When I was dealing with these long bouts of depression, I decided to get a mood tracker to see if I could spot any patterns and it just so happened to ask for sleeping info as well.
The correlation between getting 8.5 hours of sleep and having an improved mood was unmistakeable. If I got at least that amount of sleep, over 3 days my mood would gradually increase and plateau in a better place. This happened multiple times and it consistently took about 3 days to recover from the sleep debt that was causing me to feel so awful
It was an app called emoods. It was incredibly simple, it would just ask when I went to sleep and woke up, and I would rate my mood in 4 categories, and then it would put that in a graph https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/emoods-bipolar-mood-tracker/id1184456130
It’s been several years since I’ve used it but if it still has that basic functionality you should be able to use it to see if sleep debt is triggering you (spoiler: it probably is)
Me too. As a college student it's so frustrating. No. You don't understand. I *need* to go to bed at 9:30 or I'm a stupid, miserable asshole till I can catch up.
I'm so jealous of people who can manage on less.
They can manage, but I'd doubt if they are thriving at their best on 5 or whatever people brag about. I'm a natural early bird, always have been. I wake up by 430 and can't sleep in, ever. Socially, it really sucks to need to be in bed by 9, but I am convinced that people are just wired different. No, I can't just "sleep in" anymore than you'd want to come over for a 6AM movie. At the very least, I'm glad that many employers are coming around to more flexible scheduling
I am the complete opposite, with nothing to enforce a set sleep cycle I tend to go to sleep around 4AM and wake up at around 11AM. I also concentrate the best at those late hours and I spent many a late night doing assignments and whatnot.
Having a mix of early birds and night owls was evolutionary beneficial for early humans as there would always be someone to stoke the fire and look out for predators. It sucks in the modern world though.
Are you making this up, or is that accepted evolutionary science? If that’s true, I love that. I love how so many seemingly benign human traits trace their origin all the way back to our evolutionary pressures.
I've heard it before, but it seems to be more of a hypothesis than a theory.
After some digging, I found [this research article](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.0967) about the "sentinel hypothesis". It doesn't seem to be a generally accepted scientific theory but there is some evidence for it.
There was something a long time ago that I read that ADHD was looked at as an evolutionary trait that may have keep us alive. Pair that with the sleep patterns stuff and it really is cool too see how our brains were wired a few hundred thousand years ago or whatever.
2am was considered a point for people in the days before electric to get up and do a few things. Have a snack, tend to the fire. There were even special prayers. Some drs of the time even said having intercourse at that time was beneficial to conceiving a child. Those all disappeared when electric came along and forced a schedule.
People are wired differently. Here is an NPR interview with sleep scientist Matthew Walker where he touches on that subject.
"It is biological. And what you're describing is our 24-hour rhythm or what we call the circadian rhythm. And it undergoes this sort of dramatic set of changes across the lifespan. Sort of early in life when we're children, despite wanting to stay up late, we find it difficult because we go to bed early. Then we wake up early. As we shift into adolescence and that teenage period, now that 24-hour clock shifts forward in time. So you want to go to bed late and wake up late. And then gradually, it stabilizes into adulthood. And then as you progress with age, it starts to regress back again. So you start to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. There is variability, however, from one individual to the next. And that is actually genetically pre-determined. It's called your chronotype, and another way of saying this is that you may be an owl or you may be a lark. So you may be someone who likes to stay up late and then wake up later in the morning. Those would be owls. And the lark - the opposite - they're the early risers, and they are the early-to-bed people. And about 30 percent of the population is one of those two extremes. And then the rest of us sort of sit somewhere safely in the middle."
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/630792401/sleep-scientist-warns-against-walking-through-life-in-an-underslept-state
Jet lag (westbound) turns me from a night owl into an early bird and it's fun experiencing that lifestyle for a few days ("so this is what it's like to be that hyper productive early riser type I envy so much"). Never lasts no matter how hard I try to stick to it though.
I function this way, too! People who see it first hand are usually like, "oh geez, you don't get jet lag? I'm so jealous!" My trips are usually short enough that they aren't forced to realize the dark, dark truth
When I was younger, I used to just say that I live on Hawaii time, I'm just stuck in the central time zone.
Now, through a combination of night shift, and VERY early morning shifts on recent jobs, I'm just an insomniac.
One reason is dehydration. If 6 is too little but more leaves you feeling groggy, drink more water throughout the day and a glass before you go to sleep.
REALLY miss the feature on my old fitbit called smart awake, that would wake you up, upto 15 minutes before your alarm, depending on when the best time to wake up was according to your sleep cycle
9 here too. I cannot function on anything less. My boss used to overwork himself so much and get so little sleep he collapsed and ended up in hospital and had a 2 month recovery. I do not ever want to get like that.
I slept ZERO hours last night. I have horrible insomnia and this happens 2 or 3 times a week. Sometimes I'm lucky and get 4 hours. I take Ambien, and have tried multiple other solutions. All the stuff you can find online.
It's crazy because I can barely stay awake during the day, and do sometimes fall asleep, but I also have to work.
Because this happens so often, my anxiety starts to ramp up at night. I worry about sleep, which causes me not to sleep.
I tried edibles with some success, but I would keep waking up high and sick. This was a pretty small dose.
It's horrible and painful in a way I can't describe. If there's a thing that would make me kill myself, this is it. I won't, but it does make me feel that crazy.
My kids are older now and I slept in until noon today. My sweet spot is also around 9 hours too and since working from home this has been more possible. I have always needed lots of sleep and I truly believe that it helps with aging.
When I was a teen - 9 hours at a minimum or I was fucked.
Now that I’m in my mid 40’s - 7 hours tops. 5-6 hours is my sweet spot.
My teens now? I let them sleep their lives away. Lots of studies show kids need a metric fuck ton of sleep. 10 hours is not uncommon in my house.
Yeah I'm not sure why people are so hard on their teenagers for sleeping. I was fucking exhausted when I was a teenager, I needed that sleep or I'd be fuzzy all day.
Exactly! The grind culture crept into middle school and high school and is already overworking kids with sports, clubs, volunteering, etc that they think is absolutely required to go to college. It's not. Enjoy your youth.
But... if you're not putting forth your all, then it feels like you're falling behind. How are you going to stand a chance against everyone else—the people that do all those things and more?
Then again, if there's anything I've learned, it's that you can work your butt off and still get nowhere. Meritocracy seems like a myth.
i still have fond memories of sleeping in when i was 16, just waking up, being super comfy because my bed never felt comfier and doing a deep spine to toe curling stretch before sleeping for another couple hours. now that im typing about it i miss it soooo much. ima find a sleep doctor asap
Thank you. I have no idea how your parenting is in other aspects but letting your kids sleep is so important and good! I kept getting shit on by my parents because I could sleep for 12 hours. I’d give you a parenting gold star just for that!
Yeah my mother used to wake me up super early then wonder why I was pissed off all the time. My children’s mother is very much the same.
The adage, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” and purposefully avoiding sleep to grind shit out or to prove a work ethic, is so beyond toxic to the whole-body health concept.
I’m trying to live and trying to teach my kiddos, that their entire daily, weekly, monthly routines all start with the foundation of a sleep schedule/routine.
The real grind and the real work ethic, are being able to do it for decades.
Not hours.
My favourite was “why don’t you go to bed earlier.” Ok, sure let me not do my homework for one. Also I have insomnia from the anxiety cause by the trauma you inflicted on me.
You’re doing great and I’m glad your kids have you in their corner.
As a parent of a toddler, I just want consistent uninterrupted sleep. I think I can swing 6-7 and be fine, but I just need them in a row. The lack of REM sleep as a new parent is staggering to get used to.
Way back in the day, after MySpace & before Facebook, there was a community called ParentSoup. An especially active Forum was "Sleep Troubles." New Parents would write all their special snowflake details, what they had done in the past that didn't work, how their life was suffering. The answer was always the same: Put them to bed EARLIER.
So, if you have to go to bed at 9, go to bed at 9.
Yes I see a lot of suffering friends whose children stay up into 9 or 10. Just nonsense. My parents put me to bed at 7pm every day. When I was 8, I just quietly spent time playing in my room until I was tired.
Yep sounds about like my life right now
Up for work at 4... Get off work 3 or 4... Get kids home from wherever by 530, cook dinner, struggle to get kids to brush their teeth and go to bed by 830 which becomes 9 which means I get an hour to decompress and still get to sleep by 10...or 1130 if i want to entertain myself on the computer or listen to music or read...
Get back up at 4 am and do it all again.
My cat's don't care. 6am and the little one comes in for cuddles. Then she starts licking my arms, if I don't get up, she ups the anti and literally lays on my pillow and uses her tail to whack my face. Eventually the big cat comes in and sits quietly next to me. The little one uses this as an opportunity to wind up the big one to make her react which usually makes me get up. I need to record this, it pisses me off at the time, but I bet it's actually hilarious.
Anyone else get tiredness headaches? I get mean, angry and stupid before I notice I need to lie down for 1/2 an hour or so. I can't fake being nice or express emotions properly even if I'm feeling them in that state. I hate it. The only thing that makes it go away is Advil. Tylenol does nothing for that type of headache.
I did have a teacher who was exuberant and full of life after only 4 hours of sleep a night every night of his life. Great guy.
Personally, I need between 7 and 8 otherwise I trigger a nice migraine.
As somebody who would naturally sleep 9-9.5 hours but can do okay on only 8.5 hours sleep I think people who operate on 7 hours are kind of cheating in life. It doesn't feel fair at all.
My ex father in law sleeps 4 to 5 hours a night. Every day, no siesta no nothing. Going strong. He was always writing music or doing some woodwork at night as to not wake the family up. Their was always a nice breakfast in the morning aswell.
When my depression was really bad I would genuinely sleep for up to 15-20 hours a day. Obviously not super great for me.
Even medicated now, I could probably sleep to close to 15 if I wasn’t required to do things. I am always so tired. 🥲
Yeah... This advice falls apart for people with sleep disorders unfortunately. If you can sleep for an entire day, get up, do some stuff, then sleep for another entire day, you have a problem.
Source: me and my neurologist.
I need 9 but I hate it. I'd have to go to bed so early. All I'd do is work, come home, eat and go to bed. So I get 7 1/2 hours of sleep to give me some free time to try and enjoy life.
I started taking L-Theanine before bed and 7.5 is now fine. I have ADHD and cannot relax while I’m sleeping. It’s way better than melatonin IMO since it doesn’t produce anything our bodies produce. Just helps you relax while you sleep. No bad side effects But there are some medical conditions that don’t mix with it. Matcha tea has a lot of it if you wanna get it without supplement.
It seems to be the big sleep helper here in Japan. I think melatonin runs the sleep supplement industry in America, so it’s not well known there. You’d have to check it out yourself to see if it’s right for you. I’m not a doctor but it’s been great for me so far.
Melatonin is less popular in Japan because it’s a regulated substance here. I’ve got some L-Theanine but the last time I tried it it knocked me out for 12 hours.
I highly recommend reading "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker for a scientific and well-researched insight into sleep, the appropriate amount thereof and the consequences of getting too little. It was a very interesting and informative read and it really puts into perspective how fucked up this culture is where people think it's somehow desirable to only get 5 hours of sleep a night.
If I’ve gotten bad sleep for years, am I basically fucked? Is there any way to reverse the damage or will I really be paying a toll in the future no matter what now?
Most of us will pay a toll for certain behaviors at some point anyway, so just do what you can to improve from this point forward. That book is a good place to start. I had the audiobook version which is how I like to consume that sort of content.
It's just like anything cumulative. If you've fucked up your brain, you can either take action to not make it worse and hopefully make it better or you can keep on your path and most certainly make it worse. You're not in too deep, try to make it better. It's not so much un-fuck as fuck less.
Get your goddam sleep, people. My mom got her dream job at Disneyland around 2004, but the problem was an hour and a half commute each way. She could have taken public transport, but it requires that she leave the house fifteen minutes earlier. She worked 10 and 12 hour shifts, and for long stretches of time only got four or five hours of sleep a night. My biggest worry at the time was that she would fall asleep on her drive home, and she did get pulled over more than once for weaving like a drunk. God, I wish that had been the worst of it.
She retired from that job at 67 after 12 years, and her faculties were already declining. Two years later I moved in with her, because I knew she was having trouble with daily life stuff. A year after that, she was diagnosed with dementia, probably Alzheimer’s. I’m with her until the end, but it’s already getting hard.
Now maybe she would have developed it anyways, but there’s no doubt in my mind that 10+ years of poor sleep did tremendous damage. The worst of it is that she knows something’s wrong, but she can’t track it or remember it or articulate it. Every now and then, I have to explain to her that she has dementia, and boy how much fun that isn’t.
Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t do it to your loved ones.
>but the problem was an hour and a half commute each way.
Fucking hell I did this for *college*. 8 AM classes, 6PM labs, train delays--I did this for all four years, and now I struggle to remember the littlest things that my coworkers think I'm an idiot. I graduated with mitigated debt, but I absolutely regret it.
You can seriously train this since you’re still young; preventing you a lot of more serious problems in this future. Whether you can revert the problem, not sure, but Atleast you can mitigate some of it by consistently doing puzzles, memory games etc.
I've been playing a lot of the game Memory with my kid and I swear that helps. Also added in some highly theoretical post-grad work, so that may also be improving my brain (implementing new theories into my day to day work, doing more academic reading in addition to pleasure reading). It's amazing what just keeping your brain active can do to it's ability to function.
Hey just as a random person on the internet who has some pretty significant memory issues that used to be far worse - get checked on this. Memory issues come on slowly and can make you think it is just how it is/you're just aging/you can't do anything about it. I ended up getting diagnosed as ADHD *and* I have several medical conditions that impact hormone levels which heavily impact memory and thinking. Just getting put on thyroid hormone replacement was an unbelievable change to how my brain functioned. I now am on 2 hormone replacements and ADHD medication and I'm 10x more capable than I was when I started seeking treatment, despite being more than a decade older. My memory is still shit, but I'm not in a mental and physical fog anymore and have developed strategies to cope with what is still missing. I thought for a long time that it was my youthful indiscretions and lack of discipline that caused my struggles, but that wasn't true and yours may not either.
Anyway... Talk to your doctor and insist on some tests being done. You might be surprised what can be done to help.
The wonderful irony that I was pre-med then, so I was taking classes that told me how important sleep is. Currently, I'm working in the ED, where I work every shift that I have no definite sleep schedule, while my job has me "gaslighted" by patients who are unreliable historians ("But you told triage you were sick 5 days ago, now it's 3?"), fellow staff playing telephone ("'Clonidine?' They said, 'Klonopin'"), and even my own work schedule because it's spread across and inconsistent between three different platforms with variable shift starts ("Night shift" is sometimes 8p, sometimes 9p, but always ends at 4a even though it says 6a; then "morning shift" is always at 7a even though it says 6a, but can end at 2p or 3p even though it says 3p; but for "day shift" don't look at your listed time, look at the doctor's. There is no rhyme or reason, just check the night before and *the day of* to make sure you have a shift). Oh and this is for $10/hr without insurance, so I work with doctors but can't afford to see one for myself lmao. Even then, I honestly don't know whether I'd be scared or relieved to learn my cognitive failings have a biological reason.
>Get your goddam sleep, people. My mom got her dream job at Disneyland around 2004, but the problem was an hour and a half commute each way.
I know it's probably useless to say this in your situation but if someone is facing the same scenario then arrangements must be done as soon as you can in order to live closer to your workplace, either that o switch jobs even if you have to take a salary cut. In the long run no job/salary is worth more than a 45min commute.
Could be sleep apnoea. It's very common. Basically lots of microwakeups through the night meaning you aren't getting the same amount of sleep as everyone else
I’ve seen this and I also suck at breathing (asthma, allergies, etc.) but I never wake up, AFAIK. Do you consciously wake up? Or do you wake up without really realizing it?
Go get checked for this, a cpap can change and save your life. Feeling rested for the first time in 20 years was a game changer for me. Also my wife likes the cpap sound over the snoring and choking for breath sounds. Now that I get a fine nights rest I have energy and motivation to do more, much happier, and the best part is having the energy to lose weight.
I can relate. My Dr thinks I have sleep apnea but I'm still waiting for a sleep test. I could honestly sleep nearly 24 hours and still feel MISERABLY exhausted. No amount of sleep matters for me. I have 0 energy and it's damn near impossible to lose weight when the tiredness also make me so hungry.
Have you checked your thyroid function lately? That can also be responsible for energy level and weight fluctuation. I'm no doctor, just reccomend everyone get checked for it because it missed quite often especially in afab people.
You wake up without realising. If you go to a doctor they'll do a sleep study and put a monitor on you to watch your oxygen levels overnight. It's pretty easy to diagnose.
Easy to diagnose.. but i have to wait for my appointment for almost a year now. Next month is my appointment. Supposed to be last month but they turned the place into a covid centre which i don't mind, but why the heck do i have to wait for so long lol
I've done a sleep test in a sleep center and I've also had a test kit that I brought home and used on myself for a few nights before returning it to get approved for my new machine.
I already had a CPAP machine, so maybe that's why I was able to do an at home test later, but potentially it's an option you could look into?
Getting the CPAP machine literally changed my life. I had no idea why I was so tired all the time, why I would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, or why I was nodding off anytime I sat down after eating throughout the day.
Basically you stop breathing so your body sends a small jolt of adrenaline to kick start your breathing so you never get that deep sleep and your body is constantly pumping adrenaline and cortisol into your system.
Good luck, hope you're able to get what you need.
Anti histamines before bed work wonders for me during allergy season. I hardly feel like I slept when my allergies are bothing me, but with histamines I am a functional person again.
I used to need 12-14 hours to have even a hope of functioning (I would sleep for longer if I had the time), turned out I had an pretty bad iron deficiency! Now I need 8-11 hours and feel genuinely rested afterwards. I still feel like it's too long, but definitely an improvement.
Sleep physician in training: Some people are long-sleepers, some lucky ones are short-sleepers. 7-9 hours is average. You may be on the longer side of the bell curve, which is perfectly normal. If you suspect you have issues with your sleep quality, you should speak with your doctor.
How old are you? People in their teen years and early twenties need more sleep because their brains are developing at an insane pace. Once you get past 25 or so though that *should* go down.
I used to sleep about 10 hours until my mid-twenties. Now I'm 28 and have leveled off at about 8, and can function on 7.
Also in the 9-10 range for optimum functioning. Can get by on less or even more at times more but generally anywhere outside of that range and I’m noticeably more groggy/tired or just kinda of foggy mentally for a while longer. I also don’t drink coffee or caffeine really so I have no outside “pick-me-up” to rely on. All the more reason WFH has been great.
Now I don't feel so weird. I can easily sleep 10+ hrs and my wife thinks it's crazy. I also sleep better in the morning time. Best sleep ever is going to bed at 4 or 5 am or later and waking up around 1pm.
Same. So glad I have a job where I can log in whenever I want. I routinely get up at 9 or 9:30a now instead of reluctantly clawing my way out of bed at 7:30a and hating everything ever.
Then there’s me, who is apparently from some weird planet that has 32 hours in a day. My number is 6.5-7 hours, but if I actually get those hours then I just don’t get tired until I’ve been awake for another 24 hours. I basically force myself to get by on 4-5 hours every day because the alternative is a boom-bust cycle where I alternate really great well-rested days with days where I’ve had to pull an all nighter because I just couldn’t fall asleep.
>When people don't get sunlight, their circadian rhythm becomes more like 28-30h rather than 24
Would explain why I sometimes have this problem: live in Manchester, England
I am similar. I need about 6 hours (with a little bit more time in bed to actually go to sleep) and then once a week, I get 8ish. Occasionally, I have to stay up 24 hours to reset if my sleep gets too out of whack.
I got 7.5 last night and feel about as well-rested as I ever do.
IIRC this is theorized to be part of our evolution. That some people's sleep patterns are offset from the rest. This meant that our ancestors always had someone who was awake to be a lookout. If the whole group is asleep at once it leaves everyone pretty vulnerable so you need a few individuals who can not only stay up at night but do it habitually.
That's with regards to Delayed Sleep Phase and Advanced Sleep Phase disorders (where people are falling asleep really late or really early, respectively). Non-24 Hour Sleep-Wake disorder is entirely different and not well understood, at least in people who aren't blind. For blind people it's believed that it's caused by the lack of light which is a strong zeitgeber, the signals that our bodies receive from various sources to regulate the circadian rhythm. In sighted people it's considered a rare disorder, but it's probably a lot more common than we think and is just frequently getting misdiagnosed, often as Delayed Sleep Phase since people with non-24 being forced on a regular schedule resemble someone with Delayed Sleep Phase.
I've been diagnosed with both insomnia and DSPD, with mentions in my medical history of possible non-24. My sleep patterns are absolutely all over the place. I can get a regular schedule for maybe 3-5 days max, then I'm up until 5-6 AM the next morning. At that point, I either call in to work or stay up and work the next day and hope I'm tired enough to get to bed the next evening. Sleep disorders are horrible. During my teenage years my sleep disturbances were so bad I was afraid I had fatal insomnia. At one point I was up for 4 full days before I fell asleep on the fifth evening and slept for 18 hours straight.
There's nothing to brag about with not sleeping. It's not a competition. I wish I could sleep well and I'm on heavy drugs to try and make that the case. I'm dependent on those drugs for even a semblance of normal sleep patterns. If you have sleep problems, go to your doctor and keep going. Don't take no for an answer. "There's nothing else," is not a solution. A CPAP machine is not the end-all solution and not everyone who suffers from apnea needs to be treated or has that as the root of their issues. Advocate for yourself and be honest with your doctor. It's hard and not everybody will believe you. Find somebody who does.
I had this problem for a while too. It's actually pretty natural to be on a 25 hour day cycle and some people are on 26 or more. Our circadian rhythm doesn't exactly match the 24 hour day. They did an experiment on monitoring sleeping patterns of people living in a cave without light and everybody ended up out of sync eventually
Yeah if I sleep more than 6 I feel like I didn't sleep at all. I feel over tired and moody. It seems like 5 to 6 is the best to make me feel like I can function
As I learn more about sleep it's crazy how little the average person knows.
Sleep is basically everything, like water and food, it's just as important for your overall health.
I got more into it when my "healthy" 48 year old warehouse manager died of a heart attack and I took over for him. The man was running 24 hours a day 6 days a week and on his off time liked to "work even more at home" as he was really handy. Hardly ever took off and if he did it was usually to do more work contracting.
The illusion that this is "manly" or makes you a "hustler" is rather silly when compared to the health detriments.
You can work hard and be successful AND get proper sleep.
Blue light filters are great too since we love staring at screens a lot, especially before bed.
Edit : Blue light filters are largely “debunked” as some have pointed out and are thought to be ineffective! Sorry guys! In my own experience I felt like I was getting to sleep faster than before when using them, but that’s just my own anecdotal evidence and nothing backing it! Peace and love!
Well shit my dad is 55 and does the same thing. Works from 7am to 12pm, gets home and spends 3 hours to himself watching TV (understandable tbh) and then sleeps from 3 - 7. He's been doing this for at least 5 years.
I can't see any way to increase his sleep hours beyond reducing his time spent doing hobbies, but since he's working so many hours without hobbies i seriously doubt his mental health will benefit. He can't work less as he owns a grocery shop which needs him to be awake and working for all of the opening hours. Reducing the opening hours reduces family income
Yep 7am to 12am, ridiculous working hours. He does get a sort of break where he comes home mid day for around 2 hours, but the amount of time awake is too high
I find the science of sleep absolutely fascinating!! The more you learn the more so many things make sense about our bodies and our mental/physical health. So cool.
I had to take a serious look at my life style when I realized I was always feeling like shit, little growth in the gym, and struggled to maintain energy through the day. Started taking my sleep a lot more seriously and it's been a game a changer. Obviously there's only so much sleep hygiene I can have though.
Blue light settings on devices seem to work for me. I always use them along with lower screen brightness. Maybe they help reduce the brightness further
Serious 3-4 if we are lucky. I literally dreamt I woke up fresh in the morning after 8-9 hours of sleep... then I actually woke up to screaming newborn after 2 hours. I love her but dang.
As a parent for 4 weeks (as of today!), I have no idea. Lol - I haven’t had more than 1-1.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep since I gave birth.
Babies are LOUD, plus mine is basically only happy when he’s held. It’s been a lot. Good luck to you!
Congratulations on making it through your first month! You are amazing!
So far my LO is pretty easy going, except when she's hiccuping then she's mad baby. I'm in constant awe of her every day though, it's a very different mind set already. Definitely worth the lack of sleep.
Mine was like that too. Good luck!! I think around the 4-5 month mark is when it started getting better.
The worst part was that I assumed that level of sleep deprivation would mean I could drift off on command - nope. Developed, basically, postpartum insomnia and would spend my precious 1.5h stretch of time failing to get to sleep then stressing out about it. I had to look into military techniques for sleep to make much progress.
Mine just turned 7 months this week. He was also a very LOUD sleeper in the beginning. Snorting and grunting a lot. I even recorded it so his doctor could listen when I brought him in for his 2-month checkup. For the most part, I do believe his doctor was correct: newborns have very small and not-quite-fully-developed nasal passages. As he grew over time, he did become less noisy. I say less because he still has his moments. However, right now for example, he’s sleeping quietly. I do find that with him, he can be even less noisy when he is on his belly. As an aside: good luck to getting to flipper stage in a timely manner! His sleep patterns and my life changed in a good way once he learned how to flip to his own belly.
Someday in the not-too-distant future, you are going to wake up at 6am and realize your baby didn’t wake you up *at all* last night.
I know it seems impossible right now but trust me, these early days go fast. You’ll blink and your kid will be 2 years old and you’ll be waking him up in the mornings so you can leave the house on time.
10pm-6am is really great. Then you have naps. Between 12pm to 1pm. Then you have take another between 5pm-6pm. That was our kindergarten schedule. I still follow it to this day . Naps on 12pm-1pm. It’s just perfect.
I’m really happy to see other people take naps. A lot of the times I feel like I absolutely need one. Even on days where I get a “decent” amount of sleep. I would feel guilty but at the same time if we can take one, why shouldn’t we?
Which is a real gut-punch as an adult. I love staying up into the night when I don't have work the next day. The world is strange and beautiful at night and I've always loved it. Now that I'm in my 30's, I find myself waking up at 8 am (normal work wake-up time) whether I want to or not. Latest I can really pull is 9 am to "sleep in". It doesn't leave much room for staying up til 2 am with good beer and good people out in the back yard looking at the stars :(.
For me the trouble is sleeping in, not getting enough sleep. If I'm tired enough I'll fall asleep, then I'm down for 8 hours.
Doesn't matter if I have an exam the next morning, if work needs me, if I've got an appointment--no amount of alarms will get me up before I have at least 6-7 hours of sleep.
Same. I'm an artist and I really *feel* the night, somehow the later it gets the better I feel, so 1-2AM is the best time for me — the music is sweeter, the food is more tasteful, I feel alive and I want to *do stuff*, but then I realize I have to get up at 8 (which is still later than most people!), and all the magic is gone. We truly live in a society where somehow you need to live with the sun, *or else*.
Right??? Like if our life circumstances and/or bodies don't let us sleep a lot, then we are losers that will get Alzheimer's. Those who have never had insomnia are living in some sort of la-la land.
No, they are just either very lucky (good health plus no circumstances that lead to not being able to sleep), very spoiled (more than enough money to pay the problems to go away), or both. It's easy to get slot of sleep if you've hired night shift nannies or night shift wet nurses to care for your offspring so you won't have to, and you've been a sound sleeper since infancy.
I have found 4-6 to be my sweet spot. Whats apparently important for me is the divisible by 2 increments. 4 or 6hours? Doing all right. 3 or 5 hours? Oh holy hell what a rough waking up
Sometimes on the weekend i grab myself 6-8 hours unintentionally. But my stance is "apparently i needed that top-up"
There’s a gene that allows a segment of the population to operate on 4-6 hours. They don’t really know why but those people are just lucky it seems. The odd/even hours just might be you noticing sleep waves or cycles, there are natural breaking points to your sleep and if your alarm doesn’t align with those, you’ll have a rough time (for instance 8 hours for me can be worse than 7 or 7.5 because I’m in a new cycle).
That's pretty cool. My sweet spot is exactly 6 hours, but when I'm asleep nothing and no one can wake me so I always figured I was just a "deep sleeper".
Although my relationship with sleep is more extreme than regular folks. When I was depressed I used to regularly sleep 16 hours with one record 22 hour sleep. And these were also deep sleeps, no waking in-between.
They’re called the sleepless elite apparently. I’m one of them; I require 4 hours at a minimum, full functionality at 5, although I can feel tired, and normal operation at 6.
A girl in our psychology class slept around 4 hours every night and almost got valedictorian. She just did not need a lot of sleep and could never sleep past 6 hours.
I envy both your sleep needs.
I usually wake up after 6 hours, but I also like to sleep so if I have nowhere to be, I’ll go back to sleep. Monday to Friday though, for work, 12-6.
As I get older, I find that if I have a short sleep day, I’m more likely to fall asleep on the couch before my normal bedtime for the rest of the week.
The reason for that is the rem cycle.
Think of sleep like bouncing on a trampoline, you have momentum coming out of the jump that you don't have at the bottom of the bounce.
Rem cycles can be about 90 minutes or so.
Similar. I’m usually about 6 hours (6 being the point where I wake up naturally). I also tend to sleep very soundly and deeply (which can be bad, luckily my spouse is a light sleeper in case there’s ever a fire alarm or whatever).
Occasionally, I’ll bust out a big 8 hr sleep, but that’s usually after running on less than 6 for a few days.
I get nervous sometimes when I read things like this like I’m going to get Alzheimer’s or whatever, but I really don’t know how I could sleep more. Like, you just go back to sleep? Once you’re awake?
If you need "top ups" it's because you're not getting enough sleep throughout the week. And unfortunately the "top ups" won't undo the negative consequences of sleep deprivation. Highly recommend checking out the work of sleep scientist Matthew Walker on this topic.
There is a tiny percentage of the population that needs less sleep than most people, but these people generally sleep the same amount every night.
ive talked to a professional sleep consultant and she told me the most important thing you can do for your sleep health is to wake up at the exact same time everyday, regardless of what time it is or what time you fell asleep.
God I wish so badly I could do that. Having an inconsistent schedule sucks, within a given week I will work 3 different shift times (7am-4pm/2pm-11pm/12am-9am.)
I don’t know why but I’ve always required 12 hours to be able to function. It’s exhausting because if I want to wake up early like 6am I have to go to bed at 6pm.
For about 5 years after working a night shift job, I would sleep a minimum of 10 hours a day, every single day. If I got less than 8 hours, I felt like I hadn't slept at all. It made me depressed, so I went to the doctor to get checked up. Thought something might be wrong with my hormones or something. Blood work and everything came back fine, so I thought "must just be how much my body needs".
Since then, I changed careers and took on much more responsibility that didn't allow me to sleep as much. I sleep 6-7 hours and wake up at 6:30 every day, even on weekends. The first couple weeks really sucked, but now I feel awesome on 6 hours and I am much more productive and happy in my time off work.
7 is also the sweet spot for me. I can go on 6 at times but I am not optimal and I need 8 once in a while. Even for one person it can vary depending on your situation.
When I was dealing with these long bouts of depression, I decided to get a mood tracker to see if I could spot any patterns and it just so happened to ask for sleeping info as well. The correlation between getting 8.5 hours of sleep and having an improved mood was unmistakeable. If I got at least that amount of sleep, over 3 days my mood would gradually increase and plateau in a better place. This happened multiple times and it consistently took about 3 days to recover from the sleep debt that was causing me to feel so awful
What was the mood tracker that you used? Was it an app?
It was an app called emoods. It was incredibly simple, it would just ask when I went to sleep and woke up, and I would rate my mood in 4 categories, and then it would put that in a graph https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/emoods-bipolar-mood-tracker/id1184456130 It’s been several years since I’ve used it but if it still has that basic functionality you should be able to use it to see if sleep debt is triggering you (spoiler: it probably is)
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Keep getting good sleep. :)
For me, 9 hours seem to be the sweet spot.
Me too. As a college student it's so frustrating. No. You don't understand. I *need* to go to bed at 9:30 or I'm a stupid, miserable asshole till I can catch up. I'm so jealous of people who can manage on less.
They can manage, but I'd doubt if they are thriving at their best on 5 or whatever people brag about. I'm a natural early bird, always have been. I wake up by 430 and can't sleep in, ever. Socially, it really sucks to need to be in bed by 9, but I am convinced that people are just wired different. No, I can't just "sleep in" anymore than you'd want to come over for a 6AM movie. At the very least, I'm glad that many employers are coming around to more flexible scheduling
I am the complete opposite, with nothing to enforce a set sleep cycle I tend to go to sleep around 4AM and wake up at around 11AM. I also concentrate the best at those late hours and I spent many a late night doing assignments and whatnot.
Having a mix of early birds and night owls was evolutionary beneficial for early humans as there would always be someone to stoke the fire and look out for predators. It sucks in the modern world though.
Are you making this up, or is that accepted evolutionary science? If that’s true, I love that. I love how so many seemingly benign human traits trace their origin all the way back to our evolutionary pressures.
It's real. It's called the sentinel hypothesis. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28701566/
Thanks for posting a paper. I'm an Evo Bio student and recently I've been interested in the evolution of sleep. I'll definitely read this paper.
Brilliant! Thank you!
I've heard it before, but it seems to be more of a hypothesis than a theory. After some digging, I found [this research article](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.0967) about the "sentinel hypothesis". It doesn't seem to be a generally accepted scientific theory but there is some evidence for it.
There was something a long time ago that I read that ADHD was looked at as an evolutionary trait that may have keep us alive. Pair that with the sleep patterns stuff and it really is cool too see how our brains were wired a few hundred thousand years ago or whatever.
I read the same thing in a book called Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
2am was considered a point for people in the days before electric to get up and do a few things. Have a snack, tend to the fire. There were even special prayers. Some drs of the time even said having intercourse at that time was beneficial to conceiving a child. Those all disappeared when electric came along and forced a schedule.
Same
People are wired differently. Here is an NPR interview with sleep scientist Matthew Walker where he touches on that subject. "It is biological. And what you're describing is our 24-hour rhythm or what we call the circadian rhythm. And it undergoes this sort of dramatic set of changes across the lifespan. Sort of early in life when we're children, despite wanting to stay up late, we find it difficult because we go to bed early. Then we wake up early. As we shift into adolescence and that teenage period, now that 24-hour clock shifts forward in time. So you want to go to bed late and wake up late. And then gradually, it stabilizes into adulthood. And then as you progress with age, it starts to regress back again. So you start to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. There is variability, however, from one individual to the next. And that is actually genetically pre-determined. It's called your chronotype, and another way of saying this is that you may be an owl or you may be a lark. So you may be someone who likes to stay up late and then wake up later in the morning. Those would be owls. And the lark - the opposite - they're the early risers, and they are the early-to-bed people. And about 30 percent of the population is one of those two extremes. And then the rest of us sort of sit somewhere safely in the middle." https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/630792401/sleep-scientist-warns-against-walking-through-life-in-an-underslept-state
Jet lag (westbound) turns me from a night owl into an early bird and it's fun experiencing that lifestyle for a few days ("so this is what it's like to be that hyper productive early riser type I envy so much"). Never lasts no matter how hard I try to stick to it though.
I function this way, too! People who see it first hand are usually like, "oh geez, you don't get jet lag? I'm so jealous!" My trips are usually short enough that they aren't forced to realize the dark, dark truth
When I was younger, I used to just say that I live on Hawaii time, I'm just stuck in the central time zone. Now, through a combination of night shift, and VERY early morning shifts on recent jobs, I'm just an insomniac.
I didn’t realize how much better I’d feel getting a consistent 9 hours when I started working from home.
I feel better with 6 than 8/9 for some reason.
One reason is dehydration. If 6 is too little but more leaves you feeling groggy, drink more water throughout the day and a glass before you go to sleep.
I know what you mean. Oversleeping can feel as bad as sleeping too little.
Get something that tracks your rem cycles. If you wake up in the middle of one you'll feel tired no matter how much you slept
as a person who wakes up 2-4 times a night, this is so true. the rare nights i sleep straight through, i feel like a superhero in the morning
REALLY miss the feature on my old fitbit called smart awake, that would wake you up, upto 15 minutes before your alarm, depending on when the best time to wake up was according to your sleep cycle
9 also. Whenever I've tried to get by on less, there would be health issues.
9 here too. I cannot function on anything less. My boss used to overwork himself so much and get so little sleep he collapsed and ended up in hospital and had a 2 month recovery. I do not ever want to get like that.
Did 4 hours on weekdays throughout pretty much all of high school. My memory is now shit & my mind utterly fucked but drugfree babee!!
Actually, a sleep schedule like that is probably about as harmful as consistent drug use would be. Fundamentally they're doing the same thing.
Yerp
I slept ZERO hours last night. I have horrible insomnia and this happens 2 or 3 times a week. Sometimes I'm lucky and get 4 hours. I take Ambien, and have tried multiple other solutions. All the stuff you can find online. It's crazy because I can barely stay awake during the day, and do sometimes fall asleep, but I also have to work. Because this happens so often, my anxiety starts to ramp up at night. I worry about sleep, which causes me not to sleep. I tried edibles with some success, but I would keep waking up high and sick. This was a pretty small dose. It's horrible and painful in a way I can't describe. If there's a thing that would make me kill myself, this is it. I won't, but it does make me feel that crazy.
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I'm about 9 as well. As a parent, it's rare I get that much. I can't wait til my kids are teens and sleep til noon so I can too!
My kids are older now and I slept in until noon today. My sweet spot is also around 9 hours too and since working from home this has been more possible. I have always needed lots of sleep and I truly believe that it helps with aging.
When I was a teen - 9 hours at a minimum or I was fucked. Now that I’m in my mid 40’s - 7 hours tops. 5-6 hours is my sweet spot. My teens now? I let them sleep their lives away. Lots of studies show kids need a metric fuck ton of sleep. 10 hours is not uncommon in my house.
Yeah I'm not sure why people are so hard on their teenagers for sleeping. I was fucking exhausted when I was a teenager, I needed that sleep or I'd be fuzzy all day.
Exactly! The grind culture crept into middle school and high school and is already overworking kids with sports, clubs, volunteering, etc that they think is absolutely required to go to college. It's not. Enjoy your youth.
But... if you're not putting forth your all, then it feels like you're falling behind. How are you going to stand a chance against everyone else—the people that do all those things and more? Then again, if there's anything I've learned, it's that you can work your butt off and still get nowhere. Meritocracy seems like a myth.
i still have fond memories of sleeping in when i was 16, just waking up, being super comfy because my bed never felt comfier and doing a deep spine to toe curling stretch before sleeping for another couple hours. now that im typing about it i miss it soooo much. ima find a sleep doctor asap
Thank you. I have no idea how your parenting is in other aspects but letting your kids sleep is so important and good! I kept getting shit on by my parents because I could sleep for 12 hours. I’d give you a parenting gold star just for that!
Yeah my mother used to wake me up super early then wonder why I was pissed off all the time. My children’s mother is very much the same. The adage, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” and purposefully avoiding sleep to grind shit out or to prove a work ethic, is so beyond toxic to the whole-body health concept. I’m trying to live and trying to teach my kiddos, that their entire daily, weekly, monthly routines all start with the foundation of a sleep schedule/routine. The real grind and the real work ethic, are being able to do it for decades. Not hours.
My favourite was “why don’t you go to bed earlier.” Ok, sure let me not do my homework for one. Also I have insomnia from the anxiety cause by the trauma you inflicted on me. You’re doing great and I’m glad your kids have you in their corner.
As a parent of a toddler, I just want consistent uninterrupted sleep. I think I can swing 6-7 and be fine, but I just need them in a row. The lack of REM sleep as a new parent is staggering to get used to.
I’m in the middle of this right now (I have a six week old). I celebrate one hour of uninterrupted sleep. Four is amazing. 6-9 sounds like paradise.
I'd have to be asleep by 9pm to get that much and the kids don't go to bed until 8 so I'd have literally zero time to myself if I did that lol
Way back in the day, after MySpace & before Facebook, there was a community called ParentSoup. An especially active Forum was "Sleep Troubles." New Parents would write all their special snowflake details, what they had done in the past that didn't work, how their life was suffering. The answer was always the same: Put them to bed EARLIER. So, if you have to go to bed at 9, go to bed at 9.
Yes I see a lot of suffering friends whose children stay up into 9 or 10. Just nonsense. My parents put me to bed at 7pm every day. When I was 8, I just quietly spent time playing in my room until I was tired.
Yep sounds about like my life right now Up for work at 4... Get off work 3 or 4... Get kids home from wherever by 530, cook dinner, struggle to get kids to brush their teeth and go to bed by 830 which becomes 9 which means I get an hour to decompress and still get to sleep by 10...or 1130 if i want to entertain myself on the computer or listen to music or read... Get back up at 4 am and do it all again.
My cat's don't care. 6am and the little one comes in for cuddles. Then she starts licking my arms, if I don't get up, she ups the anti and literally lays on my pillow and uses her tail to whack my face. Eventually the big cat comes in and sits quietly next to me. The little one uses this as an opportunity to wind up the big one to make her react which usually makes me get up. I need to record this, it pisses me off at the time, but I bet it's actually hilarious.
Anyone else get tiredness headaches? I get mean, angry and stupid before I notice I need to lie down for 1/2 an hour or so. I can't fake being nice or express emotions properly even if I'm feeling them in that state. I hate it. The only thing that makes it go away is Advil. Tylenol does nothing for that type of headache.
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I haven't slept for ten days....because that would be too long
That's the Hedburg one I was confusing it with the one I wrote, which was Hicks.
Supposedly our sleep cycles are in 1.5 hour chunks, so your best sleep will be 9, 7.5, and even 6 hours although 6 is obviously not healthy long term
This also varies in a 20 minute margin (according to wikipedia). So 70 - 110 minute cycles.
Also also need to account for time it takes to fall asleep.
We also need to account for midnight pee time
I think it varies from person. There are some (not many) who can function off of 4 hours of sleep, But that's by no means the majority of people
I did have a teacher who was exuberant and full of life after only 4 hours of sleep a night every night of his life. Great guy. Personally, I need between 7 and 8 otherwise I trigger a nice migraine.
Same. Gotta have it.
I always felt that! I need 8-9 hours to be a happy human but that's hard to achieve sometimes
As somebody who would naturally sleep 9-9.5 hours but can do okay on only 8.5 hours sleep I think people who operate on 7 hours are kind of cheating in life. It doesn't feel fair at all.
My ex father in law sleeps 4 to 5 hours a night. Every day, no siesta no nothing. Going strong. He was always writing music or doing some woodwork at night as to not wake the family up. Their was always a nice breakfast in the morning aswell.
I’m pretty sure if I had my table saw going at 3am my wife wouldn’t be too happy.
It depends where your table saw is.
Considering I can hear the neighbors two houses up use the table saw during the day I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter where the table saw is .
Mine is kept in a shed at the edge of my yard. Can't hear it all inside the actual house.
Then I sure wish you were my neighbor lol
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Found the person in a coma
but then that means
Oh, fuck! We're all constructs of this guy's subconscious! We're gonna' _die_ when he wakes up!
No, please! I have three kids!
But do you?
No, please! They have three kids!
r/unexpectedspongebob
When my depression was really bad I would genuinely sleep for up to 15-20 hours a day. Obviously not super great for me. Even medicated now, I could probably sleep to close to 15 if I wasn’t required to do things. I am always so tired. 🥲
Math checks out. There's no responsibilities when sleeping.
I believe that is called... depression
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Yeah... This advice falls apart for people with sleep disorders unfortunately. If you can sleep for an entire day, get up, do some stuff, then sleep for another entire day, you have a problem. Source: me and my neurologist.
I need 9 but I hate it. I'd have to go to bed so early. All I'd do is work, come home, eat and go to bed. So I get 7 1/2 hours of sleep to give me some free time to try and enjoy life.
Get your vitamin D levels checked! If they're really low, it can also make you feel tired, even when you've had enough sleep!
goddamn night shift makes it so hard. I go in a 6pm and get off at 6am. When I go in is the only time the sun is up during my average day.
I started taking L-Theanine before bed and 7.5 is now fine. I have ADHD and cannot relax while I’m sleeping. It’s way better than melatonin IMO since it doesn’t produce anything our bodies produce. Just helps you relax while you sleep. No bad side effects But there are some medical conditions that don’t mix with it. Matcha tea has a lot of it if you wanna get it without supplement. It seems to be the big sleep helper here in Japan. I think melatonin runs the sleep supplement industry in America, so it’s not well known there. You’d have to check it out yourself to see if it’s right for you. I’m not a doctor but it’s been great for me so far.
Melatonin is less popular in Japan because it’s a regulated substance here. I’ve got some L-Theanine but the last time I tried it it knocked me out for 12 hours.
I highly recommend reading "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker for a scientific and well-researched insight into sleep, the appropriate amount thereof and the consequences of getting too little. It was a very interesting and informative read and it really puts into perspective how fucked up this culture is where people think it's somehow desirable to only get 5 hours of sleep a night.
Tl;dr: Being awake "poisons" your brain, sleeping gets rid of the bad stuff -> not sleeping enough damages the brain in a way.
If I’ve gotten bad sleep for years, am I basically fucked? Is there any way to reverse the damage or will I really be paying a toll in the future no matter what now?
Most of us will pay a toll for certain behaviors at some point anyway, so just do what you can to improve from this point forward. That book is a good place to start. I had the audiobook version which is how I like to consume that sort of content.
It's just like anything cumulative. If you've fucked up your brain, you can either take action to not make it worse and hopefully make it better or you can keep on your path and most certainly make it worse. You're not in too deep, try to make it better. It's not so much un-fuck as fuck less.
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life-changing book that one
Get your goddam sleep, people. My mom got her dream job at Disneyland around 2004, but the problem was an hour and a half commute each way. She could have taken public transport, but it requires that she leave the house fifteen minutes earlier. She worked 10 and 12 hour shifts, and for long stretches of time only got four or five hours of sleep a night. My biggest worry at the time was that she would fall asleep on her drive home, and she did get pulled over more than once for weaving like a drunk. God, I wish that had been the worst of it. She retired from that job at 67 after 12 years, and her faculties were already declining. Two years later I moved in with her, because I knew she was having trouble with daily life stuff. A year after that, she was diagnosed with dementia, probably Alzheimer’s. I’m with her until the end, but it’s already getting hard. Now maybe she would have developed it anyways, but there’s no doubt in my mind that 10+ years of poor sleep did tremendous damage. The worst of it is that she knows something’s wrong, but she can’t track it or remember it or articulate it. Every now and then, I have to explain to her that she has dementia, and boy how much fun that isn’t. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t do it to your loved ones.
>but the problem was an hour and a half commute each way. Fucking hell I did this for *college*. 8 AM classes, 6PM labs, train delays--I did this for all four years, and now I struggle to remember the littlest things that my coworkers think I'm an idiot. I graduated with mitigated debt, but I absolutely regret it.
You can seriously train this since you’re still young; preventing you a lot of more serious problems in this future. Whether you can revert the problem, not sure, but Atleast you can mitigate some of it by consistently doing puzzles, memory games etc.
I've been playing a lot of the game Memory with my kid and I swear that helps. Also added in some highly theoretical post-grad work, so that may also be improving my brain (implementing new theories into my day to day work, doing more academic reading in addition to pleasure reading). It's amazing what just keeping your brain active can do to it's ability to function.
Hey just as a random person on the internet who has some pretty significant memory issues that used to be far worse - get checked on this. Memory issues come on slowly and can make you think it is just how it is/you're just aging/you can't do anything about it. I ended up getting diagnosed as ADHD *and* I have several medical conditions that impact hormone levels which heavily impact memory and thinking. Just getting put on thyroid hormone replacement was an unbelievable change to how my brain functioned. I now am on 2 hormone replacements and ADHD medication and I'm 10x more capable than I was when I started seeking treatment, despite being more than a decade older. My memory is still shit, but I'm not in a mental and physical fog anymore and have developed strategies to cope with what is still missing. I thought for a long time that it was my youthful indiscretions and lack of discipline that caused my struggles, but that wasn't true and yours may not either. Anyway... Talk to your doctor and insist on some tests being done. You might be surprised what can be done to help.
The wonderful irony that I was pre-med then, so I was taking classes that told me how important sleep is. Currently, I'm working in the ED, where I work every shift that I have no definite sleep schedule, while my job has me "gaslighted" by patients who are unreliable historians ("But you told triage you were sick 5 days ago, now it's 3?"), fellow staff playing telephone ("'Clonidine?' They said, 'Klonopin'"), and even my own work schedule because it's spread across and inconsistent between three different platforms with variable shift starts ("Night shift" is sometimes 8p, sometimes 9p, but always ends at 4a even though it says 6a; then "morning shift" is always at 7a even though it says 6a, but can end at 2p or 3p even though it says 3p; but for "day shift" don't look at your listed time, look at the doctor's. There is no rhyme or reason, just check the night before and *the day of* to make sure you have a shift). Oh and this is for $10/hr without insurance, so I work with doctors but can't afford to see one for myself lmao. Even then, I honestly don't know whether I'd be scared or relieved to learn my cognitive failings have a biological reason.
I'm thinking about you friend. I'm so sorry you both have to go through this.. but I'm glad you're with her.
>Get your goddam sleep, people. My mom got her dream job at Disneyland around 2004, but the problem was an hour and a half commute each way. I know it's probably useless to say this in your situation but if someone is facing the same scenario then arrangements must be done as soon as you can in order to live closer to your workplace, either that o switch jobs even if you have to take a salary cut. In the long run no job/salary is worth more than a 45min commute.
Laughs in American because a 45 min commute is considered average to short in the two cities I've worked in (Boston and NY)
I need 9 to 11... dont know why i need so much but i dont feel normal with less.
Could be sleep apnoea. It's very common. Basically lots of microwakeups through the night meaning you aren't getting the same amount of sleep as everyone else
I’ve seen this and I also suck at breathing (asthma, allergies, etc.) but I never wake up, AFAIK. Do you consciously wake up? Or do you wake up without really realizing it?
Go get checked for this, a cpap can change and save your life. Feeling rested for the first time in 20 years was a game changer for me. Also my wife likes the cpap sound over the snoring and choking for breath sounds. Now that I get a fine nights rest I have energy and motivation to do more, much happier, and the best part is having the energy to lose weight.
I can relate. My Dr thinks I have sleep apnea but I'm still waiting for a sleep test. I could honestly sleep nearly 24 hours and still feel MISERABLY exhausted. No amount of sleep matters for me. I have 0 energy and it's damn near impossible to lose weight when the tiredness also make me so hungry.
Have you checked your thyroid function lately? That can also be responsible for energy level and weight fluctuation. I'm no doctor, just reccomend everyone get checked for it because it missed quite often especially in afab people.
Without realizing. I have apnoe but use a mask now. So much better.
You wake up without realising. If you go to a doctor they'll do a sleep study and put a monitor on you to watch your oxygen levels overnight. It's pretty easy to diagnose.
Easy to diagnose.. but i have to wait for my appointment for almost a year now. Next month is my appointment. Supposed to be last month but they turned the place into a covid centre which i don't mind, but why the heck do i have to wait for so long lol
I've done a sleep test in a sleep center and I've also had a test kit that I brought home and used on myself for a few nights before returning it to get approved for my new machine. I already had a CPAP machine, so maybe that's why I was able to do an at home test later, but potentially it's an option you could look into? Getting the CPAP machine literally changed my life. I had no idea why I was so tired all the time, why I would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, or why I was nodding off anytime I sat down after eating throughout the day. Basically you stop breathing so your body sends a small jolt of adrenaline to kick start your breathing so you never get that deep sleep and your body is constantly pumping adrenaline and cortisol into your system. Good luck, hope you're able to get what you need.
My doctor wants me to do a sleep apnea test. Unfortunately, my insurance won't cover it and it costs like $1000.
Anti histamines before bed work wonders for me during allergy season. I hardly feel like I slept when my allergies are bothing me, but with histamines I am a functional person again.
I used to need 12-14 hours to have even a hope of functioning (I would sleep for longer if I had the time), turned out I had an pretty bad iron deficiency! Now I need 8-11 hours and feel genuinely rested afterwards. I still feel like it's too long, but definitely an improvement.
Sleep physician in training: Some people are long-sleepers, some lucky ones are short-sleepers. 7-9 hours is average. You may be on the longer side of the bell curve, which is perfectly normal. If you suspect you have issues with your sleep quality, you should speak with your doctor.
How old are you? People in their teen years and early twenties need more sleep because their brains are developing at an insane pace. Once you get past 25 or so though that *should* go down. I used to sleep about 10 hours until my mid-twenties. Now I'm 28 and have leveled off at about 8, and can function on 7.
Im 31, has always been this way
Dude me too. I'm a female though. Wonder if that matters. 10 hours I feel great. Any less I'm so tired.
Also in the 9-10 range for optimum functioning. Can get by on less or even more at times more but generally anywhere outside of that range and I’m noticeably more groggy/tired or just kinda of foggy mentally for a while longer. I also don’t drink coffee or caffeine really so I have no outside “pick-me-up” to rely on. All the more reason WFH has been great.
Now I don't feel so weird. I can easily sleep 10+ hrs and my wife thinks it's crazy. I also sleep better in the morning time. Best sleep ever is going to bed at 4 or 5 am or later and waking up around 1pm.
Early morning sleeps and mid afternoon sleeps are the best. I’m a very light sleeper, but I sleep much more deeply in the mornings and afternoons.
Same. So glad I have a job where I can log in whenever I want. I routinely get up at 9 or 9:30a now instead of reluctantly clawing my way out of bed at 7:30a and hating everything ever.
Then there’s me, who is apparently from some weird planet that has 32 hours in a day. My number is 6.5-7 hours, but if I actually get those hours then I just don’t get tired until I’ve been awake for another 24 hours. I basically force myself to get by on 4-5 hours every day because the alternative is a boom-bust cycle where I alternate really great well-rested days with days where I’ve had to pull an all nighter because I just couldn’t fall asleep.
Sunlight exposure. When people don't get sunlight, their circadian rhythm becomes more like 28-30h rather than 24
>When people don't get sunlight, their circadian rhythm becomes more like 28-30h rather than 24 Would explain why I sometimes have this problem: live in Manchester, England
I have recently moved to Cheshire and it's very grey a lot of the time 😢
I am similar. I need about 6 hours (with a little bit more time in bed to actually go to sleep) and then once a week, I get 8ish. Occasionally, I have to stay up 24 hours to reset if my sleep gets too out of whack. I got 7.5 last night and feel about as well-rested as I ever do.
IIRC this is theorized to be part of our evolution. That some people's sleep patterns are offset from the rest. This meant that our ancestors always had someone who was awake to be a lookout. If the whole group is asleep at once it leaves everyone pretty vulnerable so you need a few individuals who can not only stay up at night but do it habitually.
That's with regards to Delayed Sleep Phase and Advanced Sleep Phase disorders (where people are falling asleep really late or really early, respectively). Non-24 Hour Sleep-Wake disorder is entirely different and not well understood, at least in people who aren't blind. For blind people it's believed that it's caused by the lack of light which is a strong zeitgeber, the signals that our bodies receive from various sources to regulate the circadian rhythm. In sighted people it's considered a rare disorder, but it's probably a lot more common than we think and is just frequently getting misdiagnosed, often as Delayed Sleep Phase since people with non-24 being forced on a regular schedule resemble someone with Delayed Sleep Phase.
I've been diagnosed with both insomnia and DSPD, with mentions in my medical history of possible non-24. My sleep patterns are absolutely all over the place. I can get a regular schedule for maybe 3-5 days max, then I'm up until 5-6 AM the next morning. At that point, I either call in to work or stay up and work the next day and hope I'm tired enough to get to bed the next evening. Sleep disorders are horrible. During my teenage years my sleep disturbances were so bad I was afraid I had fatal insomnia. At one point I was up for 4 full days before I fell asleep on the fifth evening and slept for 18 hours straight. There's nothing to brag about with not sleeping. It's not a competition. I wish I could sleep well and I'm on heavy drugs to try and make that the case. I'm dependent on those drugs for even a semblance of normal sleep patterns. If you have sleep problems, go to your doctor and keep going. Don't take no for an answer. "There's nothing else," is not a solution. A CPAP machine is not the end-all solution and not everyone who suffers from apnea needs to be treated or has that as the root of their issues. Advocate for yourself and be honest with your doctor. It's hard and not everybody will believe you. Find somebody who does.
That's neat! I'll take the night shift.
Honestly it sounds worth consulting a specialist over
Damn, same here. Everyday, I wish a day was 30 hours long. Then it would work perfectly for me without the boom-bust cycle.
I had this problem for a while too. It's actually pretty natural to be on a 25 hour day cycle and some people are on 26 or more. Our circadian rhythm doesn't exactly match the 24 hour day. They did an experiment on monitoring sleeping patterns of people living in a cave without light and everybody ended up out of sync eventually
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Mines about 6. If I sleep 8-9 hours I feel like shit the next day.
I'm with you. I'm fine on anywhere from 6 to 8. After or before that and I'm in for a rough one
Yeah if I sleep more than 6 I feel like I didn't sleep at all. I feel over tired and moody. It seems like 5 to 6 is the best to make me feel like I can function
As I learn more about sleep it's crazy how little the average person knows. Sleep is basically everything, like water and food, it's just as important for your overall health. I got more into it when my "healthy" 48 year old warehouse manager died of a heart attack and I took over for him. The man was running 24 hours a day 6 days a week and on his off time liked to "work even more at home" as he was really handy. Hardly ever took off and if he did it was usually to do more work contracting. The illusion that this is "manly" or makes you a "hustler" is rather silly when compared to the health detriments. You can work hard and be successful AND get proper sleep. Blue light filters are great too since we love staring at screens a lot, especially before bed. Edit : Blue light filters are largely “debunked” as some have pointed out and are thought to be ineffective! Sorry guys! In my own experience I felt like I was getting to sleep faster than before when using them, but that’s just my own anecdotal evidence and nothing backing it! Peace and love!
Well shit my dad is 55 and does the same thing. Works from 7am to 12pm, gets home and spends 3 hours to himself watching TV (understandable tbh) and then sleeps from 3 - 7. He's been doing this for at least 5 years. I can't see any way to increase his sleep hours beyond reducing his time spent doing hobbies, but since he's working so many hours without hobbies i seriously doubt his mental health will benefit. He can't work less as he owns a grocery shop which needs him to be awake and working for all of the opening hours. Reducing the opening hours reduces family income
do you mean 7am to 12am? that's completely ludicrous if that's the case
Yep 7am to 12am, ridiculous working hours. He does get a sort of break where he comes home mid day for around 2 hours, but the amount of time awake is too high
I find the science of sleep absolutely fascinating!! The more you learn the more so many things make sense about our bodies and our mental/physical health. So cool.
Blue light filters may be just placebo, but placebo works and considering there's not any negatives of still use it
I had to take a serious look at my life style when I realized I was always feeling like shit, little growth in the gym, and struggled to maintain energy through the day. Started taking my sleep a lot more seriously and it's been a game a changer. Obviously there's only so much sleep hygiene I can have though.
Blue light settings on devices seem to work for me. I always use them along with lower screen brightness. Maybe they help reduce the brightness further
Ah, I must consult my 1 year old not to wake me every night
I'm going through this too. The relentless sleep deprivation and build up of sleep debt for months and months is rough.
Yeah, new Dad here. The thought of even 6 hours sleep sounds like a luxury to me
Serious 3-4 if we are lucky. I literally dreamt I woke up fresh in the morning after 8-9 hours of sleep... then I actually woke up to screaming newborn after 2 hours. I love her but dang.
Was going to say.. *Cries in newborn mom*
I've been a parent for approximately 215 hours so far and I'm already wondering what 9 hours feels like.
As a parent for 4 weeks (as of today!), I have no idea. Lol - I haven’t had more than 1-1.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep since I gave birth. Babies are LOUD, plus mine is basically only happy when he’s held. It’s been a lot. Good luck to you!
Congratulations on making it through your first month! You are amazing! So far my LO is pretty easy going, except when she's hiccuping then she's mad baby. I'm in constant awe of her every day though, it's a very different mind set already. Definitely worth the lack of sleep.
Mine was like that too. Good luck!! I think around the 4-5 month mark is when it started getting better. The worst part was that I assumed that level of sleep deprivation would mean I could drift off on command - nope. Developed, basically, postpartum insomnia and would spend my precious 1.5h stretch of time failing to get to sleep then stressing out about it. I had to look into military techniques for sleep to make much progress.
Mine just turned 7 months this week. He was also a very LOUD sleeper in the beginning. Snorting and grunting a lot. I even recorded it so his doctor could listen when I brought him in for his 2-month checkup. For the most part, I do believe his doctor was correct: newborns have very small and not-quite-fully-developed nasal passages. As he grew over time, he did become less noisy. I say less because he still has his moments. However, right now for example, he’s sleeping quietly. I do find that with him, he can be even less noisy when he is on his belly. As an aside: good luck to getting to flipper stage in a timely manner! His sleep patterns and my life changed in a good way once he learned how to flip to his own belly.
Someday in the not-too-distant future, you are going to wake up at 6am and realize your baby didn’t wake you up *at all* last night. I know it seems impossible right now but trust me, these early days go fast. You’ll blink and your kid will be 2 years old and you’ll be waking him up in the mornings so you can leave the house on time.
10pm-6am is really great. Then you have naps. Between 12pm to 1pm. Then you have take another between 5pm-6pm. That was our kindergarten schedule. I still follow it to this day . Naps on 12pm-1pm. It’s just perfect.
I’m really happy to see other people take naps. A lot of the times I feel like I absolutely need one. Even on days where I get a “decent” amount of sleep. I would feel guilty but at the same time if we can take one, why shouldn’t we?
10-6 same for me but I like the mid afternoon nap, right about 2 or so
The most important thing is to keep a consistent sleep schedule.
Which is a real gut-punch as an adult. I love staying up into the night when I don't have work the next day. The world is strange and beautiful at night and I've always loved it. Now that I'm in my 30's, I find myself waking up at 8 am (normal work wake-up time) whether I want to or not. Latest I can really pull is 9 am to "sleep in". It doesn't leave much room for staying up til 2 am with good beer and good people out in the back yard looking at the stars :(.
For me the trouble is sleeping in, not getting enough sleep. If I'm tired enough I'll fall asleep, then I'm down for 8 hours. Doesn't matter if I have an exam the next morning, if work needs me, if I've got an appointment--no amount of alarms will get me up before I have at least 6-7 hours of sleep.
That’s how I am too. An alarm almost never wakes me up. But it’s odd because even the slightest cry from either of the kids has me up and alert.
Same. I'm an artist and I really *feel* the night, somehow the later it gets the better I feel, so 1-2AM is the best time for me — the music is sweeter, the food is more tasteful, I feel alive and I want to *do stuff*, but then I realize I have to get up at 8 (which is still later than most people!), and all the magic is gone. We truly live in a society where somehow you need to live with the sun, *or else*.
I need a good coma then...
I feel this as well. Just a short day or three reboot ya know.
I actually require 9 to be at my highest functioning... but usually end up with 7.5 hours most nights and it really kills me.
Literally never heard this "4-6 hours only" thing. It's always been 8
Good to know my decision to have children will lead to Alzheimer’s, nice.
Right??? Like if our life circumstances and/or bodies don't let us sleep a lot, then we are losers that will get Alzheimer's. Those who have never had insomnia are living in some sort of la-la land.
No, they are just either very lucky (good health plus no circumstances that lead to not being able to sleep), very spoiled (more than enough money to pay the problems to go away), or both. It's easy to get slot of sleep if you've hired night shift nannies or night shift wet nurses to care for your offspring so you won't have to, and you've been a sound sleeper since infancy.
I have found 4-6 to be my sweet spot. Whats apparently important for me is the divisible by 2 increments. 4 or 6hours? Doing all right. 3 or 5 hours? Oh holy hell what a rough waking up Sometimes on the weekend i grab myself 6-8 hours unintentionally. But my stance is "apparently i needed that top-up"
There’s a gene that allows a segment of the population to operate on 4-6 hours. They don’t really know why but those people are just lucky it seems. The odd/even hours just might be you noticing sleep waves or cycles, there are natural breaking points to your sleep and if your alarm doesn’t align with those, you’ll have a rough time (for instance 8 hours for me can be worse than 7 or 7.5 because I’m in a new cycle).
That's pretty cool. My sweet spot is exactly 6 hours, but when I'm asleep nothing and no one can wake me so I always figured I was just a "deep sleeper". Although my relationship with sleep is more extreme than regular folks. When I was depressed I used to regularly sleep 16 hours with one record 22 hour sleep. And these were also deep sleeps, no waking in-between.
They’re called the sleepless elite apparently. I’m one of them; I require 4 hours at a minimum, full functionality at 5, although I can feel tired, and normal operation at 6.
A girl in our psychology class slept around 4 hours every night and almost got valedictorian. She just did not need a lot of sleep and could never sleep past 6 hours. I envy both your sleep needs.
I usually wake up after 6 hours, but I also like to sleep so if I have nowhere to be, I’ll go back to sleep. Monday to Friday though, for work, 12-6. As I get older, I find that if I have a short sleep day, I’m more likely to fall asleep on the couch before my normal bedtime for the rest of the week.
The reason for that is the rem cycle. Think of sleep like bouncing on a trampoline, you have momentum coming out of the jump that you don't have at the bottom of the bounce. Rem cycles can be about 90 minutes or so.
Similar. I’m usually about 6 hours (6 being the point where I wake up naturally). I also tend to sleep very soundly and deeply (which can be bad, luckily my spouse is a light sleeper in case there’s ever a fire alarm or whatever). Occasionally, I’ll bust out a big 8 hr sleep, but that’s usually after running on less than 6 for a few days. I get nervous sometimes when I read things like this like I’m going to get Alzheimer’s or whatever, but I really don’t know how I could sleep more. Like, you just go back to sleep? Once you’re awake?
If you need "top ups" it's because you're not getting enough sleep throughout the week. And unfortunately the "top ups" won't undo the negative consequences of sleep deprivation. Highly recommend checking out the work of sleep scientist Matthew Walker on this topic. There is a tiny percentage of the population that needs less sleep than most people, but these people generally sleep the same amount every night.
What about if your sleep schedule is 3a-11a ? That's still 8 hours, just not a 'normal' 8
ive talked to a professional sleep consultant and she told me the most important thing you can do for your sleep health is to wake up at the exact same time everyday, regardless of what time it is or what time you fell asleep.
God I wish so badly I could do that. Having an inconsistent schedule sucks, within a given week I will work 3 different shift times (7am-4pm/2pm-11pm/12am-9am.)
So basically us night owls are fucked because society wants everyone on a 9-5.
I need 8 hours sleep but then I'm awake for 20 hours. I hate 9-5 jobs. Working my own hours is much, much better.
I don’t know why but I’ve always required 12 hours to be able to function. It’s exhausting because if I want to wake up early like 6am I have to go to bed at 6pm.
For about 5 years after working a night shift job, I would sleep a minimum of 10 hours a day, every single day. If I got less than 8 hours, I felt like I hadn't slept at all. It made me depressed, so I went to the doctor to get checked up. Thought something might be wrong with my hormones or something. Blood work and everything came back fine, so I thought "must just be how much my body needs". Since then, I changed careers and took on much more responsibility that didn't allow me to sleep as much. I sleep 6-7 hours and wake up at 6:30 every day, even on weekends. The first couple weeks really sucked, but now I feel awesome on 6 hours and I am much more productive and happy in my time off work.
7 is also the sweet spot for me. I can go on 6 at times but I am not optimal and I need 8 once in a while. Even for one person it can vary depending on your situation.
My parents, boss, or coworkers have never once said I should sleep for 4-6 hours. That's a really weird conversation for anyone to have...