Optimal amount of sleep?

It's so individual though - my girlfriend needs 8 minimum, ideally 9.

sadly, the optimal amount of waking life = considerably less than 24 hrs minus my optimal amount of sleep

My body usually forces me (i.e. snooze button) to get around 8 a night. It's been more like 6-7 lately though, so yay, I get to live longer?

I get between 6 and 8 every night, pretty much.

Moi aussi. The afternoon marathon naps are beginning to wear on my girlfriend's nerves.

Over the last year or so I have found I really suffer if I don't get 8 hours almost every night. But I am more active now ie taking much more exercise.

And also: it's not just how long you sleep, but the quality of the sleep that counts, so 8 hours of booze-zonked kip is not as good as 6 hours of deep, lovely, sweet sleep mmm sleep.. zzzzz

4 hours sleep = Up and out the door in 15 minutes, but hit the wall about 6 hours later. Also, you have _no_ margin of error if you start to feel a little ill.

Having said that, I sleep between 5 and 2 hours a night, depending on what's going on in my head. It's been like that since I was about 16, with the occasional lay-down-to-take-a-nap-on-Friday-evening-before-going-out-and-waking-up-at-noon-on-Saturday.

one of the reasons that alcohol makes you tired is that it dehydrates you. you must, must drink water; being dehydrated makes you very tired. once yr thirsty, yr already dehydrated. hydrate!! 64 oz. a day at *least* and 8 oz. for every cup of coffee or alcoholic drink you have.

i lecture cos i care... :D

Oh, I realize the hell out of it, but that realization doesn't help me sleep.

oh wait, that's not optimal

Yeah, me too.

I don't know why people spend money on mind-altering drugs when there is sleep deprivation just lying around.

But I learned it good - I'm sitting in bed with a laptop, a coffee and ILX.

David Steele MP said that whenever he got into long bouts of black depression he'd just go away and have a long sleep.

Paul Morley has said he thought all his dad needed was a good, long sleep.

What's IM?

at that point, the main urge is to see if i can just go back to sleep for the rest of the night.

wooo! my life is filled with thrills & chills n' shit!

Nights in the pub kind of knock out this pattern a bit.

I can sleep 14 hours on a weekend night easily.

plus, i often take a nap as soon as i get home before i go out. anywhere from 15 mins to 2 hours. i love naps.

let me say it again, as i'm looking forward to one soon: i love naps.

on a rare weekend when i know i can, after laying there for a while and perhaps relieving myself, i can go back to sleep.

seems like it might suck, but i've grown quite used to it. after a few years, it becomes automatic. and if i get too much sleep, you might as well count me out of anything and everything that involves moving or coordination for at least the next week.

(one of the reasons i like my job)

If you're staying awake worrying at night, here's another major worry you can add to the list:

People who scrimp on sleep are more likely to develop hardening of their arteries, a precursor to heart disease, research suggests. Calcified arteries were found in nearly a third of people who slept fewer than five hours a night.

doesn't sleeping too much kill you too? Lose-lose.

I'm currently sleeping until 3pm most days, needing at least 10 hours of sleep before I can get up. Which is annoying, because if I have to get up I can comfortably function on four hours. Stupid being a part-time student. But hey, starting work soon, an extra few hours to my day I'm sure. I wanna be able to get by on six or seven hours of sleep.

I <3 my internal clock. It wakes me up after 7 hours pretty reliably, no alarm clocks needed.

I don't think 'too much sleep' will kill you.

I've never seen any compelling research to suggest this, other than the theory that there may be a general trend that those who sleep in excess of 10 hours may have a sedentary lifestyle which itself carries certain risks for length of life-expectancy.

When I was on my 56 Hours/Week nonstop "go to class on your days off work" schedule this spring it was insane: on a lucky day I'd get 5 hours sleep overnight. I did a lot of research on maximizing energy with minimum sleep and discovered that you can get by normally as long as you sleep four 90 minute cycles--6 hours total--during a 24 hour period. In order to get by I'd sleep around 4.5 hours overnight (2:00--6:30ish) and then squeeze in a nap on the bus. I was still frequently tired, but I wasn't fried and I was able to keep my focus throughout the semester.

I did a lot of research on maximizing energy with minimum sleep and discovered that you can get by normally as long as you sleep four 90 minute cycles--6 hours total--during a 24 hour period.

i totally buy the sleep cycles thing, about multiples of 90 being superior to waking up half way through one, even if you get more sleep overall. but it's so hard to plan: if you're super tired and will sleep as soon as you hit the pillow, it's easy to work out. otherwise there should be some kind of sleep sensitive alarm clock to plan it out.

i think six hours is a pretty good amount, with uncontrollable excessive slumber at the weekends.

if there were no alarm clocks i would sleep forever : /

I never seem to get enough sleep during my normal routine.

For example I felt so much better even after just 3 days at home over Christmas thanks to getting a proper 8 or so hours a night, rather than my usual 7 or less.

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/10/16/lack-of-sleep-a-universal-problem-for-humans/

i don't see how "historically we've always slept less than 8 hours" == "possible health benefits of sleeping for more than 6.5 hours not worth discussing". kind of missing a step there. straw man-y. reminds me of that study on organic food a few years back that focused on comparative nutritional value, as if nutritional value was the main reason people push for organic!

24 hours would be optimal

i sleep 6.5 hours during the week. smoke weed at 10 pm, in bed watching tv with my girlfriend between 10-11pm, fall asleep between 11:30pm and midnight, alarm goes off at 6:15 am, i snooze until 6:45. sleep in late on weekends. usually too tired to go out fridays, but not painfully tired during the week. i think this is sub-optimal, but it's hard to get to sleep any earlier.

cut out whatever you're doing between 11 and 11.30/12:00

On weekdays I'll go to bed b/w 10:45 and 11:15, sleep till 6:20. On weekends no matter how late I'm out -- not too late these days -- I'll still get up at 7-7:15 a.m. I can't linger in bed, never been able to.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Uberman.svg/200px-Uberman.svg.png

me

not answering this thread btw

you will all hate me more than you already do

You go to bed listening to Interpol.

seven hours usually my optimal I think, now that I'm allowed sleep again.

I roll over for an extra hour in the morning 90% of the time tho I always promise myself I won't the night before

Technically I'm getting 8+ hours a night, but every night is bisected by 60 minutes of "what the fuck am I doing with my life" racing thoughts before regaining unconsciousness.

fuuuck that noise. worst.

Lack of sleep linked to risk factors for diabetes and heart disease

I usually go to bed at quarter past/half past 10, fall asleep in about 5-10 minutes, then get up at quarter to/ten to 6. So that's about 7 and a half hours sleep a night. Often I'll get up between 2 and 3 and stretch for ten minutes before going back to sleep. Honestly my biggest problem ATM re sleep is that I don't seem to move about much when I am asleep. I tend to stay in the same position and several hours of that = muscle pain which takes maybe an hour to wear off in the morning.

I usually can operate well enough with about 6.5 hours a night, but after 4 or 5 nights of that I can use an 8 hour night to sort of fill in the gaps. If I get significantly less than 6.5 hours one night I manage OK the following day, but I am definitely behind on sleep until I get at least 7 or 8 hours.

there still seems to be a degree of disagreement between researchers about "correct" amount of sleep and about the potential health consequences of a deficit/surplus, but i am fairly convinced that a major life change that's enabled me to manage my mental health better than I had for 20-odd years has been making myself take more sleep and develop a better sleep routine

Honestly my biggest problem ATM re sleep is that I don't seem to move about much when I am asleep. I tend to stay in the same position and several hours of that = muscle pain which takes maybe an hour to wear off in the morning.

YESSSSSSS I don't move at all until I wake up so I have to choose a "neutral" spine position and get comfy.

Right now my problem isn't how much sleep, it's which hours of the day. Waking up at 5.30 or 6am for work is making me a zombie during the day but I can't sleep through the night hardly ever. I wake up at 2.30 or 3.30 with my mind racing and by the time I fall back asleep I can't make up the lost 1-2 hours.

most nights between 8 and 9 hours -- sleep from 3:30 am to a little before noon; only set the alarm if I am required to have some work meeting before 1pm (which is about once a month), rarely wake up in the middle of the night.

10:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. with a wake or two during the night, but I can usually fall back asleep pretty easily. 9 hours is what my body would do naturally; I can manage on less if needed, but try to just get my 9 and feel good.