Getting a Good Night's Sleep By the Numbers

The advice to get a good night’s sleep is great, but a little vague. How do you know if you’re getting sufficient rest?

Getting a Good Night's Sleep By the Numbers“In the past, we defined sleep by its negative outcomes, including sleep dissatisfaction,” says Maurice Ohayon, director of the Stanford Sleep Epidemiology Research Center in a New York Magazine article. “Clearly, this is not the whole story.”

Ohayon, along with several other sleep experts, attempted to define what makes a good night’s sleep by reviewing more than 200 previously published sleep studies, the article notes.

Their study, published in Sleep Health, a journal of the National Sleep Foundation, outlined four criteria.

  1. Taking half an hour or less to fall asleep
  2. Waking up no more than once a night
  3. Falling back asleep within 20 minutes after you wake up
  4. Sleeping for at least 85% of the time in bed

“With this initiative, we are now on a better course of defining sleep health,” Ohayon says.

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