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Do we really need 8 hours of continuous sleep every night?

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During the week I get about 7 hours and I feel pretty good throughout the day. I've been eating less at breakfast and lunch and I feel A LOT more alert and awake as well.

On the weekends I get about 9-10 hours and it feels awesome.
 
Best thing I have ever done for my physical and mental health is get a good 8 hours of sleep

If you don't spring out if bed, you're not getting enough sleep or excercise.
 
Heck if it is dark out, I stay asleep. I will not wake up normally until it is light out (or my alarm goes off to wake me up).

Even when I do wake up, I'm groggy as anything. It takes me forever to actually be fully awake anymore. On weekends when I don't have to be up by a certain time I can remain in that groggy half-asleep phase in bed for a good 2+ hours.

I could sleep at least 8 hours a night every night all week and I'll still have a hard time getting out of bed. Yes, when I get a lot less than normal then it does make it harder, but it isn't like I can ever just spring out of bed. Even if I wake up later than usual and have to jump up and get moving, I'm still jumping up half awake.
 
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Imp said:
Makes sense... I almost always get up at around the 3-4 mark, lie awake for about an hour, then go back.

The hell am I suppose to do for that 1-2 hours though? Internet isn't exactly very active, I know for a fact that infomercials and TV dies from 3:30am to 5:30am.
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I wouldn't think of watching TV. I sometimes get into a pattern where I wake up in the middle of the night. I sometimes give in and wake up and do things (for instance read, maybe prepare a small meal after a while, I often have a cup of coffee), sometimes I don't and manage to go back to sleep without really waking, but often I can't exactly make out the pattern. For instance, I'm certainly aware that I am close to awake or actually awake but I often (without becoming fully awake) drift into sleep, never realizing that I have done so until I wake up and realize that I'd fallen asleep. I'm not sure I like this.

If I get into a pattern of waking up after maybe 4 hours sleep, doing things for a few hours (typically 2-4 or even 5 hours) I usually go back to sleep for a few hours. I generally have a target wake up time when I do this, idea being that I want to have a total of 8 hours. A few days ago I actually had a total of about 9 1/2 hours one day, and oddly I took a longish nap during that day. It was weird. I think sleep, whenever it happens, can have a very healing effect in the psyche.

I have been an early bird for a long time now and my body clock gets me up and going when I sense that the world around me is waking up, i.e. I hear the sounds of the city coming to life. I used to get to bed later and wake up later. I can do this but when I do it now, it's just a one day thing and I go back to being the early bird. It's not a decision, it's the way I am, I don't attribute it choice.
Bateluer said:
8hrs for me, though I usually get between 6 and 7. I can function on 5, but less than that, and I'm pretty much useless.
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In general I would say this very accurately describes myself, actually, except that I get between 6 1/2 and 7 1/2 usually. I could function on 4 hours but later in the day I'd likely want to take a nap unless the day's activities were especially stimulating, then I could make it through.
 
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The question is used as a rhetorical device, posed for the sake of encouraging its listener to consider a message or viewpoint.
 
16th/17th century? Lots of wars, famine, diseases, etc during that time frame. Maybe people woke up in the middle of the night simply to avoid being robbed or killed? 🙂

I find ~6 hours a night to be ok if I've have something planned for the next day. If I've got nothing planned, then I tend to sleep ~7-8 hours.
 
I wake up naturally after 8-9 hours of sleep otherwise I just spend like 5-6h sleeping and waking up with an alarm clock.
 
spidey07 said:
Best thing I have ever done for my physical and mental health is get a good 8 hours of sleep

If you don't spring out if bed, you're not getting enough sleep or excercise.
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:thumbsup: Emphasis added. Especially important beyond the late 20's years.
 
Once I fall asleep I normally sleep very hard until the alarm kicks in, unless I have to go to the bathroom then I usually wake up, and it takes everything to coax myself to get up to go. This is even worse for the late hours after midnight.
 
coloumb said:
16th/17th century? Lots of wars, famine, diseases, etc during that time frame. Maybe people woke up in the middle of the night simply to avoid being robbed or killed? 🙂

I find ~6 hours a night to be ok if I've have something planned for the next day. If I've got nothing planned, then I tend to sleep ~7-8 hours.
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I did some thinking about this:

In those days they didn't have electricity. If it was dark for 11-12 hours they either slept or burned candles or lamps. There were things that some of them could do during that time, but a lot less than we moderns can do. It didn't matter much when they were awake during those periods. It can be productive to have multiple periods of wakefulness rather than a single period. Today, that's less apt to be the case for most people. Life is more regimented, more structured, more constrained by schedules, making it less practical to have a day vs. night gestalt. Therefore, it's far less common for people to have multiple sleep periods on a daily basis. Ultimately, it's technology that was responsible for the change.
 
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Interesting. I currently have a 1h 40m commute one-way by bus every day. The only way I can manage this and still get enough free time, is by sleeping on the bus (everyone does this). I simply don't have time to sleep for 8 hours at home.

So my current sleeping pattern is:

Go to bed at midnight
Wake up at 04:50am
Stay awake for about an hour, getting prepared, getting on the bus
Fall asleep again on the bus at around 05:50 (it takes about 20 mins to settle down)
Wake up at 07:10, get off the bus and go to work
Work until 3:45pm, get on the bus at 4pm.
Sleep until around 5pm, wake up and listen to audio books or browse the web on phone for the last 40 mins of the commute.

I've been doing this for 5 months so far and it has really become quite routine. I feel a little tired by 3pm, but then the workday is nearly over and I get to sleep for an hour. I actually feel more rested when I get home around 5:40pm than I did when working a more normal (9-5) job, since I've just had an hour's sleep to recharge.
 
dave_the_nerd said:
Still not done?
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Oh I have been done for years. But my ability to sleep has never quite returned. I'll go for weeks on end with 2-3 hours a night. Then I might crash for 14-16 hours one night. Only to return to a 2-3 hour per night schedule.

I'm sure it has screwed with me somehow, but I'm so used to it that I just don't notice anymore.
 
I need at least 8hr blocked off for sleep. I can do 7hr but any less and I'm a zombie. 8-9hr, I'm at my best. Any more and I feel just as bad as if I had slept less than 7. Usually get a pounding headache for the morning. No idea why.

I always wake up at least once at night. Depends on the he day, since I work weird hours. During the week, I get up at 6:30 so I tend to wake around 3-4am. On my days off, I wake around 5-6 and get up around 9.
 
I take a good dose of morphine (Avinza 60mg) plus a bunch of other drugs and I rarely sleep more than an hour at a time. I seem to live in REM and rarely fall into deep sleep.
 
surfsatwerk said:
Anything less than seven hours I'm a train wreck. Will easily sleep nine or ten hours on my days off.
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Yeah...allegedly, the amount of sleep you need decreases as you get older. I'm approaching 30, and 9-11 hours is still just about ideal for me. :\

Damn stupid brain needs way too much downtime, and it's got absolutely no warranty plan to cover this kind of shoddy construction.


I get by on quite a bit less during the week. Oddly, being only partly awake helps keep me from getting really bored at work. On the other hand, I wouldn't much care for the idea of an 8pm bedtime for an 8am job.
 
I got barely 7 last night and felt like shit all day. I'm going to get 7 or less again tonight because I'm a fucking idiot... Wonder how I'll feel tomorrow.
 
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