Is 8 hours of sleep enough?

Most adults are advised 7 to 9 hours. 8 hours is inside it. In the data, 85% of people worldwide sleep less than that, so it is also what most people around you are doing.

How much sleep does the average person get?

Sleep Cycle users average 7 h 1 min a night worldwide. Finland leads at 7 h 17 min, Norway is close behind at 7 h 16 min, the United States gets 6 h 50 min and Japan the least at 6 h 17 min.

How rare is sleeping 8 hours?

Worldwide, about 1 in 7 people sleep 8 hours or more. In the United States it is 1 in 8, in Japan 1 in 30.

Is 8 hours of sleep normal?

85% of people worldwide sleep less than 8 hours a night, going by Sleep Cycle's app data. In the United States it is 88%; in Japan, 97%.

Percentile

85%

of people worldwide sleep less than 8 hours

8 hours = 8 h

Recommended rangeMost sleep bodies (AASM, Sleep Foundation) recommend 7 to 9 hours for adults. This is inside it.

8 hours by group

By country

Share of Sleep Cycle users sleeping less than 8 hours a night
Group	Mean	Sleep less than you	1 in X
World	7 h 1 min	85%	1 in 7
Finland	7 h 17 min	79%	1 in 5
Norway	7 h 16 min	79%	1 in 5
Netherlands	7 h 16 min	80%	1 in 5
Australia	7 h 4 min	84%	1 in 6
Germany	7 h 1 min	86%	1 in 7
India	7 h 1 min	85%	1 in 7
United Kingdom	6 h 58 min	87%	1 in 7
Brazil	6 h 58 min	85%	1 in 7
France	6 h 53 min	88%	1 in 8
United States	6 h 50 min	88%	1 in 8
China	6 h 48 min	89%	1 in 9
South Korea	6 h 22 min	97%	1 in 29
Japan	6 h 17 min	97%	1 in 30

Percentile is the share of the group sleeping less than this a night. “1 in X” counts the rarer side: people at or beyond this value above the median, at or under it below. Percentiles are estimated from a normal distribution with each country's mean and SD.

What this means

8 hours is 59 minutes more than the global mean of 7 h 1 min. In Norway, where the mean is 7 h 16 min, it is the 79th percentile.
That lands inside the 7 to 9 hours most sleep bodies recommend for adults. Japan's mean, 6 h 17 min, does not.
Sleep Cycle measures people who track their sleep with a phone on the mattress. That is millions of nights, from a group that cares enough to measure them.

Questions

Is 8 hours of sleep enough?: Most adults are advised 7 to 9 hours. 8 hours is inside it. In the data, 85% of people worldwide sleep less than that, so it is also what most people around you are doing.
How much sleep does the average person get?: Sleep Cycle users average 7 h 1 min a night worldwide. Finland leads at 7 h 17 min, Norway is close behind at 7 h 16 min, the United States gets 6 h 50 min and Japan the least at 6 h 17 min.
How rare is sleeping 8 hours?: Worldwide, about 1 in 7 people sleep 8 hours or more. In the United States it is 1 in 8, in Japan 1 in 30.

Source: Sleep Cycle Annual Sleep Report 2023, app users who track their sleep; a large sample, not a random one. Percentiles on this page are our estimate from a normal distribution with the stated mean and SD.

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