Poll How much time do you need to sleep ?

[N_Molson]

We were joking about Urwumpe being a bot and all that on the other thread, but that made me think : maybe it's a matter of time you need to sleep to be "fully operational".

For exemple, my doctor, which is known has being workaholic because he starts at 8 AM and closes the building at 9 PM, says he needs only to sleep 2 hours by nights, so he has plenty of time anyway. He looks perfectly calm, balanced, and the numerous photographs all across his desk show a well-filled family life. Besides of that he is 60 and could certainly beat me at any sport.

This is an extreme example and few people have that luck, but I was wondering : how much time do you need to sleep, provided you have a calm night (no noise, no nightmares etc...) to feel really well ?

I've heard that the "normal" number is 8 hours. In my case, I can say it is quite precisely 8 hours and 30 minutes. Only 8 hours and I will feel tired all the day long.

So I was a bit curious about this, thanks for answering the poll or sharing experiences about this.

Note : if, like me, you need to sleep something like 8 hours 30 minutes, please answer the upper choice (9 hours).

 

[Loru]

Usually 6 hours however when lots of manual labor occured previous day I need 8-9 hours

 

[Quick_Nick]

Probably 9 hours to be completely rested. I generally sleep 8 hours. I can manage 6 alright but probably need a nap. And would only try 4 hours in rare circumstances.
I can sleep alllll day though if given the choice. :lol:

 

[astrosammy]

Today it was eight hours, kind of usual for me. When I'm really tired and don't set an alarm clock, I sometimes end up with 14 hours. Five hours seem to be my absolute minimum.

 

[dgatsoulis]

5-6 hours, sometimes as little as 4 but average is ~5½. (I voted 6).
I got used to that amount of sleep during my army service and have kept it since. About once every couple of weeks I do catch a lazy afternoon nap for a couple of hours, usually on Sundays.

 

[N_Molson]

BTW, my personal record is 15 hours : it was when I went to Canada. I had to board the plane in Paris at 6 AM, with the safety checks it meant being there at 3 AM, I was 400 kilometers aways so 4 hours of car and no sleep that night. I had to carry a 35 kg bagpack and was too excited to sleep in the plane. Once in Montreal-Mirabel (now closed), there was a bus for Montreal downtown (40 kilometers), and from there I had to take another bus to my destination (Sherbrooke, 250 kilometers away, nearly 3 hours of bus). Once there, I had to meet a contact (I obviously lost her phone number), and loitered in the streets another couple of hours. After she found me, I fell in a coma-like sleep for those 15 hours. Of course with the jet lag I waked up completely lost in space and time. It was so weird.

On the other side, it happened me several times not to sleep at all while having to work a full day after. This is hardcore stuff, requires a lots of mugs of coffee and cause uncontrolable shaking of the hands, and a tendancy to agressivity (the nervous system is giving up at this point and reverts to basic instinct).

 

[PhantomCruiser]

It's rare that I can get 8 hours. Usually I run on 5 to 6, depends on the neighbors dogs (I really don't like little bitty dogs with their high pitched yelps and yips). I've survived for weeks on just 4 hours, but I'm one grouchy dude after a while. And I'm not fond of falling asleep at the wheel on my drive to or from work.

 

[Urwumpe]

Something between 8 and 9 hours to be fully recharged and at full capacity. But I can also run on acceptable levels with just 4 hours of sleep and a direct caffeine injection.

 

[garyw]

7 hours on average. If I sleep more than 8 I get a bad headache.

There are some interesting articles on sleep debt and how the 8 hour sleep is actually a modern invention/myth.

 

[sorindafabico]

At least 8 hours, but I sleep up to 10-12 hours if the alarm clock is off.

 

[astrosammy]

Great articles. I actually love to wake up at night, just to take a look at the clock and see that I have many hours left to get some more sleep.
But I rarely use this do do something else...

 

[fsci123]

When I have my schedule fully under my control like when im not at my parents house i can sleep at least 5 hours. During the summer I had adopted a wacky schedule of going to bed around 2 or 2:30 and waking up around 5 and i had repeated that schedule for about 2 weeks without further sliding down the chute of insanity.

 

[Izack]

Nine hours to feel fully rested. The occasional all-nighter doesn't interfere much, as long as it is done only infrequently.

 

[Evil_Onyx]

I can operate with 3, 5, 7 or 9 hours sleep, I have no idea why I can only get a good night sleep with odd hours (rather than even). If woken up on a even hour it takes me hours to get going in the morning.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

Unfortunately, I really need about 12-14 hours of "sleep" now. Only 6-8 may actually be spent sleeping, but given how badly everything else is going, those 6-8 out of 12-14 are crucial for me to be functional during the day. Usually though I only get about 10 hours, out of which 5-6 are spent sleeping.

 

[Tommy]

I can do with 7 hours, or 9 hours, but 8 doesn't work - it's right in the middle of REM and if woken I am out of sorts, thickheaded (even more than usual) and quite cranky all day.

 

[N_Molson]

The poll is already forming a nice Gauss curve, centered on 8 hours, as expected. Keep voting ! :thumbup:

So it seems that 7-8 hours is the average for now.

 

[Mojave]

I like to get as much as possible but I can usually operate well with 4-5 hours of sleep.

 

[Pipcard]

Currently, I sleep at 12 a.m. and wake up between 6 and 7 a.m.

 

[Krikkit]

On workdays, if I don't get at least 8 hours I will fall asleep at my desk. But I think this is boredom. On the weekends when there are chores and socializing to do I can go two or three nights straight with 4 hours or less and feel wide awake all day. Left to my own rhythms I will generally sleep 10-11 hours a night. Since I was furloughed with the government shutdown I have been staying up later and waking up later every day. I think I naturally work on a 32 hour sleep-wake schedule.