Difficulty sleeping, called insomnia, is a common and frustrating problem. If you’re not sleeping well at night, you will not be at your best during the daytime.

Insomnia makes everything worse. It can lead to fatigue, depression, anxiety, irritability, loss of memory, and poor concentration. It can also impair the immune system, leading to a broad range of medical problems. If people are sleep-deprived for several days, they can even develop hallucinations, paranoid thoughts,

I get asked this question several times a day by my patients, and for many of us, the answer is, “not nearly enough.”

The National Sleep Foundation recently assembled 18 experts and sifted through 320 research articles. Based on this work, they recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per night for the average adult (for seniors, they recommended 7-8 hours). The American Academy of Sleep Medicine also came out with a consensus paper and recommended that adults sleep at least 7 hours per night.