How Many Calories Do You Burn Sleeping? Chart by Weight

How many calories do you burn sleeping? Most adults burn about 50 to 80 calories per hour of sleep, or roughly 400 to 650 calories over an 8-hour night. A simple estimate is about 0.38 calories per pound of body weight per hour, which works out to about 485 calories a night for a 160-pound person. Your overnight burn sits very close to your basal metabolic rate (BMR), so bigger and more muscular bodies burn more.

That answer surprises people in both directions. Sleep is the least active thing you do all day, yet those 7 to 9 hours still account for roughly a quarter to a third of your total daily calorie burn, because your heart, brain, lungs, liver and kidneys never clock off.

This guide gives you a chart by body weight and hours slept, explains what changes the number, then zooms out to the bigger question: how many calories you burn in a full day without exercise, and how much your daily steps add on top.

Quick answer:

Per hour asleep: about 45 to 95 calories, depending mostly on body size
Per 8-hour night: about 365 calories at 120 lb, 485 at 160 lb, 610 at 200 lb
Rule of thumb: hours slept × your BMR ÷ 24
Compared with sitting: sleeping burns roughly 30% less than sitting quietly awake
Full day without exercise: about 1,500 to 2,300 calories for most adults

How Many Calories Do You Burn Sleeping, by Body Weight?

The table below uses a midpoint of 0.38 calories per pound per hour, which lines up with what BMR equations predict for typical adults. Your real number can easily run 10% to 15% higher or lower, depending on your muscle mass, age, and sex (more on that below).

Body Weight	Per Hour	7 Hours	8 Hours	9 Hours
120 lb (54 kg)	~45 cal	~320 cal	~365 cal	~410 cal
140 lb (64 kg)	~55 cal	~370 cal	~425 cal	~480 cal
160 lb (73 kg)	~60 cal	~425 cal	~485 cal	~545 cal
180 lb (82 kg)	~70 cal	~480 cal	~545 cal	~615 cal
200 lb (91 kg)	~75 cal	~530 cal	~610 cal	~685 cal
220 lb (100 kg)	~85 cal	~585 cal	~670 cal	~750 cal
250 lb (113 kg)	~95 cal	~665 cal	~760 cal	~855 cal

In metric terms, that is roughly 0.85 calories per kilogram per hour.

Other sources land on either side of this. The Compendium of Physical Activities rates sleeping at about 0.9 to 0.95 METs, which works out to about 0.41 to 0.43 calories per pound per hour, a little higher than the table. Harvard Health's activity chart is lower: it lists 19, 22 and 26 calories per 30 minutes of sleep for people weighing 125, 155 and 185 pounds, or about 38 to 52 calories an hour. The midpoint above sits between those two and matches most BMR-based estimates.

The more accurate way: start from your BMR

Your BMR is the energy your body uses at complete rest just to stay alive. Calorimetry research shows that overnight energy expenditure is very close to BMR. In a room-calorimeter study of 69 adults published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, metabolic rate dipped about 10% below BMR during the lowest hour of sleep, but the average across the whole night was essentially the same as BMR.

That gives you a simple personal formula:

Calories burned sleeping ≈ (BMR ÷ 24) × hours slept

For example, a 40-year-old, 5'4" woman who weighs 160 pounds has a BMR of about 1,385 calories using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation. Divide by 24 and you get about 58 calories an hour, or about 460 calories over 8 hours of sleep.

Get your own BMR in a few seconds with the BMR Calculator. If you want to know why that formula is the one most dietitians use, see our breakdown of the Mifflin-St Jeor equation.

What Affects How Many Calories You Burn While Sleeping

Because sleeping burn tracks your BMR so closely, the same factors that raise or lower BMR drive your overnight number.

Body size

This is the biggest factor by far. A larger body has more tissue to maintain, so it burns more around the clock. That is why the table above scales almost directly with weight. At higher body weights the per-pound rate drifts a little lower, because fat tissue uses less energy than organs and muscle.

Muscle mass

At the same weight, a person with more lean mass has a higher BMR, so they burn somewhat more overnight. The effect is real but smaller than fitness marketing suggests. Building a few pounds of muscle adds a modest number of calories per day, not hundreds. Strength training and walking still matter, mostly because they help you keep muscle as you age and while you diet.

Age and sex

BMR tends to drift down with age, partly because many people lose muscle over time. Men usually burn more than women of the same weight, largely because they tend to carry more lean mass. In the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, the difference between a man and a woman of identical height, weight and age is 166 calories a day, or about 55 calories over an 8-hour night.

Sleep stages and wake time

Your metabolic rate is not flat through the night. A whole-room calorimetry study of 12 men by Katayose and colleagues found energy expenditure falls through the first half of the night and stays low until waking, and some studies report that REM sleep runs slightly higher than deep sleep. The stage-by-stage findings are mixed, though. The more consistent finding is that time spent awake in bed burns more than any stage of sleep.

That doesn't make poor sleep a weight-loss strategy. In a small study in the Journal of Physiology, staying awake all night raised nighttime energy expenditure by about 32% and total 24-hour burn by about 7%, but the body compensated with lower energy expenditure during recovery sleep afterward. And as you'll see below, short sleep tends to increase how much you eat by more than it increases what you burn.

Room temperature, illness, and late meals

A cold bedroom, a fever, or a large meal close to bedtime can all nudge overnight burn up slightly. None of these is a meaningful lever for weight control. Treat them as reasons your tracker's sleep calories vary night to night, not as tactics.

Calories Burned Sleeping vs. Lying Awake and Sitting

Sleep is the lowest-burn activity of your day, but not by as much as people assume. The Compendium of Physical Activities rates sitting quietly while watching TV at about 1.3 METs, compared with 0.9 to 0.95 for sleeping. Harvard's chart shows an even wider gap: a 155-pound person burns 22 calories in 30 minutes of sleep and 40 calories in 30 minutes of sitting and reading.

Activity (160 lb person)	Approx. Calories per Hour
Sleeping	~60
Lying awake, resting	~65 to 75
Sitting quietly, watching TV	~85 to 95
Standing quietly	~75 to 95
Walking at 3 mph	~250

The real gap opens up once you're on your feet. One hour of easy walking burns about four times what an hour of sleep does, which is why daily movement, not overnight burn, is where most of the difference between people's daily calorie totals comes from.

How Many Calories Do You Burn a Day Without Exercise?

Sleep is only one slice of your day. The total number of calories burned in a day, called total daily energy expenditure (TDEE), has four parts:

Component	What It Is	Share of Daily Burn
BMR	Keeping you alive at rest, including during sleep	About 60% to 70%
Thermic effect of food (TEF)	Digesting and processing what you eat	About 8% to 15%
NEAT	All daily movement that isn't planned exercise: walking around, chores, standing, fidgeting	About 15% to 50%
Exercise	Planned workouts	0% on a rest day

Those ranges come from the International Society of Sports Nutrition. NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) has the widest spread. Mayo Clinic researcher James Levine, who has led much of the research on NEAT, has found that daily activity can differ by as much as 2,000 calories a day between people of similar size, mostly because some people simply move more throughout the day.

So how many calories do you burn a day without exercise? A common starting point is your BMR × 1.2 for a sedentary day, or × 1.375 for a lightly active day with more walking. Here's what that looks like for a few example adults, all age 40, using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation:

Example Person	BMR	Burned During 8 Hours of Sleep	Sedentary Day (BMR × 1.2)	Lightly Active Day (BMR × 1.375)
Woman, 5'4", 130 lb	~1,250	~415	~1,500	~1,715
Woman, 5'4", 160 lb	~1,385	~460	~1,660	~1,900
Woman, 5'4", 190 lb	~1,520	~505	~1,825	~2,090
Man, 5'10", 160 lb	~1,645	~550	~1,970	~2,260
Man, 5'10", 190 lb	~1,780	~595	~2,135	~2,445
Man, 5'10", 220 lb	~1,915	~640	~2,300	~2,635

Two things stand out. First, sleep alone accounts for roughly a quarter of a sedentary person's daily burn. Second, the gap between a sedentary day and a lightly active day is 200 to 350 calories, and you don't need a single workout to close it. Steps alone can do it.

To get your own number, use the TDEE Calculator. For a deeper look at how these two numbers relate, read BMR vs TDEE or our full guide to what TDEE is. Keep in mind these are estimates; prediction equations can be off by 10% or more for an individual.

How Walking Adds to the Calories You Burn in a Day

If BMR (including the calories you burn sleeping) is the fixed part of your day, walking is the part you control. As a rough guide, a 160-pound person burns about 40 calories per 1,000 steps at a moderate pace. Subtract the calories you would have burned sitting anyway, and the true extra is about 30 calories per 1,000 steps.

Extra Steps per Day	Extra Calories per Day (160 lb)	Extra Calories per Week
+2,000	~60 to 80	~420 to 560
+4,000	~120 to 160	~840 to 1,120
+6,000	~180 to 240	~1,260 to 1,680
+8,000	~240 to 320	~1,680 to 2,240

Put another way, adding about 4,000 steps to a sedentary day burns roughly as many extra calories as two to three hours of sleep. Heavier people burn more per step, and walking uphill or faster raises the number further. Plug in your own weight and step count with the Steps to Calories Calculator, or see how much a hill adds in our guide to calories burned walking on an incline.

One caution: treadmill and watch calorie readouts often include your resting burn, so they can make a walk look bigger than the true extra. Our breakdown of whether treadmill calories are accurate explains how to read them.

Does Sleep Affect Weight Loss?

The calories you burn sleeping don't change much from night to night. What you do while you're awake changes a lot depending on how well you slept, and that is where sleep really matters for weight.

Short sleep raises appetite hormones. In a University of Chicago study published in Annals of Internal Medicine (2004), 12 healthy young men who spent only 4 hours in bed for two nights had 18% lower leptin (the "I'm full" hormone), 28% higher ghrelin (the "I'm hungry" hormone), and reported 24% more hunger than after two nights of extended sleep.

Short sleep leads to eating more than you burn. In a 2013 inpatient study in PNAS, five days of 5-hour sleep opportunities raised daily energy expenditure by roughly 5%, but people ate more than enough to cancel it out, especially after dinner, and gained an average of about 0.8 kg (1.8 lb) during the short-sleep phase (Markwald et al.).

Short sleep shifts what you lose when dieting. In a small 2010 crossover trial, 10 overweight adults followed the same calorie-reduced diet for two weeks with either 8.5 or 5.5 hours in bed. With less sleep, the share of weight lost as fat dropped by 55% (1.4 kg vs. 0.6 kg of fat), and loss of fat-free mass rose by 60% (Nedeltcheva et al., Annals of Internal Medicine). The scale moved similarly, but the quality of the weight lost was worse.

More sleep can mean fewer calories eaten. In a 2022 randomized trial in JAMA Internal Medicine, 80 overweight adults who usually slept under 6.5 hours received a single personalized sleep-coaching session. They gained about 1.2 hours of sleep a night and ate about 270 fewer calories a day than the control group, measured objectively rather than by food diaries (University of Chicago summary). The researchers noted it was not a weight-loss study, but the effect on intake was meaningful.

The takeaway: sleeping more won't burn many extra calories, but getting 7 or more hours can make it easier to eat less and keep muscle while you lose fat. Daytime walking helps from the other side too. Our guide to whether walking helps you sleep covers the research and the best time of day to walk.

How to Burn More Calories, Day and Night

You can't do much to make sleep itself burn more, but you can raise the total:

Protect your BMR while dieting. Avoid very aggressive deficits, eat enough protein, and do some strength work so the weight you lose comes mostly from fat. A moderate target from the Calorie Deficit Calculator is a safer starting point than a crash diet.
Build NEAT with steps. Walking breaks, phone calls on your feet, and parking farther away add up to hundreds of calories a day without a workout.
Aim for 7 or more hours of sleep. It won't move your overnight burn, but it helps keep hunger hormones and late-night snacking in check.
Use real numbers. Base your plan on your own BMR and TDEE instead of a generic 2,000-calorie figure.

Track Your Daily Burn With Steps

Your overnight calories are mostly fixed. Your steps aren't. Steps: Workout & Pedometer tracks your steps, distance, and active calories on iPhone and Apple Watch automatically, so you can see how much each day's movement adds on top of your resting burn. Set a daily step goal, watch your streak, and see which days were truly active and which were mostly sitting.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many calories do you burn sleeping 8 hours?

Most adults burn about 400 to 650 calories in 8 hours of sleep. A 140-pound person burns about 425, a 160-pound person about 485, and a 200-pound person about 610. For a personal estimate, divide your BMR by 3.

Do you burn more calories sleeping or sitting?

Sitting. Sitting quietly awake burns roughly 35% to 45% more than sleeping, because muscle tone, posture, and brain activity all rise when you're awake. Even lying awake in bed burns slightly more than sleeping.

How many calories do you burn a day without exercise?

Most adults burn about 1,500 to 2,300 calories a day without any planned exercise. Your BMR (including sleep) makes up 60% to 70% of that, digestion adds about 10%, and everyday movement makes up the rest. Use a TDEE calculator with a sedentary activity level for your own estimate.

How many calories do you burn in a day on average?

On a sedentary day, many women burn roughly 1,500 to 1,900 calories and many men about 1,950 to 2,300. A lightly active day adds another 200 to 350 calories, and very active people can burn well over 3,000.

Can you lose weight while you sleep?

You do lose a small amount of weight overnight, mostly water through breathing and sweat, plus the 400 to 650 calories your body burns. That calorie burn happens every night regardless, so the lasting change comes from your daytime calorie balance. Good sleep helps by keeping appetite hormones in check.

Do you burn more calories in REM sleep?

Some calorimetry studies find energy expenditure is slightly higher during REM sleep than deep sleep, but others find no clear difference between stages. The difference is small either way and not something you can control for weight loss.

Does sleeping more burn more calories?

Only in the sense that each extra hour of sleep burns 45 to 95 calories, which you would burn at least as fast awake. The bigger benefit of sleeping more is indirect: well-rested people tend to eat fewer calories, as the 2022 sleep-extension trial showed.

The Bottom Line on Calories Burned Sleeping

So, how many calories do you burn sleeping? For most adults it's about 50 to 80 calories an hour, or 400 to 650 a night, set almost entirely by your body size and BMR. That burn is steady and mostly out of your control. What you can control is the rest of your day: how much you move, how much you eat, and whether you sleep enough to keep hunger in check. Start with your BMR, add your steps, and you'll have a far better picture of your real daily burn.

Ready to see what your steps add to your daily burn? Download Steps to track every step, walk, and active calorie, free on iPhone and Apple Watch.