In today's session, we're actually going to talk about the quality and the quantity of sleep. And so what I'm actually going to talk to you about is a question that comes to me all the time. Dr. Day, how many hours of sleep is the optimal number of hours of sleep? Well, the National Sleep Foundation says between six to eight hours of sleep, going closer to eight hours, and that some people actually may need more sleep than that. Definitely, when we're talking about kids and young children, teenagers, they actually tend to need more sleep. But as adults, we still need a good amount of sleep.

And how do they come up with that number? Well, we our body actually has sleep cycles. On average, we get about five sleep cycles in and each sleep cycle is about 90 minutes. So we go through the different levels of sleep. And we may not actually wake up. But in those lighter areas of sleep, that may be the time that we wake up, get aroused, turn over and go back to sleep.

So each one of those is about 90 minutes, five sleep cycles is about normal. And that would equate to about seven and a half hours of sleep, which is why I generally recommend six to eight closer to eight, right. And so you should consider when you're sleeping, what your sleep cycle would be, if you need more than that, then the next would be nine hours, right? If you're doing less, it would be closer to six. And that's how we get the amount of sleep that you need. And you need to figure out what the amount of sleep is for you.

Now we want you to get quality sleep and sleep so that you wake up in the morning feeling refreshed. And so the amount that you might be able to live off of may not be the optimal amount of sleep that you need. So make sure that you also factor that in, okay, seven and a half to eight hours, right. And you know what time you have to get up in the morning, then you can back into what time you need to go to sleep, and then start working towards going to bed at that time. What you might notice is that you might piddle around a lot and not waste a lot of time. And when you cut that out, it's easier to get to sleep earlier than what you think you can actually get to sleep.

When you wake up, you should feel refreshed in the morning. So that is how you know that you have a good quality of sleep when you're waking up without the alarm clock. When you're waking up and you feel refreshed in the morning, when you can make it throughout the day without having to take a nap. These are all things that that point to your quality of sleep. When you don't get enough sleep. We're going to call that sleep deprivation and sleep deprivation.

Can happen if you fall asleep immediately. Because you should really fall asleep between 15 or 20 minutes after you get into the bed. If you're falling asleep immediately, it's because you're exhausted. If you take over an hour to get to sleep, well, your hormones are coming into play to some extent, probably. And that also could mean that you're sleep deprived. People that are sleep deprived are tired, they're less likely to exercise.

They feel like they don't have concentration and they don't have focus. So these are problems with sleep deprivation. When you're feeling really tired all the time, if you're falling asleep at the wheel when you're going to work. These are things that are not only dangerous to you, but they're dangerous to others as well. And so these are the things that you want to think about. You're pushing yourself too hard.

You're doing too many things. You need to start stripping things down so that you can get enough sleep so that the quality of your sleep as well as the quantity of your sleep helps you to feel excited and ready for the world. So once you understand that, you can look at the other handouts and we talked about for your habits and your sleep hygiene. And those all together are going to help you to get good quality and a good quantity of sleep. So you're doing a great job. Keep filling out the handouts so that you can understand a little bit more about your behaviors and how you can make your behaviors, behaviors that improve the quality of your sleep, and which improve the quality of your health, which also improve the quality of your blood sugar's and so you're starting to get what you want.

Now, the most important thing is you'll start having more energy, you'll have more vitality, you'll have more focus, you'll be able to do more things that you want to do when you get good sleep. And you have good health.