
Ask HN: How much do you sleep at night? - hyperbovine
How many hours of sleep do you average a night? How do you feel it affects your work life, non-work life, and everything else?
======
fcodebs
<http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/sleepless.html>

Stanford University Center of Excellence for the Diagnosis and Treatment of
Sleep Disorders

Each of us has a specific daily sleep requirement. The average sleep
requirement for college students is well over eight hours, and the majority of
students would fall within the range of this value plus or minus one hour. If
this amount is not obtained, a sleep debt is created. All lost sleep
accumulates progressively as a larger and larger sleep indebtedness.
Furthermore, your sleep debt does not go away or spontaneously decrease. The
only way to reduce your individual sleep debt is by obtaining extra sleep over
and above your daily requirement.

The powerful brain mechanism that regulates the daily amount of sleep is
called the sleep homeostat. By increasing the tendency to fall asleep
progressively in direct proportion to the increasing size of the sleep debt,
this homeostatic process ensures that most people will get the amount of sleep
they need, or close to it. The elevated sleep tendency together with the
associated drowsiness and an intense desire for sleep would ordinarily prevent
most people from becoming dangerously sleep deprived because they would go to
bed early, or sleep late, when such excessive daytime sleepiness occurred.

However, in our society we are prone to ignore or resist nature's signal that
we need more sleep, and we often resist far too long. At this point, we cannot
resist falling asleep. Depending on when and where this happens, falling
asleep can be tragic, or merely inconvenient. As far as is currently known,
nothing can change an individual's fundamental daily sleep requirement.

~~~
prodigal_erik
"Does not go away" makes it sound permanent, but I read about an experiment to
measure sleep debt that found it's sort of a decaying average over the last
two weeks. There's no reason to think my body remembers exactly how many all-
nighters I pulled in college.

~~~
jackowayed
Well, the idea is that you'll be tired enough that you'll almost always pay it
back pretty promptly. So your body doesn't have to remember for a really long
time because you don't keep a balance for that long.

For example, after you turned in the papers/took the exams from the all-
nighters in college, you probably crashed and took a long nap or slept 12
hours that night or something.

It's not exact, obviously. I have found that you kinda get a "discount" when
you get enough into sleep-debt. I slept about 15 hours over 6 nights once, and
after basically sleeping for 24 hours straight, I was totally fine. So that
was only like 16 hours of extra sleep (because 8 of the 24 have to count
towards that night), which means with that the initial sleep + the paid back
sleep was only ~31 hours for 6 nights, which is still only 5 hrs/night.

------
rokhayakebe
If you are not getting 7 to 8 hours, you are just fooling yourself into
thinking you are a hero. You shall pay for those hours with your health.

~~~
axod
Please post some studies showing how you get ill with less than this magical
7-8 hours sleep.

Say you sleep 2 hours less than "the norm". That means you get an extra 30
_DAYS_ a year of 'awake' time. Over 50 years, that 2 hours has added up to an
extra 4 years of useful awake time.

Would you rather have more time while you're young, and able to do stuff, or
just live a bit longer when you're old and stuck in a home? (Assuming you're
correct, and lack of sleep makes you die younger).

Everything in moderation - don't take things to extremes, but I'd say 5 hours
is probably still healthy enough.

Having kids certainly helps with training yourself to not need much sleep.

~~~
mrbgty
A lot happens while your asleep. It's not just your brain repairing itself,
although you'd think this would be important enough. In college, at the end of
a few hours of study, I'd have some vague understanding of the material. After
a full night of sleep, the next day, the information was sometimes clear as
day.

Additionally, I'm convinced that your dreams, whether you remember them or
not, influence your consciousness. That great idea you had may be a derivative
of some really strange thoughts that went through your head while you were
asleep.

The point is that sleeping isn't wasted time. There's really important things
going on and the ones sleeping those 30 more days a year are probably going to
get more out of their sleep than those staying awake for that time.

~~~
axod
I agree. I often solve problems when asleep, and wake up with an answer. But
picking _any_ arbitrary number and saying people should sleep that much is a
bad idea. One size doesn't fit all.

~~~
mrbgty
Definitely. The way I read his post, though, it was more to point out that you
should get a full night of sleep and if you're bragging about only sleeping a
few hours a night to be productive, you're not impressing anybody.

~~~
axod
Fair enough... I wouldn't objected if he hadn't included the magic 7-8 hour
figure. I agree, some people are sleeping too little trying to be a hero.

------
flooha
5 or 6 before getting laid off. 8 or 9 now and loving every minute of it. I
can't tell you how much better I feel. I can take power naps on the couch and
often solve the prolem I've been working on all morning, just after waking up.
I work the entire day with breaks whenever I want and actually end up working
9 or more hours.

It's also great to work on my startup full time. My office is now the patio
table if it's sunny or the back porch if it's raining. It's amazing how hard
you'll "work" to not have to go back to "work".

------
davidw
There was a poll a while back: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=328901>

------
AndrewO
Words to live by from George III:

"Six hours' sleep is enough for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a
fool."

Of course, he was... well, mad.

------
godDLL
The IDF foobar'd my sleep forever, or so I thought. When you're in the army
the first few months is boot-camp -- they give you exactly six hours a day,
that's including the time it takes for you to fall asleep. Teaches you
submission or something along these lines.

Thing is, I really like sleeping. I love it.

So after a few years that this was done with, I tried to recover the joy I
used to find in downtime. You know -- getting the rest, seeing the lucid
dreams, waking up renewed and refreshed -- that sort of thing.

Turns out my "natural cycle" was permanently shortened by the way we were
being worked, or so I feel. I can't go 18/6 or 16/8, and even 14/10 doesn't
feel any more refreshing.

So I started doing 12/6. That's twelve hours to do what you've got to be doing
and six to sleep, not including the time to fall asleep. If you stop consuming
and producing information about an hour before you go to sleep you can fall
asleep real fast, under 10 minutes.

The downside is that you'll have to be self-employed, or it won't work for you
(sometimes your sleep will fall during the day).

Even if I feel it works for me, it _does not necessarily_ mean you should do
it. Try it for a week, and see.

------
ganley
About an hour less than I'd like to.

~~~
dkarl
Through chronic undersleeping I've trained myself to undersleep, which leaves
me groggy and vulnerable to minor colds and such. Some days I'm so tired I
avoid talking to people because I know I sound mentally defective. Every once
in a while this culminates in sleeping until noon, and having to call in sick
and apologize to my boss.

I'm developing the discipline to avoid caffeine after 6pm and go to bed
"early" (which right now means midnight or 1am) but sometimes it's just
impossible to get enough sleep. Last night I set my alarm for 8:30 and went to
bed at 1am, but I woke up at 7:30. Tired. ARRRGH! This happens more often than
not. It looks like regaining my ability to sleep is going to require a long
period of diet-level discipline. My recommendation to anyone who doesn't get
enough sleep: fix your lifestyle before it becomes ingrained in your
psychology and physiology.

~~~
johnm
If you want to sleep better, cut out caffeine after noon. It's got a much
longer half-life than you think.

Also, rather than forcing yourself to try to sleep at a certain time, create
consistency in when you wake up.

~~~
dkarl
I did have to moderate my caffeine intake to avoid lying awake at night. I
still drink several strong cups of coffee before noon, but after that I limit
myself to three diet sodas. If I drink the last before 6pm, I don't have any
problem going to sleep.

When I was younger I'd drink caffeine all day and then be too wired to sleep,
but when I finally went to sleep, I'd sleep as long as I needed to. My biggest
problem was that if I drank coffee I would stay up late and then sleep through
my alarm in the morning. Now my problem is not sleeping long enough even when
I have the chance.

~~~
kirubakaran
Why not switch to decaf?

~~~
dkarl
Mostly because I like caffeine. I've thought about kicking it entirely, but I
hope that isn't necessary. Also, the decaf selection is pretty limited where I
shop, and none of my favorite kinds of coffee are ever available as decaf.
Usually the only light-roast decafs available are Central American coffees,
which aren't my cup of tea, so to speak.

------
timwiseman
Personally on a normal week night I sleep for roughly 5 hours, and then on
Saturdays and Sundays I usually sleep for 8-9 hours, so my overall average is
around 6 hours a night.

I frequently wish I could sleep more and feel tired long before I go to bed
most nights, but I do not take it to such an extreme that I believe it truly
reduces my effectiveness. Of course, that is my subjective thought and I have
not tried to precisely test it.

~~~
thetrumanshow
This describes me as well. I need those late night hours after the kids have
gone to bed to code. I make it up on the weekend, but it's easy to get behind.
Saturday and Sunday recovery sleep is sometimes interrupted, throwing the
whole next week into a tailspin.

Sometimes, when I am way behind on rest, I go through a reset period. Normally
this is marked by more sleeping hours and less interest in hacking... also
less interest in social interaction.

------
torr
I've having a particularly bad time right now (big and manifold
responsibilities, not enough time) and only getting 3-5 hours / night on
weeknights. This has been going on for months now (with some regular 7-8 hour
sleeping nights once in a while).

Results I've found: Mornings _really_ suck. I'm putting on weight. I also feel
terribly unhealthy. I'm not as sharp as I am at full power (though this is
subjective and very hard to discern). I can fall asleep in minutes if given a
place to lay down. Also, I get sick much more often than usual (which was
hardly at all). Subjective opinion: it feels like I'm prematurely aging
myself.

Trying to "make up" the sleep on weekends doesn't work for me. Oversleeping
just leads to bad headaches.

When I _do_ get a solid 8 hours I feel like Superman the next day.

I'm hoping that I'm not doing any long-term damage to myself, but there's
really no way out right now. :( The current job ends very soon (2 weeks!), and
then I'll be able to resume normal sleeping habits (7-8 hrs/night).

~~~
dkarl
Ditto on putting on weight, ditto on the unpleasant effects of oversleeping to
catch up, and ditto on not being sharp. The thing to keep in mind is that
you're well beyond the point of diminishing returns. If you aren't achieving
maximum output in somewhere between 6 and 10 working hours per day, then
you're suffering from distractions -- something else is sucking up your
productivity.

See my other post for my difficulty with undoing the habit of undersleeping.
Even though I no longer experience any external pressure to undersleep, I
still don't get enough sleep and suffer the consequences for it. It's hard to
stop.

------
Beanblabber
I get anywhere from 12+ to 5 hours of sleep, depending.

I'm 14 and I go to bed when I'm tired. I wake at 7:30 on weekdays for school
and sleep for as long as I like on the weekends. The reason for my fluctuation
of sleep is that I think most clearly during the night, which is when I get
most of my hacking done. So I like living a night life when life is centered
around the day and that screws up your sleeping.

There's nothing quite like being alone in a quiet house at 3 am in a room with
nothing but a linux terminal.

Anyways, my sleeping habits don't affect my school learning(the days we
actually learn stuff), nor my social life.

------
yan
"You can't steal time from your sleep schedule, you can only borrow it.
Eventually you have to pay it back. With interest. Yes, you _have_ to get XYZ
done by yesterday, or... or... Well, _something_ really bad will happen. Take
a minute to consider most deadlines you've had. Is the deliverable going to
ship the day after the deadline? Of course not, this is just the regular
monthly deliverable. By the time the shipping deliverable rolls around you'll
be paying back your sleep debt, with interest. "

\- bram cohen

------
leonroy
The way I figure it is, some days you work harder and need more sleep, some
days you need less. So I try to be like a machine: I'll wake up at 7am and go
to sleep when I'm tired.

This results in me getting about 6-8 hours sleep a night - and no sleeping in
on weekends! It throws my pattern completely out of whack.

As a previous poster said, the most productive hours for a hacker are the wee
hours of the morning, when the wife/neightbours/kids piss off and let you code
- but I think it's important to keep your waking hours as closely tied to
sunrise/sunset as possible - it's all a compromise and one size doesn't fit
all.

------
robryan
I've found recently that at crunch time on uni work/ freelance work I seem to
just omit the having a life part of my day to maintain a similar amount of
sleep.

Also the sleep moves from say midnight -1 to 10-11 to about 5-6 to 12-2

~~~
coffeeaddicted
My sleeping pattern moves round the clock. Right now waking up around 5 pm.
Wouldn't actually be much of a problem if there wouldn't be a society out
there which prefers different sleeping patterns. I like coding at night
(partly because it's rather noisy around here at day), but finding time for
shopping can be difficult sometimes.

And I need 8-9 hours of sleep, anything below that and my productivity drops
like a stone.

~~~
access_denied
This is because researchers found out, that there are two tyes of persons
regarding the "inner clock": for some the day lasts 23 hours for others 25
hours. Unless you regulate yourself with alarm-clock you will go cycles.

------
mcantor
Between 6 and 7 hours on weeknights, probably between 8 and 9 on weekends. I
don't think it's working for me that well, though. I usually go to sleep at
midnight or 1, then get woken up by my alarm at 7:00, but snooze until 7:30 or
7:45 and it's really time to get going. I feel like it'd be a much better idea
to just consistently go to sleep at 11 PM on weeknights, but I never really
feel tired at that point. Also, I tend to stay up reading in bed.

------
JimmyL
Currently unemployed, so like 10.

------
wim
Funny to see this post here today, as last day was actually one of those work-
round-the-clock days (1h powernap), I usually try to aim for at least 6 hours.
Less than that just makes me less efficient at work and I start skipping
sports for the day ;). I usually have one day per week where I sleep really a
lot, like 10 hours or so, which feels like it sort of recharges me for the
week.

------
noss
With spring/summer allergies I get really tired. I wish I could sleep an extra
REM period. But I get 7 hours each night.

The theory that it is best to wake up during soft-sleeping between REM sleep
interests me. As others have mentioned, sleeping too much can make you sleepy
all day as well.

Anyone got one of those alarm clocks that wake you up when you sleep softly
between REMs?

------
hvs
6-7. I don't use an alarm clock, but that's the amount of time my body feels
like it needs. When I'm under a crunch, it will sometimes drop to 5, but I
don't do that for very long. I regularly only got about 4 hours / night during
college and I'm sure it negatively impacted my grades.

------
xsc
Usually 6.5 - 7

Get up, go to the gym, nice cool morning air after the gym and shower, and to
work before everyone gets in.

------
kaitnieks
When I was a student, I used to go to bed at 7:00-8:00 and wake up at
12:00-13:00, so that's about 5 hours. When saturday came, I visited my
parents, went to bed at 12:00, saturday noon and woke up at 16:00, sunday
afternoon. I really miss those days.

~~~
Sikul
Sounds about the same as me for my first two semesters. Only difference is
instead of going home on the weekends I would take an hour nap before my early
Friday class then go back to sleep until Saturday after the class was over.
Glad I'm not doing that anymore :)

Off topic: Are you the kaitnieks that created Autorune and SCAR?

------
midnightmonster
5-6 hours during the night, if the kids are sleeping well. If I have to get up
in the night, I often take a 20-45 min nap the next afternoon. Even if no
child wakes me up, I virtually never sleep more than 8 hours.

------
der_ketzer
I think it's also important not only how many hours, but when. If you have a
daily work, well you must sleep at night. But if you are a Freelancer for
example? Do you sleep at 3am? 6am? 10am?

------
tptacek
About 5 hours. I fall asleep at ~2, I get up at 7 to get the kids to school. I
sleep in on Saturday and doze Sunday morning until the kids force me to make
the weekly pancakes at around 11a.

------
pj
I go to sleep between 1 to 2AM and get to my computer about 10-10:30AM. But I
usually lay in bed for a little while as I regain consciousness.

------
radu_floricica
Around 9. But just a number doesn't say enough by far. I've been through about
one year with only 7 hours and have been perfectly fine - I used to wake up by
myself because I had something exciting to do. Most of the time though waking
up an hour earlier will cost me a full day of drowsiness.

Also this, about 2-3 hours. But freelancing, so it's ok.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome>

------
antirez
7-8, tend to feel better when I sleep 7 instead of 8 btw. Btw I get this sleep
in a strange range... from 02:00am to 10:00am

~~~
hvs
I'm the same way. If I sleep 8 hours I'm wiped out for most of the day.

------
rscott
Five or six hours nightly during the week, generally some more on the
weekends. Pretty typical for 22 years old I'd assume.

------
paulreiners
10 hours. I like down-time.

------
mannicken
8-9

------
wglb
6 with occasional 10 minute naps in the office chair.

------
lurkinggrue
Lately, not enough but usually at least 7 hours.

------
nickfox
Who sleeps at night?

------
Gertm
7

------
access_denied
As far as I am informed, the amount of sleep one needs varies from person to
person. I am no expert but I did read some stuff about it. Also on the whole
there is not done that much research about sleep.

I did test it out for myself. Without caffeine-intake my body regulates to a
7,5 hours sleep patern, no alarm-clock needed. With caffeine (2 cups of coffee
+ a tea) and alcohol (2 beers or so) intake I need ~10 hours sleep per night.

------
polos
As much as necessary, and no hour longer.

It's not hours that count, but quality. You have to prepare your sleep time,
really shutting down as much as possible.

