You must have heard it million times – You need eight hours of sleep! Have you ever wondered how important this statement really is? Well, if you haven’t, I think you should. Researches have shown that lack of sleep is linked to obesity, cancer, heart disease, and low immune response.

A recent study in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine showed that if you sleep for less than seven hours a day, you have three times more chances of getting a cold compared to if you get more than eight hours. Scientists carried out tests with hundreds of people and came to a conclusion that a person with lack of sleep may have weakened his/her immune systems.

Similar researches have linked lack of sleep to being one of the causes for obesity. It is not yet clear how this affects a person’s gaining weight but researches have shown that a person lacking sleep is likely to gain weight as loss of each hour of sleep leads to decrease in BMI (body mass index). Lack of sleep has also been linked to cause of heart related diseases. A study has found that people in their 30s and 40s are more likely to develop plaque in the arteries if they do not get enough sleep.

So how much sleep is enough?

Toddlers 12-14 hrs

Preschoolers 11-13 hrs

School-age children 10-11 hrs

Adolescents 9-10 hrs

Adults 7-9 hrs

(Source: The National Sleep Foundation)

[ad#linkad468]

[Via Parade Magazine; original article]