Sleep is a health behaviour, not a leftover
Professional review pending Sleep
Adults 18 to 64 need 7 to 9 hours a night; 65 and over, 7 to 8. Consistency matters as much as duration, and a quarter to a third of Canadian adults are running short.
Canada's movement guidelines treat the whole 24 hours as one system: activity, sitting, and sleep trade off against each other. Sleep is the part most often sacrificed first, and the public health data shows it: roughly 1 in 4 adults aged 18 to 34, and 1 in 3 aged 35 to 64, are not getting enough.
The targets
- Adults 18 to 64: 7 to 9 hours of good-quality sleep per night, on a regular basis.
- Adults 65 and over: 7 to 8 hours per night.
- Everyone: consistent bed and wake times, including on weekends. The consistency is not a nicety; irregular timing undermines sleep quality even when the hours add up.
What actually helps
- Keep alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine away from the hours before bed. Alcohol in particular feels like it helps you fall asleep and then wrecks the second half of the night.
- Be active during the day; daytime exercise is one of the most reliable sleep-quality improvers.
- Wind down deliberately: relaxation or mindfulness practice before bed has decent evidence behind it.
- Short sleep travels with chronic stress and more sitting, so fixing daytime habits often fixes nights.
When to get help
Occasional bad nights are normal. Persistent trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or daytime sleepiness that interferes with life is worth raising with a provider you trust; if you don't have one, the community-run clinics on our resource map are where we'd start.
- Drafted
- 2026-07-19 from the cited public sources
- Review
- awaiting a licensed reviewer in the relevant discipline
- Next review due
- 2027-07-19
- Standard
- General education only, never individual medical advice. See our editorial standard.