What is your natural sleep pattern?

[Disposable Hero]

If left to your own devices without such annoying necessities such as work and socialising with others what natural sleep pattern do you fall into?

I've found that if I have a period of time off it feels most comfortable for me to go to bed at two or three am and get up at ten or eleven am, seven hours sleep is about the minimum I can operate on but any longer than eight hours is just more tiring.

If only I could find a job that suited that sort of sleep cycle...

I did used to know a woman who said she would sleep for 48 hours at a time then stay awake for 48 hours It sounds unlikely but she always was a strange one.

[lavenderviolet]

I think my ideal would be to sleep for maybe 6 hrs at night and then take a mid-day nap.

[Alice The Goon]

Midnight to ten a.m. I need a lot of sleep.

[Alan Smithee]

Typically about 2am-noon, but if I had no time cues, I think I'd shift to a roughly 26 hour cycle pretty quickly. I generally like to stay awake as long as I can and sleep as long as I can.

[Taomist]

I figured out, long ago, that I have a longer cycle than we're "supposed" to have. Caffeine may or may not have anything to do with it, but I will be awake, and active, for at least 20 hours before I start to feel tired, naturally. Naturally, this doesn't play well with having a regular job, so...yay for Tylenol PM!

[Max the Immortal]

I, too, will tend to stay awake for 20 hours or more when I don't need to keep to a specific schedule.

[Shagnasty]

You are going to get a biased sample on this board. It tends to attract people with personalities that prefer to be night owls much more than the normal population. I am one too.

I have done the free from responsibility, sleep and wake whenever you want experiment a few times in my adult life and it always works out the same way. I go to bed at about 3am and wake up at 11 am or noon every day within a few days. I can't do that when working full time but I am lucky that I have a job that I only have to be on site for by 10 am and can leave at 6 or 7 pm which is perfect for me as long as I force myself to bed at midnight or 1 am.

I have had jobs where I had to be there at 8 am or even earlier and I WILL degrade over time. There is no amount of willpower that can force me into another sleep schedule without long-term consequences.

I have a special prejudice against early birds or at least their general condescension. I don't sleep any more than most of them and I wonder where are they when I need help working on something difficult at 1 am?

[RetroVertigo]

With no responsibility to worry about, I'll usually end up switching to sleeping from 2-3am to 9-10am. This really comes from working so long in the restaurant/bar industry while putting myself through school.

My wife left to her own would end up sleeping from 4am to sometime the next afternoon, and sometimes evening. Sleep is her hobby. Luckily for me a toddler has broken her of this habit.

[aruvqan]

I have had segmented sleep all my life. I can not remember ever sleeping all night unless given a sedative. Currently thanks to some meds I take, I go to bed around 930, wake up around 11 or 1130, putz around reading or on the computer until around 1 am, then sleep until about 3, then wake up and putz around reading until mrAru and I have breakfast and I take my meds at 5 am, then back to sleep at about 6, sleep until 9 or so, awake until after I take my meds at 1 pm, sleep until about 3 pm, then awake until 930, lather rinse repeat.

Makes road trips and such interesting. I tend to pull into rest areas and sleep in the car when my nap attacks hit.

Back before I had to take meds that knock me out, I would go to bed about 11, wake up at about 1, putz around for a couple hours and crash again around 3, wake up at 5 to do breakfast with mrAru, back to bed about 6 and sleep til 8 or 9. I got in the habit of waking up for breakfast with whomever I was living with back when I lived with a physically abusive man - he wanted me to make his breakfast and make sure his suit was ready/brushed and his shirt was freshly ironed. Since it was no bother to wake up and do breakfast with mrAru, I keep in the habit of doing so - it is sociable to have breakfast with him.

[notfrommensa]

Midnight to 7 am is the pattern I would fall into I think.

[Rhiannon8404]

I prefer if I get 9 hrs of sleep a night. I usually am in bed between 10 pm and 11 pm. I am generally awake around 7am, but if I get to sleep late I can easily sleep until 9am. I think falling asleep around 11pm and waking up at 8am would be my ideal.

[PlainJain]

I've done it. 2 to 7 is my natural.

[Rachellelogram]

5 am to 1 pm. Only works if the room isn't too bright or warm, though, which is a tall order any time of year but the dead of winter. My current work schedule allows me to sleep from 2 am to 10 am, which is as close as I'm likely to get.

I did just get an air conditioner, though, which will help mucho. Just need some blackout curtains now!

[ENugent]

2AM to 11AM, I think.

[Sudden Kestrel]

Originally Posted by Disposable Hero

I've found that if I have a period of time off it feels most comfortable for me to go to bed at two or three am and get up at ten or eleven am, seven hours sleep is about the minimum I can operate on but any longer than eight hours is just more tiring.

If only I could find a job that suited that sort of sleep cycle...

Well, you could, but those jobs typically don't pay very well. My last out-of-home job hours were 5 p.m. to 3:30 a.m., which worked pretty well for me.

Left to my own devices, and I usually am, I go to sleep about 10 a.m. and get up about 5 to 6 p.m. Because the rest of you bastards refuse to do business between those hours I occasionally get thrown off my schedule and have to sleep when it's dark, but I'll always revert back to my basic nocturnal nature.

[elfkin477]

Left to my own devices I sleep from 3 or 4 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Originally Posted by Taomist

I figured out, long ago, that I have a longer cycle than we're "supposed" to have. Caffeine may or may not have anything to do with it, but I will be awake, and active, for at least 20 hours before I start to feel tired, naturally. Naturally, this doesn't play well with having a regular job, so...yay for Tylenol PM!

Originally Posted by Max the Immortal

I, too, will tend to stay awake for 20 hours or more when I don't need to keep to a specific schedule.

Then you'd probably both agree with my tweet here

[Rodgers01]

Originally Posted by Shagnasty

I have a special prejudice against early birds or at least their general condescension. I don't sleep any more than most of them and I wonder where are they when I need help working on something difficult at 1 am?

Amen. Who cares if I slept till 2pm? I was up doing things till 5 in the morning!

My sleep schedule would cycle around, rather than settle into a normal pattern. I tend to stay up as long as I can. The problem is I never want to stop doing things. Who wants to sleep when you can read another article, listen to another song, watch another episode, go for another drive?

[elfkin477]

Originally Posted by Taomist

My sleep schedule would cycle around, rather than settle into a normal pattern. I tend to stay up as long as I can. The problem is I never want to stop doing things. Who wants to sleep when you can read another article, listen to another song, watch another episode, go for another drive?

Any chance you have ADHD too?

[panache45]

I usually don't have any kind of schedule, and this is the way it's been going:

Up all night, then go to bed around dawn. Sleep maybe 3 hours, then up. Usually a nap in the afternoon, then another in the evening.

I know I should be getting more sleep.

[drewtwo99]

totally random, honestly. When left to my own devices, I'll sleep, nap, etc, whenever I feel tired, and get up after about 8-12 hours of sleep.

[Indian]

9 PM to 6 AM next day.

[Lynn Bodoni]

I usually can't sleep for more than three or four hours straight. Usually I wake up in pain, get up, take a painkiller, pee, (or pee and then take the painkiller), and read or surf until the painkiller kicks in. Then I go back to bed. And I don't seem to have a 24 hour cycle, it's more like 26-28 hours, which makes it a pain when I'm trying to schedule medications, because I'll be awake at a certain time for a few days, then I'll be asleep during the next few days.

[not what you'd expect]

I can't seem to change my current pattern of waking up between 3 and 4 every morning. And 7 hours of sleep is about the average for me. So I end up going to sleep much too early.

[TriPolar]

My natural cycle would be to stay up until I get sleepy, then sleep until I wake up. Since that doesn't correspond with 24 hour days, I rarely get to do it.

[Lasciel]

I need a LOT of sleep, and I like to sleep, and I'm a night person.

My natural sleep pattern ends up being somewhere in the 3-4 AM to noon range.

Because I have standard 9-5 working days, I really only get to sleep naturally on the weekends, but because I'm not able to sleep properly during the week, I tend to overload to catch back up, which puts me at 2 AM to about 2 PM on the weekends, and about 1 AM to 8 AM during the week. I have tried and failed more times than I can count to get to sleep earlier during the week, and it never works, and makes me stabby, so I simply expect my weekends to be shorter, and make sure to plan around that.

[Nava]

Typically about 10pm-5am: less around midsummer, more around midwinter. I'm also a morning person: on most days, my brain goes into shut-down around 5pm (which thankfully tends to be my quit o'clock), after shut-down I can still do simple tasks but shouldn't drive, operate heavy machinery or make important decisions.

[Imasquare]

Originally Posted by Rodgers01

Amen. Who cares if I slept till 2pm? I was up doing things till 5 in the morning!

My sleep schedule would cycle around, rather than settle into a normal pattern. I tend to stay up as long as I can. The problem is I never want to stop doing things. Who wants to sleep when you can read another article, listen to another song, watch another episode, go for another drive?

I have this exact same problem, except it works both ways. When I finally do get to sleep I don't want to wake up.

[Meyer6]

Like so many others, I seem to have a natural cycle that is much longer than 24 hours. I can stay awake for 20 hours quite easily, but I can also sleep for up to 14 hours. Ever since I was a teenager people have told me that I'll grow out of this, but I'm 33 and it shows no sign of changing. Of course, the world doesn't operate on my schedule, so I'm basically always tired.

Originally Posted by Shagnasty

I have a special prejudice against early birds or at least their general condescension.

Agreed. When I was a teenager my dad used to wake me up on Saturday mornings and say "you're missing the best part of the day!". God I hated that.

[sandra_nz]

I've been working 9 - 5 jobs too long to know what my natural pattern is. I know when I was a teenager, it was to go to bed late and wake up late morning, but teenagers have different sleep needs to adults, so I really don't think that would apply now.

The pattern of sleep I actually get is: asleep by midnight, wake up around 3.30am, maybe go to the loo, maybe read or listen to audio for a bit, then back to sleep and awake again around 6am.

[HMS Irruncible]

I suspect if I had no electricity and no diversions aside from books, 10:00PM-7:00AM would do me a treat, depending on sunrise/sunset.

Being that the charms of alcohol, socialization, internet chat, etc. have been known to keep me up literally all... night... long (and down all day the next day), it's hard to really gauge what "natural" means. "Unchecked indulgence" would be like 2AM-11AM.

[Sleel]

With electric lights, computers, etc. I end up going to sleep around 1:00 or 2:00 and sleep 8–9 hours. I had a week or two stretch in college when I started to go to bed at dawn and sleep until afternoon. Sleeping during the day sucks, though.

When I've been camping for at least a couple of days, I go to sleep much earlier and sleep longer. Our natural sleep cycles are probably nothing like what anyone on this board has experienced unless they've done something similar to a long camping / hiking trip, or spent an extended time without electricity. Exposure to artificial light doesn't just make it possible to stay up longer doing stuff, the light exposure actually changes your circadian rhythms. That, coupled with the regimented time we deal with in industrial societies, makes for some bizarre sleep problems.

Anyone who says they have insomnia should try a really long hike. I guarangoddamntee you won't have any problems falling asleep after a few days. It's not just the extra activity, because I've had jobs like loading trucks that required more actual movement and energy output. It's having an actual day/night cycle that isn't skewed by extra light, and having enough time to actually sleep as much as you need to sleep without a clock telling you that you need to be up at this time no matter what.

[Lanzy]

I usually go to sleep around 2-2:30 AM and get up around 6-6:30 AM, with about 1 night every 2 weeks or so where I don't bother to go to sleep at all. Then I go to sleep at midnight and get up around 7.

[picunurse]

I worked 12 hour nights for most of 40 years, so I tend to sleep best during the day. I don't have a regular pattern. I rarely sleep for more than 2 hours at a stretch, but get a total of 8 hours.

[tdn]

If I were suddenly to find myself unemployed or on vacation, nothing would change. Midnight until 6, almost without fail. Given the chance, a nice noon nap will happen.

[MeanOldLady]

If I had absolutely no time cues at all (stupid job is cramping my style), I'd sleep from 3a-9:30 or so. With work in the way, I usually sleep from 12a-6:30.

[Taomist]

Originally Posted by elfkin477

Any chance you have ADHD too?

Somehow you quoted me as saying that, which I didn't. But I'll answer anyway: I don't know. Possibly. I know it's my brain that won't shut down when I need to sleep; I can be physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted and still the hamsters keep running. Tylenol PM usually works great for it.

A slight side note: I have a niece who, for reasons I am not sure of because my little brother and I don't talk much, a brain tumor is all I know, is missing the part of her brain, or something, that puts you to sleep. She is now a teenager who hasn't slept in over a dozen years.

This fascinates the FUCK out of me. I wish my brother and I got along better for many reasons, but I admit I really wish I could know this whole story.

[Taomist]

BTW, wanted to add:

As far as sleep goes, what with caffeine, computers, lights and other stimulants, the people I think are the odd ones are the ones who CAN naturally go with a 24 hour cycle. I mean, come on, we moved out of the diurnal living lifestyle decades, if not centuries, ago.

[enipla]

Probably about 11pm till 6am or so. Can't remember the last time I stayed in bed past 7am.

[Disposable Hero]

Originally Posted by Taomist

She is now a teenager who hasn't slept in over a dozen years.

No offence but as sleep is a fundemental part of the human condition I find this difficult to believe. Perhaps I'm misreading but I don't think any person could stay awake permenantly. Lack of sleep is actually dangerous, if you don't sleep it'll eventually permenantly mess you up.

Thanks for the answers everyone!

[Taomist]

Originally Posted by Disposable Hero

No offence but as sleep is a fundemental part of the human condition I find this difficult to believe. Perhaps I'm misreading but I don't think any person could stay awake permenantly. Lack of sleep is actually dangerous, if you don't sleep it'll eventually permenantly mess you up.

Thanks for the answers everyone!

Yeah I know, which is why this fascinates me. I think they chemically induce...something...really wish I knew more about it. Last time I talked to her, at least 8 years or so, she was...well, fine. She rested, certainly, and 'sleep' was a part of her day, or night, or whatever, but she never actually 'slept'. Bright, smart kid, too. Which makes sense, considering she apparantly just thought about things all 'night'.

If I ever find out more about this I'll post, I promise.

[Jman]

If I had nowhere to be, I'd probably settle into about a midnight to 7 AM cycle. I actually do pretty close to that now, generally going to bed between 10:30 and 11:30 and waking up for work at 6.

[Sister Vigilante]

I had the opportunity to do this once over a high school summer.

Ended up going to bed around 4:30-5:00 a.m. and sleeping until the the corresponding p.m.

On weekends currently it's 2:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. I don't sleep much during the week. I need about 12 and usually get 5 or less.

[Anaamika]

Originally Posted by Disposable Hero

I've found that if I have a period of time off it feels most comfortable for me to go to bed at two or three am and get up at ten or eleven am, seven hours sleep is about the minimum I can operate on but any longer than eight hours is just more tiring.

This is what I do. And then people who call me at, say, 9 am, are like "You're sleeping so late! Lazy!" I tell them I sleep the same as them (probably less), I just do it at different hours.

Morning people always think night people are lazy.

[Dr. Woo]

I have the segmented sleep thing going on, so I'd fall asleep about 8 or 9pm, wake up about 11pm and do stuff, then sleep from about 3 - 6am. I might nap in the afternoon, but probably not.

Hell, that's pretty much what I do now anyway (except the afternoon nap part), in spite of work and stuff.

[Disposable Hero]

Originally Posted by Taomist

Yeah I know, which is why this fascinates me. I think they chemically induce...something...really wish I knew more about it. Last time I talked to her, at least 8 years or so, she was...well, fine. She rested, certainly, and 'sleep' was a part of her day, or night, or whatever, but she never actually 'slept'. Bright, smart kid, too. Which makes sense, considering she apparantly just thought about things all 'night'.

If I ever find out more about this I'll post, I promise.

Thanks, sounds to me like they're chemically (or otherwise)] inducing sleep in most of her brain without her actually losing conciousness. That still sounds odd though as if it was possible to do that to/for people without ill-effects there would be a *lot* of money to be made, just look at how much drugs that increase alertness and concentation are worth...though even those can't be used for any extensive period without bad things happening. We can overdraw but we have to pay the sleep-bank back sometime!

I vaguely recall reading about an American radio host in the fifties or sixties who stayed up for around five days without sleep as a promotion or other event, which I believe is the record for such events...its still the record because he ended up doing permenant psychological damage to himself.

[Regallag_The_Axe]

In the absence of any work, school, or other schedule I don't have a pattern. None at all. I stay awake until I fell like sleeping and sleep until I wake up. It could be 11:30 PM to 9:45 AM, or 5:10 AM to 10:30 AM or 2:00 AM to 11:00 AM.

I force myself to wake up at 8:15 because the world has a schedule.

[dngnb8]

I have 2 patterns


Summer: In bed no later then 8 pm, up at 3:30 am to go to work

Non-summer: In bed by 9 pm, up at 5:30 am to go to work


Weekends: In bed at 9-10 pm, my dog gets me up at 6 am because he thinks I slept enough and is paying be back for getting up at 3:30 am during the summer.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Originally Posted by Meyer6

Like so many others, I seem to have a natural cycle that is much longer than 24 hours. I can stay awake for 20 hours quite easily, but I can also sleep for up to 14 hours. Ever since I was a teenager people have told me that I'll grow out of this, but I'm 33 and it shows no sign of changing.

Same boat (and almost the same age). I suspect that my natural cycle is something like 20/10. I recently slept for 15 hours straight after staying up for nearly 50 hours.

Daily sleepy period is 3-11 and I'd probably maintain that when keeping to a 24 hr schedule, but I have to work to not keep rotating it.

[Captain_C]

Back when I was unemployed (about 6 years ago) I didn't leave my apartment for weeks on end. Hey, World of Warcraft and a few thousand in savings keeps a guy busy!

Anyway, I found I adjust well to 28 hours awake, then 10 hours of sleep.

[Ambivalid]

My ideal sleep pattern is to retire for the night around 2 a.m., sleep until around 9a.m. At 9 a.m. I then get up to prepare and eat breakfast and then around 10 a.m I return to the bed where I sleep until around 12 p.m. So altogether around nine hours of sleep a night is my sweet spot, and broken down in this manner. Unfortunately I don't often get this ideal amount-I'd say my average is about 7 hours a night or less.