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How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?
not_you asks:
"Clinton, Giuliani, Bloomberg, and even Martha Stewart are rumored
to only get only 4 hours of sleep on a normal night. Being a student
without enough time for all the socializing (and studying) I'd like
to do and lacking the ability to dream lucidly, I'd like to get the
minimal amount of sleep necessary to function effectively. However,
I tend to make up for anything less than about 7 hours by dozing off
in class! Aside from taking espressos intravenously, how I can
function effectively with less sleep?" There are several factors
that affect how much sleep one can away with on a given day. Diet,
activity level, and other factors all will affect how long and how
well one rests. I've always heard that "nothing beats a full night
of rest" and to me, that always means close to 8 hours of sleep. Of
course, like most things Your Mileage May Vary, still, it would be
interesting to know how much sleep some of you can get by on, and
what conditions you have to maintain to keep it up. Comments?
Anything less and I'll get increasingly tired until I need to sleep 12+ hours to compensate. ;)
Off course I can't really get more than 6-7 hours during the week so I'm always late for work (I don't hear my alarm clocks when too tired) and I'm not able to do much work until I've had a massive dose of caffeine (and even then
True warriors use the Klingon Google
When you're asleep, the brain's level of consciousness (it's not that, but we'll call it that), swings up and down like a cross between a sine wave and a seismograph, something like so:
;>
When you first fall asleep, the brain goes into deep deep REM sleep, and you have your first dream. The brain's levels then swing back up towards non-REM sleep, but not necessarily leaving it, and then dip back down deeper into REM - but not as deep as the first time.
The brain undergoes several such swings, each time rising higher out of REM sleep (you're pretty much guaranteed to leave REM sleep the second time at least), and then not sinking as low. Eventually, it gets to the point where you're not even going into REM sleep, at which point you wake up.
Now, the trick is that if you wake up while in REM sleep, the body gets all mussed up. You feel like crap all day, you're tired, cranky, and whatnot. Effects may vary, but generally, this is the case.
If you wake up OUT of REM sleep, however, you will feel rested - perhaps not totally so, but you will be rested to some degree, and recharged.
The trick then is to catch yourself outside of these cycles. Ideally, you need to find a good time to go to sleep (for me, it's between 10 and 10:30 PM), and then see when you wake up. A few years ago, I found myself conscious enough to look at my clock and check the time every 2 hours - I would go to bed at 10-10:30, fall asleep at 11, and then wake up at 1, 3, 5, and 7 AM. At any of those times, I could have, if I'd wanted to, gotten up, gone to the bathroom, went online, gone to the store, or anything else - I was perfectly capable of doing whatever I wanted to do. My cycle is 2 hours then, and thus, I need sleep in 2-hour increments. I recall one time falling asleep at 2 AM, and waking up at 6 AM, and getting right back up and doing what I was doing before.
It has to be good sleep though - comfortable temperature, not sick, comfortable bed - and it has to be reliable (staying up until 1:30 AM screws me up big time for days to come), and you can't be malnourished - there are a few great ways to eat well, but that's a whole other Ask Slashdot.
Anyway, I suggest you experiment. Find a good time to sleep, and then see when you can wake up. Perhaps you'll need to get to sleep at 10 PM like I did, but perhaps you can wake up at 2 AM and study, prepare, mail letters, or code for the rest of the day afterwards.
Also, don't discount siestas. Lying down for half an hour in the middle of the day, even if you don't sleep, can be a great recharger. And don't touch sleeping pills, or anything, organic or not, to help you sleep better. The last thing you need is to get dependant on something for sleep, and then have it run out the night before your final.
--Dan
This is true. The symptoms are similar to dehydration. Granted it is estimated to happen after over +150hrs awake and somebody would have to sit there shocking you to keep you awake, but it is a possibility.
Another thought, try light therapy while sleeping. I've heard good things about its ability to make one feel more energized. Plus it is shown to be effective therapy for seasonal depression (which has been confirmed to be a honest to goodness mental disorder).
I saw some info about modafinil (or Provigil) on 20/20 or one of the network mag shows recently and was quite impressed. Side affects appear minimal. I don't know if I'd care to use it over extended periods, but I'm interested.
Some dubious links are here and here. More reliable stuff is here and here.
Some interesting things I got out of that seminar, haven't had a chance to try most of these out for myself (so I can't personally testify to their value)...
1. You need 8 hours per day. Anything that deviates from 8 hours per day too much will come back to haunt you, the effect is cumulative.
2. If you nap, don't nap for more than 30 minutes. There's high-level and low-level sleep, and over 30 minutes takes you from high-level to low-level, at which point your body is preparing to shut itself down for a long time. Letting that happen outside of a normal sleep schedule will mess you up.
3. Coffee is bad bad bad. When eating, trying eating your proteins first in the morning, and your carbohydrates first in the evening. Whatever you eat first will affect your energy level, and proteins wake you up, while carbs mellow you down.
4. If you need anything to help you either fall asleep (pills) or wake up (alarm clock), you're not getting proper sleep. Good sleep patterns become habitual (apparently).
5. You need a perfectly dark room when you sleep. The only noise you have should be background stuff that drowns out random outbursts of noise.
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charlton heston is more of a man than yo
There are a few things you could try:
Meditate. A half hour of meditation could reduce the need for sleep by several hours.
Or, more simply, rest throughout the day. Take a few 5 to 15 minute breaks were you do nothing but relax and breathe.
Brainwave syncronization devices also claim to reduce the need for sleep. You can spend hundreds of dollars on one, or you can get the free software BWGen. All you need are headphones.
All,
I read 'The promise of sleep' by William C. Dement and it was interesting. It is all about sleep. He is probably the worlds foremost athority on the subject. He basicly says that sleep deprevation is one of the biggest health risks in the country.
The way he puts it is that people need aprox. 8 hours of sleep a day and anything below that is added up night after night (he calls it sleep debt) and until you 'make it up' you are not at 100%. It is full of interesting tid bits and backed up by studys he has done for many years.
E