The best amount of time to sleep... giving you FULL energy in the morning :-)

Factual Questions
1

Ok… a few years ago, a friend of mine told me that there is a certain amount of sleep your body needs to be “full” on energy. In other words, he was trying to say that you could sleep for 24 hours, but after a certain amount of time, the extra sleep would do nothing to give you more energy in the morning. From my personal experience, this seems incorrect (I don’t have a cite for that statement. Is it even true?), because I have slept for 24 hours straight and awoke feeling tired. I have also slept for only 4 hours and awoke full of energy, which dosn’t really seem to add up right.

It seems reasonable to believe that there is a connection between each individual’s body chemistry and how much sleep they need to have plenty of energy when they wake up. Is this in fact the case? How much sleep should the average person have every night to give them the most energy in the morning? What other things can contribute to getting a better nights rest?

2

Don’t know. But I usually feel tired and mostly unable to get out of bed when I sleep too much (though I’m not sure I ever slept 24 hours in a row). However, this feeling doesn’t last long (contrarily to what happen when I didn’t sleep enough).
The average adult person has to sleep 7 1/2 -8 hours, AFAIK. But it varies greatly for one person to another. One of my brother needs only 3-4 hours of sleep /night while a colleague of mine usually sleep 10 hours/night.

Also, of course, it depends greatly on whether you awake spontaneously (hence at the end of a sleep cycle) or are awaken by your alarm clock (hence possibly in the middle of a sleep cycle). You’ll feel much more tired in the latter case.

3

I always wanted to that so here. The master covers this in a roundabout way, I guess. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990205.html

4

Argh! Preview is my friend. I always wanted to ** say ** that.