How many hours do you sleep a night?

[bassnation]

marcus, does the hypnotherapy work? i'd be seriously interested in trying this. it's been a bit better over the past few weeks, but i routinely get three hours a night, often a lot less. it's not like i don't want or need the sleep, either. i'm shattered all the time and pretty grumpy. at weekends i'll often collapse for 10-15 hours to catch up but that's not really very useful...

fuck dave, thats not good. how does your job work, do you have to be up working at a certain time or does it allow for more flexibility?

 

[john eden]

i love how definitive and absolute your answer is. are you sure? even with kids? i bet you aren't the kind of man to stay in bed while your missus feeds the younguns, you are way too considerate for that.

Nah I try to get to bed earlier than midnight. Have to get up at 7. Which is when breakfast for the cat/daughter/me happens. She can tell the time now... when it suits her. And the missus stays in bed until I leave for work!

I mean it can be later to bed if I've been out, and today I had to leave work early so I got up at 6, but 7 hours sleep is the usual!

Anyway, I'm off to brush me teeth now....

 

[redcrescent]

I think about 6 hours not counting the semi-conscious coffee sipping, when I drink too much it's usually a great deal less, no clue why but maybe it's just a survival instinct.

Has anyone tried sleeping according to their sleep cycle (described here)? Basically, it's much easier to wake up during a REM phase (occurs usually every 90-120 minutes) than when you are in deep sleep - this explains why you might feel more tired sleeping 4 instead of 3 hours - so you should aim to sleep in multiples of 1.5 hours (i.e. 3, 4.5, 6, etc). I generally stick to this and I think it works provided you have a fairly constant level of activity during the day.

A friend swears by polyphasic sleep (sleeping 20 minutes every 3-4 hours) which is easier to do if you work from home, once every two weeks or so he'll do a full 12-15 hours to recover and he seems to get by OK.

 

[martin]

Thatcher used to boast about only sleeping 4 hours each night, didn't she? Maybe she wasn't so much mad as over-tired.

 

[simon silverdollar]

A friend swears by polyphasic sleep (sleeping 20 minutes every 3-4 hours) which is easier to do if you work from home, once every two weeks or so he'll do a full 12-15 hours to recover and he seems to get by OK.

i read somewhere that Leonardo da Vinci did that, and he seemed to do alright out of it. i like to maximise my sleeping time, though- i'm quite into sleeping.

 

[redcrescent]

Thatcher used to boast about only sleeping 4 hours each night, didn't she? Maybe she wasn't so much mad as over-tired.

I remember reading the same thing about Bill Clinton - George W. Bush on the other hand is a real sleep hog who by his own admission sleeps very well.

 

[gek-opel]

I find it impossible to sleep for more than two or three hours at a time. Total sleep per night is probably about 4 to 6 hrs a night, with two sessions of sleeping on weekend days to catch up.

This emoticon expresses [perfectly how I feel most mornings...

 

[Canada J Soup]

A friend swears by polyphasic sleep (sleeping 20 minutes every 3-4 hours) which is easier to do if you work from home, once every two weeks or so he'll do a full 12-15 hours to recover and he seems to get by OK.

I know a guy who does this, or something like. He works a day job but also runs his own printing business where a lot of the print runs are done at night. He'll show up at this bar in the neighbourhood where his print shop is at really odd hours, hang out for a while, go back to his print shop to sleep for half an hour and reset the machines, come back to the bar, repeat. You might see him getting some food at 8pm on a Friday night, then at 11pm and 3am dropping in to have a beer, then at 11am the next morning getting coffee. No matter what time it is, he'll always respond "10:15" if you ask him and claims to never sleep for more than an hour. (The funny thing is, he's far from being the strangest person I know in that neighbourhood.)

 

[mos dan]

i'm worried i sleep too much, like 9 hours a night more often than 7. this doesn't really help productivity when you're freelance lol. but also, is it unhealthy to get too much sleep? in the same way it is unhealthy to get too little?

7-8 is supposed to be the perfect amount isn't it?

i have maximum sympathy for insomniacs too, i've had quite a few in my life.

 

[baboon2004]

i'm worried i sleep too much, like 9 hours a night more often than 7. this doesn't really help productivity when you're freelance lol. but also, is it unhealthy to get too much sleep? in the same way it is unhealthy to get too little?

7-8 is supposed to be the perfect amount isn't it?

i have maximum sympathy for insomniacs too, i've had quite a few in my life.

It'd be unhealthy if you're staying in bed after waking up naturally; apart from that, it should be fine.

7-8 is good for most people, but it depends upon your sleep cycles, I think, Mine have definitely changed over the years...

 

[Eric]

Everyone here sleeps so little. You all must be busier than I: usually 8 hours +.

 

[martin]

Everyone here sleeps so little. You all must be busier than I: usually 8 hours +.

Well, I slept precisely 20 minutes last night - I felt wide awake all night and was buzzing with plans of things to do, etc. I don't even feel that tired now, I fancy a pint in fact. I had some steamed vegetables for the first time in a while, so maybe that's behind it.

 

[nomadologist]

i either sleep 12-14 hours, or not at all, there's no real in between

tips for how to kill insomnia without medication are welcome. ambien, clonidine, ativan, nothing works for me.

 

[don_quixote]

8ish, less at weekends. harder to get up with the cold mornings.

i read somewhere that it's more important to be consistent with the time that you wake up than the hours you get in. is that correct?

 

[gek-opel]

i either sleep 12-14 hours, or not at all, there's no real in between

tips for how to kill insomnia without medication are welcome. ambien, clonidine, ativan, nothing works for me.

No sleep medication works for me either (either chemical or natural- the desire to "ride it out" is too strong)... Ive just got very used to feeling like shit most of the time- its very hard to turn off... lots of people I know swear by booze/weed but they fuck up my sleep even more than usual. And to be honest reading theory has only made things worse (though admittedly it is far better to be occupied with that than other stuff)...

 

[nomadologist]

I was like this most of my life, but then I forgot about it for a while...now it's back with a vengeance...

 

[Eric]

I was insomniac or somewhat so until I started to exercise daily (bicycle/swimming). Now I sometimes even fall asleep reading (or maybe it's just the content, reading a lot of math these days ... ) anyway never any trouble sleeping at night unless I've been drinking.

 

[nomadologist]

I really need to go back to the gym. I like the elliptical machine well enough. I remember exercise + topamax = relative happiness and 7 hours of sleep a night...

 

[gek-opel]

A while back I was training to run a marathon. It made things worse (again!) as I was bodily tired but mentally pumped up from the endoprhins/adrenaline etc. Also it seemed to boost testosterone production and made me rage filled at times...

 

[Guybrush]

Also it seemed to boost testosterone production ...

The horror!

I’m not going to bore you again with the merits on working out ... but, like Eric, I easily fall asleep. It takes 5 minutes tops. I sleep 8 hours a night. The people who proud themselves on getting so much done because they sleep so little are full of it, as far as I’m concerned. It’s all about time management.