mental illnesses coincide with one another.

Coming back to the main question, scientists from Harvard University believe is the

recommended amount of sleep would be about the same as sleep.org's list. However, they go in

depth about the amount of sleep a teenager should get in another study. In this study, researchers

state that mental illness sprouting from lack of sleep is more prevalent in teens and children

opposed to adults. So the study concluded that the minimal amount of sleep for a teen should be

about 9-10 hours if not more. That is really the main difference between the two articles.

In the same article from Harvard University, it lists some treatments for lack of sleep. Those

would be trying to put down electronics 4 hours before bed, as well as melatonin pills to induce

sleep quicker. The main point of the study was to show solutions to achieve a better sleep schedule,

causing more hours of deep sleep.

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Bibliography/Works Cited

Deshong, Alison. “How Much Sleep Do I Need?” Sleep.org, 30 Mar. 2021, www.sleep.org/how-

many-hours-of-sleep-do-we-need/.

Dimitriu, Alex. “What Causes Insomnia?” Sleep Foundation, 6 Aug. 2020,

www.sleepfoundation.org/insomnia/what-causes-insomnia.

Publishing, Harvard Health. “How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?” Harvard Health, Sept. 2016,

www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need.

Sunni, Eric. “Mental Health and Sleep.” Sleep Foundation, 18 Sept. 2020,

www.sleepfoundation.org/mental-health.

TEDtalksDirector, Ted, director. How Much Sleep Do You Really Need? | Sleeping with Science, a

TED Series. YouTube, YouTube, 2 Sept. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=knJWF4km3y0.