S
leep is very important. Did you know that sleep is more important than food?
A person who does not sleep dies at a younger age than a person who does
not eat.
Let’s say you go to sleep 12 hours later than you usually do. It will take your
body about three weeks to return to normal. We spend about one-third (1/3) of our
lives in sleep. That’s about 121 days a year!
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Sleep!
Ways to Health 49
How much sleep do we need? We are all different. A baby needs 16 hours of
sleep every day. Children 6 to 12 years old need an average of 10 to 12 hours of
sleep. A teenager needs 9 to 10 hours of sleep. An adult needs an average of 7 to
8 hours a night. There are some people who need only 3 hours of sleep. Others need
10 hours of sleep. After the age of 50, the average sleep time goes down to 6.5 hours
a night. We need less sleep as we get older.
Most people have some nights when they cannot sleep. About one in three
Americans has a problem with sleep. Many of these people cannot fall asleep or
stay asleep. The name of this problem is insomnia. The word insomnia means “no
sleep.” Some people say, “I didn’t sleep all night.” They may sleep lightly and wake
up several times. In the morning, they only remember the times they were awake,
so they think they were awake all night.
This is not a new problem. Many famous people in history had insomnia. Some
of these people had special ideas to make them sleep. Benjamin Franklin, the famous
statesman1 and inventor, had four beds. He moved from one to the other to fall
asleep. King Louis XIV of France had 413 beds and hoped to fall asleep in one of
them. Mark Twain, the famous American writer, had a different way. He lay on his
side across the end of the bed!