Does your cat spend most of the day resting? It is normal? In this article we tell you how many hours a cat sleeps, what he dreams about, and why you don't always have to settle for having a sleepy cat.
Adult domestic cats sleep between 15 and 16 hours a day, that is, around 70% of the day. However, wild cats, or those that have access to the outside of the house (garden) considerably reduce that rest time.
The difference between how many hours a domestic adult cat sleeps and a wild one (or one with access to the street) is due to the lack of stimulation inside the home. Inside the house, there are no prey to hunt, new spaces to explore, and no dangers to avoid.
Therefore, the cat chooses to sleep. He doesn't need to be that active. Also, anyone who lives with a cat will know that these cats are nocturnal animals, so a large part of those 15 hours they spend sleeping occur during the day.
What to do if your cat sleeps too?
As we said before, domestic cats display many behaviors that mirror those of their wild relatives. In this sense, one should not think that cats that live inside an apartment do not need to move, hunt, explore new things and overcome challenges.
In fact, a cat that sleeps out of boredom can develop feline overweight and obesity, it will lose agility and hold up worse than one that its owners care to stimulate.
That is the reason why it is worth applying some environmental stimulation guidelines for cats.
Kittens need more sleep than cats, if an adult cat gets 15 hrs, a baby will need more. That also goes for the elderly, like humans babies, and the elderly need more sleep than an average adult. Both the elderly cats and kittens will sleep up to 20 hours a day.
Kitten Sleep patterns
During their first weeks of life, cats sleep practically all day and can reach 20 hours. In newborn kittens, this occurs because during the first days of life the cats do not even have developed the neural connections that will allow them to interact with the environment, so they do not need to be awake to do so.
Later, around 5 weeks, the sleeping pattern will change and the kittens will begin to considerably reduce their hours of sleep until they adapt to the normal hours of any adult cat.
When we talk about how many hours a kitten sleeps, we have to take into account that it should not surprise us that it is almost 90% of the hours of the day since, while they sleep, the kittens grow and develop.
The segregation of certain hormones by the cat's body is regulated by what are called circadian cycles, that is, by the feline's biological clock. Among these hormones is growth hormone, the production of which is stimulated by periods of slow-wave sleep.
To understand why kittens sleep so much, we have to know that the highest peak of growth hormone secretion occurs in the deep sleep or REM sleep phase. That's why kittens not only sleep longer than adults, but also sleep more soundly, just like small children: they need to grow.
Old Cats Sleep Patterns
Older cats are less active, so their muscle tone is reduced and their ability to run, jump or climb is also reduced. In addition, older cat owners tend to play less with them and stimulate them less, which is a mistake as it can promote joint degeneration and increase the cat's lack of interest in staying physically and cognitively active.
In general, older cats can sleep for up to 20 hours too and like to rest in quiet places, away from traffic areas and where nobody bothers them.
What do cats dream about?
In addition to knowing how many hours a cat sleeps, many of us who live with a cat are interested in knowing what our feline companions dream about. First of all, we must clarify that cats do not dream during the entire time they sleep, but only when they are in the REM phase or deep sleep phase.
The clinical and evolutionary doctor and psychologist Deirdre Barrett, from Harvard Medical School, carried out a study to investigate what the dreams of domestic animals such as dogs and cats consisted of.
In the case of cats, it was found that they seem to dream of mice or small prey. Barrett says more is known about cat dreams thanks to researcher Michel Jouven, who studied the small area of the feline brain that inhibits movement during REM sleep.
In Jouven's study, the cats studied lay motionless and silent during the other stages of sleep and jumped and launched, arching their backs during REM sleep, emulating classic hunting postures, as if a mouse had approached and they wanted to capture it.
