I can make it on no less that 7 hours a night. Anything less and my eyeballs feel like their bleeding and I can’t think straight. When I meet the “I only need three hours a night” people, I’m dumbfounded at how they can function properly throughout life.
I’m like Liberal with this crap.
I also get a nap during the day, if needed.
I’m up most of the night/early morning, so my nap happens during the day, which screws up my being able to sleep at night, I guess.
I usually get 5 1/2 or 6 hours during the week (about 12:30-6:15), and I manage pretty well. I never take naps - I hate sleeping during the day, and I don’t have time anyway. I get a little more sleep on weekends; I got about 6 1/2 hours last night. I’m a morning person, so I actually feel worse if I sleep too late.
I’m 21 and a senior in college, if that explains anything.
I heard a sleep expert talking on the radio a couple of weeks ago. He was asked about all the famous figures who supposedly managed on a few hours a night. He said that it is basically crap, that he has pictures of all these revered figures asleep in important meetings. He said that many people who claimed to sleep very few hours neglected to include their daytime sleeping.
Through high school/college, I needed 8-10 hours a night. Then I went to work as a software developer in the mid '90s; the minimum 80 hour workweeks (some were 110+) left little time for sleep and I got trained out of sheer necessity to operate on 3-6.
Now, I (generally) can’t sleep more than 6 hours a night; at least part of it has been my getting more sensitive to light, I think. During the summer, I sleep less (4-5 hours) than I do in winter (6-7 hours).
I need about 10 hours a night. That’s not to say I get it- I don’t, but for optimum performance, that’s what I’d need.
My best friend always thought it extremely strange that I needed that much sleep and that there was something wrong with me, until a couple of years ago she read an article saying that some people really do need 10 hours- now she accepts it.
I guess I need 4 to 5 hours nightly, at least that’s how much I generally get through the week and I’m surviving. Hopefully, in a few years at the latest, that’ll change and I’ll get a more normal schedule and be logging about 7 hours a night, I feel better when I get that much.
When everything’s going great, seven hours and forty minutes is perfect for me. When I’ve had a hard week, I occasionally sleep ten hours on a weekend. But that’s just being indulgent. I also take naps when I can get them.
I seem to handle lack of sleep better now that I’m older. When I was in my twenties I was a zombie if I got less than eight hours sleep, feeling jet-lagged all day long. Never could understand anyone who burned the midnight oil. Nowadays my sleep gets interrupted a lot, mostly be either the cats being playful or thoughts of work that won’t let me sleep, and it doesn’t seem to affect my daytime usefulness.
I need about 7 to 10. After a work week of getting less, I’ll zonk out on the weekends and sleep until noon. If I can’t do that, it’ll accrue until I shut down. Some times I’ve gone to bed at 8 because of it.
For the record, I’m a night owl.
I average 7 hours. 8 would be better, and after a couple of nights when the 7 I get regularly are fitful and I’m feeling sleep deprived I’ll go to bed 2 hours early and that seems to get me back on track for a while.