How much sleep do you need: A 10-year systematic review of National Sleep Foundation's sleep duration recommendations and examination of sex differences.
Level 1 - systematic review of randomized trials
Systematic review and narrative synthesis of meta-analyses
PubMed 42248743 · doi:10.1016/j.sleh.2026.05.011
What was done
Authors conducted a systematic review and narrative synthesis of peer-reviewed meta-analyses on normal sleep duration published between 2015 and June 2025 across PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science. Two reviewers screened and extracted data from 133 meta-analyses to assess whether findings were consistent with, contradictory to, or inconclusive regarding the 2015 National Sleep Foundation (NSF) sleep duration recommendations, and to evaluate sex differences.
What was found
Of the 133 included meta-analyses, 74% (n = 99) were consistent with NSF recommendations, primarily in adult populations. The remaining 26% (n = 34) were inconclusive, and 0% (n = 0) contradicted the recommendations for either short or long sleep duration. Most meta-analyses evaluating sex reported non-significant sex differences in sleep duration recommendations.
Why it matters
This 10-year umbrella review re-validates the 2015 National Sleep Foundation sleep duration guidelines against a decade of aggregated evidence without identifying a need to modify existing duration thresholds by sex.
Limits
The abstract does not report specific risk-of-bias assessments, effect sizes, or health outcomes examined in the meta-analyses. Most included literature focused on adult groups, leaving pediatric or older age brackets potentially underrepresented. The synthesis relies on the methodologies and potential observational biases of the included meta-analyses.
Cited by
- supports Sleep research guidelines recommend that adults get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night.