# How much do Americans sleep at each age?

> Americans sleep least in their early 40s (8.65 h a day) and most as teenagers (9.89 h).

Canonical: https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/sleep-by-age

| # | Age | Sleep, all days (h/day) | Sleep, weekdays | Sleep, weekends & holidays | Respondents |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 15–19 | 9.89 h/day | 9.49 | 10.84 | 1301 |
| 2 | 20–24 | 9.57 h/day | 9.27 | 10.27 | 1499 |
| 3 | 25–29 | 9.23 h/day | 8.88 | 10.02 | 2248 |
| 4 | 30–34 | 8.84 h/day | 8.52 | 9.58 | 3037 |
| 5 | 35–39 | 8.75 h/day | 8.44 | 9.5 | 3361 |
| 6 | 40–44 | 8.65 h/day | 8.31 | 9.45 | 3069 |
| 7 | 45–49 | 8.75 h/day | 8.37 | 9.63 | 2657 |
| 8 | 50–54 | 8.68 h/day | 8.36 | 9.44 | 2722 |
| 9 | 55–59 | 8.81 h/day | 8.53 | 9.45 | 2972 |
| 10 | 60–64 | 8.83 h/day | 8.65 | 9.24 | 3642 |
| 11 | 65–69 | 8.95 h/day | 8.84 | 9.22 | 3992 |
| 12 | 70–74 | 8.97 h/day | 8.92 | 9.09 | 3592 |
| 13 | 75–79 | 9.14 h/day | 9.12 | 9.16 | 2704 |
| 14 | 80–84 | 9.25 h/day | 9.27 | 9.2 | 1682 |
| 15 | 85+ | 9.64 h/day | 9.72 | 9.44 | 1108 |

Daily sleep follows a U-shape over life: 9.89 hours for 15–19-year-olds, a low of 8.65 hours at 40–44, then back up to
9.64 hours at 85 and over. The weekend bonus (weekend minus weekday) is worth more than an hour before 55 and
disappears by the late 70s, when every day is a weekend.

ATUS "sleeping" is self-reported and includes naps, dozing and lying awake trying to sleep, so it measures something
closer to time in bed than to sleep itself; that is why the national average is about 9 hours. The numbers pool the
2021–2025 surveys (39,586 people) and use BLS's final weights.

## Source

- American Time Use Survey 2003–2025, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/tus/data/datafiles-0325.htm (sample: 258,954 respondents (one diary day each), 2003–2025; 39,586 respondents in the pooled 2021–2025 tables)
- Dataset with methodology and CSV/JSON downloads: https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/datasets/atus-sleep

## Related facts

- [Your body clock runs latest at about 20](https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/latest-bedtime-at-20)
- [For over a century, experts have told kids to sleep about 37 minutes more than they do](https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/kids-told-to-sleep-more-for-100-years)
- [Starting school 55 minutes later gave Seattle teens 34 more minutes of sleep](https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/later-school-start-more-sleep)