How much sleep do you need?
 

Just curious. I get less sleep than the 'required' eight hours on a regular basis. But then occasionally when I get very little sleep I feel like complete crap all day and I wonder if I normally got a greater amount then I could more easily dip below to very little sleep.

Sometimes getting too much is more exhausting than not getting enough.
Maybe too much rearrangement of the brain is a bad thing.

I can manage on 6, I do best on 7. The problem I have is that I have to go to bed early, I have a very hard time sleeping in past 6am. I tend to get up around 4:30am for work.

I think getting enough sleep is very important for a clear mind, for getting creative juices flowing, being productive, *and* for staying healthy.

Depends what I'm doing. If I have activities to keep me occupied (travelling, going out drinking, sex, outdoor activities) I can get by just fine day after day on 2-5 hours of sleep. If I don't have anything to do then I'll be in bed between 10 and 11 and up at 7.

I've always needed more sleep - 8.5 hours is perfect. However, I usually get 5-6. That's not awful, but I end up worn out after a week of it. The worst is 7 hours - I wake up utterly exhausted. I think it has something to do with sleep cycles, and at 7 hours I wake up in the middle of one, or something.

I'm lucky if I get 2 hours. I think this past week I've had a total of 5 from Sunday until today.

I definitively need more than 8! How much more? No clue, my rythm barely gets a week or two to settle before I start messing with it ;)

I need 7 to function. If I get more than that I'm actually really sluggish. But how I miss the days when I could lay in bed for like 10 hours and feel fine.
Sucks getting older.

8+ and no less. I love my sleep and that's that.

recently, i tried getting 8 or less but find myself sleeping past the alarm into 9 or 10hrs of sleep. but it's just the time of day. going to bed at 12am will be REALLY hard to wake up at 8. but going to bed at 4 will be easy to wake up at 12pm. i guess i'll never be a real morning person.

if i dont get a good 12 hours i get cranky

Depends on the day really. There are time when I feel just fine with 4 hours of sleep. Then there are other times that I feel absolutely exhausted even though I've slept 12 hours. Then there are the times that I can't sleep at all, boy are those fun. Nothing like gaming all night long.

With our newborn, I'm usually getting around 5hrs a night and seem to be doing OK. That's because my job isn't too stressful or physically demanding.

It's on the weekends when we're corralling the kids and running errands that I really feel my lack of sleep. Afternoon naps are a must and Kids willing, we can add an extra hour or two then.

Last night was a sweet 7hrs.

I'm in bed a good 9-10 hours on days I don't have to wake up for anything, but I don't sleep that entire time. I wake up about every two hours, get re-comfy and fall back to sleep. I think I need a new bed-I can sleep less anywhere else but home and feel ok. At home, I feel crappy hours after awakening. Of course, anywhere else and I'm sleeping alone-that helps a lot as well since there's no one snoring or sharing space.

I like about 7.5 hours of sleep a night, but I've got to wake up on my own or else I just feel groggy for the rest of the day. I absolutely have to wake up at the right point in my sleep cycle or else I'll feel like a drunken sailor for most of the morning, very groggy and out of it.

The days where I wake up at the right point and the right time are amazing. The rest require vast amounts of coffee.

Who the hell voted for 8+?


You bastards.

I used to be fine with 6 hours or less, but now I do better with 7-8 hours. I guess I'm getting old.

Prolly my 19 year old neice-spends at least 16hrs a day in bed if allowed (the rest is spent out partying.........oh to be 19 again!) :shakehead: :thumbsup:

Asleep by midnight and up at 6:30, but I wake up all the time in the middle of the night, sometimes for a total of 15 minutes other times two hours. I seem to be fine through out the day though

I need 6-7 but I generally get 5-6....7 hours is my ideal....I cannot sleep 8 hours, it gives me a headache.

hmm.. i was intending of picking 5-7 :\.... so which do i pick 4-6 or 6-8... either one messes up the overall image of it. ah well.

7 hours seems to be the magic number for me... any more and i'm groggy the entire day and any less and i'm irritable for at least 1/2 the day.

I would love it if someone would invent a pill that somehow concentrates your sleep cycles so that you can get the equivilant of 8 hours in 20 or 30 minutes. I'd make it myself and become a millionaire, but I'm no scientist... so I leave the idea to the rest of you. :)

I honestly go to sleep when I'm tired and wake up when I'm not.

I need 6-8 hours. I usually get 2-4. Insomnia and a lot of school work sucks.

With my old job, I usually got 5-6. I need between 7 and 8 to function well, and I don't think that's going to be a problem with my new job.

I sleep about 6 hours a night during the week, but even then I wake up quite a bit. A sneeze here, an urge to piss there, a really freaky vivid dream about walking around high school with no pants on (last night's main event).

On the weekends, I make myself stay in bed longer. I just get "re-comfy"--love that word :) --and have at it.

i'm happy with 6. 7 is perfect. 8 and i'll be refreshed for longer. but less than 6 and i start loosing my mind. over 8 when i have nothing to do. so i voted 8+. i'm sure if EVERYONE had nothing to do in their lives(no jobs), they'd sleep longer.

I can't ever understand how anyone could do differently...

Really? Well I stay up either doing work or just playing around for at least an hour after I'm actually tired. Then I wake up at the last possible moment so I can get ready for work/school/event rather I am still tired or not. Granted, I always like it when I'm not un-tired, but that seems to be a minority of days. In all fairness though, the tiredness wares off after somewhere between 15 min. and 2 hours later rather I've had 8 hours or 1 so that leads me to believe that I'm just a guy that hates getting out of bed in the morning, but is responsible enough to (almost) always do so.

I understand *feeling* tired or groggy, but whenever my body *needs* sleep, it has. And when it needs to wake up, it does. I can get by for weeks on a couple hours of sleep per day. But maybe that's a function of my living contexts ;)

My wife, on the other hand, goes down with the sun when she's not at work. She can't keep her eyes open for a midnight movie!

I don't need to sleep. I frequently go days without sleeping (I've been told it's not healthy, but I don't care).

Well, I voted for 8+, but I really only get about 5-6. Between work, projects, kids up late, I'm not in bed when I want to be, and I get up while I'm still tired as hell. What can you do though!

I do exactly the same: Mess around with something (games, music, forums) at least until midnight, and then force myself up using at least two alarms, then run to make my lectures. Unless I'm with my girlfriend, she needs around an hour less than me, and wakes up very easily.

I am happiest with 9. I can survive on 7 for a few days though.

^^ On an entirely random note, I love that someone in Norway and someone in New Jersey do things the same way. :p

/end threadjack

About 7 hours is sufficient for me, but going back to sleep for another 2-3 hours after that is simply divine. When I can do that on the weekend, it's the best rest I get all week. When I took a trip to Japan after high school, my host father told me about how that "second sleep" is the most restful and that most people around there wake up with the sun and then fall back asleep for another couple of hours. I don't know what it is about that, but ever since I started setting on alarm for 5am (to go to the bathroom) and then another for 7am, waking up hasn't seemed so bad. As long as I'm in bed by midnight, the 5 hours--> go pee --> 2 hours schedule works like a charm. Of course, three out of four nights I just stay up too late and skip setting the early alarm to avoid disrupting my sleep cycle too much.

...I should really make myself get to bed on time. :P

I love that you use *at least* two alarms. I thought I was the only person that does that. It drove one of my friends I used to live with nuts because he was a light sleeper so by the time my second alarm went off he would be up for the day. Anymore, I am using three alarms. I have two on my clock that I set between 5-15 minutes apart for the ideal time I want to get up then I have an electronic cooking timer that I set when I go to bed as my last resort alarm, in case I say 'screw it' to my plans for getting up a bit earlier and doing stuff.

Well I am strongly Norwegian by heritage, maybe it heralds back to our ancestors days of looting, pillaging, and boozing all night then having to get up early and haul our booty back to our wives and children. ;-)

Between 5 and 8 hours.

Too much sleep is bad.

I try to get between 6-8 hours of sleep.. but during school it usually ends up only being around 3-6 depending on a given night. I've found that surviving on 2 hour naps also seems to work out pretty well.

I sleep days and I still try to get 6 to 8 hours. Being a sound sleeper and having very dark shades helps. On my days off I tend to over sleep if I can. 8 to 10 hours.