How Many Hours of Sleep Do You Really Need Each Night: Interesting Findings!

Everyone is familiar with the advice to get eight hours of sleep a night, but new research, just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has made an unusual finding.

Scientists from the University of British Columbia (Canada), in collaboration with the University of Victoria (Australia), analyzed sleep data and health outcomes of nearly 5,000 people in 20 countries, from North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.

The results found that your optimal sleep time may depend on where you live. And the amount of sleep needed for good health varies across cultures, according to medical news site Medical Express.

The number of hours of sleep needed for good health varies in different countries.

Photo: AI

The new findings suggest that sleep recommendations need to be adjusted, said co-author Dr. Steven Heine, a professor of social and cultural psychology at the University of British Columbia. There is no one-size-fits-all amount of sleep.

Average sleep time varies from country to country.

The study found that average sleep duration can vary widely between countries. And this difference is often greater than 1.5 hours. Moreover, these differences occur across all age groups, even in infants and children. East Asian countries in particular have shorter sleep durations, with Japan having the shortest sleep duration - just 6 hours and 18 minutes. Meanwhile, countries in Oceania and Western Europe have longer sleep durations. France has the most sleep - an average of 7 hours and 52 minutes, followed by the Netherlands, New Zealand, Belgium, and the UK - all of which are more than 7 hours and 30 minutes; Australia, South Africa, and Canada are around 7 hours and 30 minutes; China is 7 hours and 18 minutes; India is 7 hours and 15 minutes; the US and Singapore are around 7 hours and so on.

Some researchers speculate that different sleep times may be due to biological variations in sleep needs between racial groups.

Notably, the results also showed that the health of people in countries with shorter sleep duration was no worse than that of people in countries with longer sleep duration.

Importantly, people whose sleep duration is closer to the norm for their country tend to have better overall health, said lead study author Dr Christine Ou, associate professor in the School of Nursing at Victoria University. This suggests that the ideal amount of sleep should be appropriate to your cultural context, according to Medical Express.

Researchers also found that in 20 countries, people typically sleep at least one hour less than their country's optimal sleep time.

The study highlights the importance of considering cultural context when making sleep recommendations. It suggests that public health guidelines should be tailored to different populations to promote better health outcomes.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/ban-thuc-su-can-ngu-bao-nhieu-tieng-moi-dem-phat-hien-thu-vi-185250511000755436.htm