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A baby sleeps in a hammock at an evacuation centre for Typhoon Hagupit victims in San Julian, Eastern Samar in central Philippines December 10, 2014. Philippine emergency workers were struggling on Tuesday to reach coastal villages on an island hardest hit by a typhoon where thousands of homes have been wrecked by powerful winds and a storm surge rising three to four meters (10 to 13 feet). Nearly 13,000 houses were crushed and more than 22,300 damaged on the eastern island of Samar, where Typhoon Hagupit made landfall on Saturday and made slow progress across the country, officials said. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) has released a new set of guidelines related to the amount of sleep a person should get each night.

With busy schedules, tight work hours and a lot of other distractions, the million-dollar question remains, are people getting enough sleep each night? The answer is very simple — probably not! Therefore, the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) has released a new set of guidelines related to the amount of sleep a person should get each night.

The recommendations read as follows:

  • Newborns (0-3 months): Sleep range narrowed to 14-17 hours each day (previously it was 12-18)

  • Infants (4-11 months): Sleep range widened two hours to 12-15 hours (previously it was 14-15)

  • Toddlers (1-2 years): Sleep range widened by one hour to 11-14 hours (previously it was 12-14)
  • Preschoolers (3-5): Sleep range widened by one hour to 10-13 hours (previously it was 11-13)
  • School-age children (6-13): Sleep range widened by one hour to 9-11 hours (previously it was 10-11)
  • Teenagers (14-17): Sleep range widened by one hour to 8-10 hours (previously it was 8.5-9.5)
  • Younger adults (18-25): Sleep range is 7-9 hours (new age category)
  • Adults (26-64): Sleep range did not change and remains 7-9 hours
  • Older adults (65+): Sleep range is 7-8 hours (new age category)

"This is the first time that any professional organization has developed age-specific recommended sleep durations based on a rigorous, systematic review of the world scientific literature relating sleep duration to health, performance and safety," said Charles A. Czeisler, PhD, MD, chairman of the board of the National Sleep Foundation, chief of sleep and circadian disorders at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, in a press statement.

"The National Sleep Foundation is providing these scientifically grounded guidelines on the amount of sleep we need each night to improve the sleep health of the millions of individuals and parents who rely on us for this information."

The consequences of not get enough sleep:

Sleep deprivation is harmful to both mental and physical health. People who don’t get enough sleep experience many ailments and health problems. These include weight gain, heart attacks, heart failure, high bloody pressure, stroke, diabetes and depression.

According to a WebMD report, it also kills a person’s sex drive. A study also highlighted that many men with sleep apnea also have low testosterone levels.

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