How Much Sleep Do You Really Need? Let's Talk Sleep Guidelines!

Anissa Bell
Apr 10
8 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Hand holds a yellow stopwatch showing 12:45:30 in sunlight. Person wears a watch, blue-striped sleeve, and lime green shoes in a shadowy setting.

Sleep recommendations from organizations like the National Sleep Foundation are based on averages. These aren’t your sleep destiny—they’re just what most people tend to need at most stages of life. Babies need a lot (like, 14–17 hours), teenagers need more than they’ll admit (8–10 hours), and adults generally land in the 7–9-hour zone.

But guess what? You’re not “failing” at sleep if you only get 6.5 hours and feel perfectly fine the next day. Likewise, if you need 9.5 hours to not feel like the walking dead, that’s valid too. We all have different bodies, stress levels, schedules, and genetics. Some of us are natural short sleepers, some are long sleepers, and some are just… confused and caffeinated.

The problem happens when we interpret these guidelines as rigid rules. Cue the anxiety spiral: “Oh no, it’s midnight and I have to be up at 7—I’m only getting 7 hours and I heard I need at least 8! This is going to ruin everything!” And just like that, your worry about not sleeping enough keeps you from sleeping. Ah, the sweet irony.

Sleep Stages and Guidelines: More Than Just Deep Sleep and REM

Now let’s talk about the mysterious world of sleep stages. Everyone seems obsessed with deep sleep and REM, like those are the only ones worth RSVPing to. But actually, all stages of sleep serve a purpose—yes, even the ones we know less about. Here are some sleep guidelines about what happens in each stage of sleep.

Stage 1 (Light Sleep): The “Winding Down” Phase

In this phase, you begin in a wakeful state and transition into sleep. This is the stage of light sleep, and your head is processing quite a bit. Shift from wakefulness, which is indicated by fast-paced brain waves, to slower waves, which means you are about to doze off.

Brain Activity: All your brain functions slow down alongside your body. It begins with the rapid and irregular waves of being awake and transitions to slower theta waves. Think of it like your brain saying, “Alright, we need to slacken up a bit.”
Functions: Filtering information encountered throughout the day is one of the first steps in processing them. During this phase, the brain gets to work while you doze off. Some may even experience involuntary muscle twitches referred to as hypnic jerks, which occur as the body resets from awareness to relaxation.
What’s Happening in Your Body: Your body gets tight and temperature drops as relaxation occurs. Your heart rate and breathing level out, allowing the body to get ready for deeper sleep.

Although Stage 1 lasts only a couple of minutes, it is enough for your brain to prepare for repair, refreshing, and restoring functions.

Stage 2 (Light Sleep, But a Little Deeper): The “Preparation” Phase

Stage 2 is a deeper phase of light sleep, and it’s where you spend the majority of the night. During this stage, your brain waves slow down significantly, but they don’t stop completely

Brain Activity: Sleep spindles added as stage 2 goes deeper, brain waves are slowing down and more activity in the form of rapid movements occurs (spindles diffferentiate into bursts). These spindles serve the function of reinforcing distractions. It’s like nature and nurture of neurosciences is telling: “Your brain focus on rest.”
Function: This is weak association of memory and learning phase stored in the brain, but sensing out is blocked. Your brain is still engaged in processes of recollecting everything encountered synthesizing and amplifying neural pathways. This explains why good sleep is necessary after exposure to new information.
What’s Happening in Your Body: Slow decrease of body temperature occurs while skeletal muscles relax further, increasing stillness, preventing chances of awakening. Your heartbeat and breathing rate gradually diminishes further supporting the relaxation stage to sleep.

This stage helps shield your sleep from external factors like sound and light. That's because your brain becomes resistant to disturbances which allows you to remain relaxed for a longer period.

Stage 3 (Deep Sleep): The "Restoration" Phase

Stage 3 is the powerhouse phase of sleep. This is the deep sleep phase where your body and brain completely reset

Brain activity: During deep sleep, your brain undergoes delta sleep where your brain waves significantly slower than they do at other stages. These waves mark the deepest stages of sleep and are the slowest and highest amplitude brain waves. The brain is almost totally non-reactive to stimuli making it very difficult to wake you up.
Function: This is the stage where restorative processes begin in your body and brain. Your brain, for example, removes waste products such as beta-amyloid plaques that are associated with Alzheimer’s. During deep sleep, brain cells in the brain shrink slightly, allowing the glymphatic system to purify the brain the toxins that build up over the day's activities.
What’s Happening in Your Body: Your body enters repair mode by rebuilding muscles, growing new tissues, restoring energy, and supercharging the immune system making the body capable of fighting off illness more efficiently. Growth hormone is released which helps in repairing tissues and maintaining proper cell functions.

This phase is required for physical recovery, as well as for achieving mental sharpness. If you don’t get enough deep sleep, you will feel sluggish and unfocused.

REM Sleep (Rapid Eye Movement): The "Dreamworld" Phase

This is the name of the sleep stage where all the remarkable phenomena occur. You may know this stage best for the vivid dreams that accompany it, but there's much more happening underneath the surface.

Brain Activity: Your brain becomes very active during REM sleep; it's like you're awake! The associated brainwaves are of a person focused or in problem-solving mode. While all the brain activity is happening, the body is in a state of temporary paralysis (a protective mechanism to keep you from acting out your dreams). It’s as if your brain is having a wild celebration while your body isn’t there to join in.
Function: REM plays an important role in emotional control and information retention. Sleep is very important for mental health because it allows the brain to process emotions and work through the stressors of the day. It helps in the consolidation of long-term memories, integrating the knowledge and experiences of the individual. In short, the brain is finishing everything that has been started.
What’s Happening in Your Body: During REM, breathing patterns become erratic, and the heart rate tends to accelerate. This stage maintains the regulation and balance of emotions and is crucial in mental processes regarding creativity. Many problems can be worked as dreams – do you remember waking up with an amazing solution to an unsolvable issue from the day prior?

Along with being the most colorful stage, REM also supports the greatest amount of mental recovery. This is especially true for solidifying memories and enhancing imagination.

Why All Sleep Stages Matter

Each stage of sleep has distinct functions that, when combined, provide for optimal health. While one might remain focused on deep sleep and REM sleep, all stages of sleep work together to provide restoration for your body and brain.

You can’t just get a certain number of hours of sleep and claim to be well-rested. It’s about going through different cycles with all the stages. The next time you wake up and think, “I didn’t get enough deep sleep or REM” remember you need to go through the entire process of sleep to promote good health, and every stage contributes to the process.

Most of us cycle through these stages several times a night, roughly every 90 minutes. So in an 8-hour sleep, you’ll go through about 4–6 full sleep cycles. Early in the night, you tend to get more deep sleep. Later in the night, REM takes over. It’s like your body has its own Netflix binge-watching schedule.

“What’s My Sleep Stage Breakdown?” (aka Don’t Obsess)

You might be tempted to start tracking your sleep stages using an app or smartwatch. Totally fine—sleep data can be helpful! But it can also turn into another anxiety rabbit hole.

On average, adults spend:

5% in Stage 1
45% in Stage 2
25% in Stage 3
25% in REM

But again… these are averages. You’re not malfunctioning if one night your REM dips to 15%. Your body is not broken. It adjusts night to night based on what you need. If you’ve been emotionally stressed, your body might prioritize REM. If you’ve run a marathon (or just carried too many grocery bags at once), it might go heavy on deep sleep.

The goal isn’t to micromanage your sleep like a project manager. It’s to give your body the time and space to do what it needs to do.

Why You Wake Up in the Middle of the Night

Ever find yourself wide awake at 3:47 a.m. wondering if this is the beginning of the end? Don’t panic. Waking up between sleep cycles is normal. Most of the time, we drift right back to sleep without even remembering it. But if you wake up and start thinking—about that email you forgot to send or that embarrassing thing you said in 2012—it can be hard to get back to sleep.

This is where dysfunctional sleep beliefs can sneak in.

Dysfunctional Beliefs About Sleep: A Rude Bedtime Story

Dysfunctional sleep beliefs are those sneaky, self-sabotaging thoughts that convince you your sleep is broken, and so are you. Examples include:

“If I don’t get 8 hours, I won’t function tomorrow.”
“I’m the only person who can’t sleep like a normal human.”
“My health is going to fall apart because of this.”
“Once my sleep is broken, it’ll never go back to normal.”

These beliefs create pressure, which creates anxiety, which (surprise!) makes it harder to sleep. It’s the mental equivalent of trying to relax while someone is yelling at you to just relax.

Enter CBT-I: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia

CBT-I is like a Marie Kondo for your sleep beliefs. It helps you clean out the clutter in your brain that’s keeping you up at night.

It works by:

Identifying unhelpful thoughts (like “I must get 8 hours!”).
Challenging those thoughts (“Is that actually true?”).
Replacing them with more realistic ones (“Even if I only get 6 hours, I can still have a decent day.”).

CBT-I also includes behavioral techniques like:

Stimulus control (training your brain to associate bed with sleep, not scrolling TikTok).
Sleep restriction (yes, it sounds scary, but it helps consolidate your sleep and reduce time spent tossing and turning).
Relaxation strategies (because trying to sleep while stressed is like trying to meditate at a rock concert).

CBT-I doesn’t aim to make you hit a specific number of sleep hours or get “perfect” sleep stage percentages. It helps you sleep enough for you, and teaches your brain to chill the heck out about it.

The Real Sleep Flex: Acceptance

At the end of the day—or the beginning of the night—the real secret to better sleep isn’t a magical supplement or a hyper-customized routine. It’s learning to trust your body, stop obsessing over the numbers, and let go of the idea that sleep has to look a certain way to be “good enough.”

Sleep is dynamic. It changes with your age, hormones, stress levels, and that third iced coffee you maybe shouldn’t have had at 4 p.m. And that’s okay.

So the next time you find yourself wide-eyed in bed, wondering why you’re awake or stressing about whether you got 23% deep sleep instead of 17%, remember: you’re not broken. You’re human.

And sometimes, the best sleep advice is this—close your eyes, stop trying so hard, and let yourself just be.

Sweet dreams, rebel sleeper. You’re doing just fine.

SOURCES

Sleep Foundation. (2025). Stages of Sleep. Retrieved from https://www.sleepfoundation.org/stages-of-sleep
National Sleep Foundation. (2025). Understanding Sleep Stages. Retrieved from https://www.thensf.org/what-are-the-sleep-stages
National Library of Medicine. (2025). Sleep Stages and their Role in Sleep Disorders. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526132/

For more tips and mental health support, and information about online therapy sessions visit www.sleep-anxiety.com. Fill out the contact form to schedule a free 15-minute consultation with Anissa Bell, LMFT, and find out if online therapy is right for you (currently not offering in person therapy). Providing online therapy throughout California. Click HERE for more information about online therapy and therapy costs.