What time do you go to bed?

[linktoinsanity]

Usually go to bed 11pm, getting up at 6:30am.

Occasionally though I'll go to bed at 9am and nomatter what time I go to bed, I often wake up at 3am and stay awake.

 

[krooton]

Science suggests you're talking rubbish.

What do you mean some people are "fine" on 7 hours? By what metric?

We've evolved over millennia to have 8 hours, and especially in the latest few hundred thousand years of being Homo sapiens we've pretty much had 8 hours of sleep every single night.

Ironically, as individuals, we have little to no concept of how well we've actually slept. Similarly, having less and/or poor sleep disables your ability to know just had badly you've slept. It's a nasty cycle.

It's this prideful/macho nonsense that we wear as a badge of honour that we can do "just fine on less than 8 hours" which is silently, but very dangerously, harming our overall health. Making us fatter, angrier, and more depressed and vastly shortening our lifespan.

Never underestimate the importance of 8 hours of sleep.

Oh please, you honestly believe that exactly 8 hours (a measurement of time created by humans) is needed by every single person on the planet?

We all have unique requirements for things like nutrition, calories, hydration, hell even oxygen, based on our hormones, metabolic processes and lifestyle. Sleep requirements will also have such variables.

Even our circadian rhythms can shift, especially those that live in very northern or southern parts of the world where seasonal changes impact day/night ratios significantly.

 

[wingman]

Science can't make up its mind.
Some science says 7 hours, some says 7-9, some says blocks of 4 hours, some says it depends on age, some says whatever the dog kennel manufacturers tell it to say...


Except for anyone who's ever had children...

There would be conflicting information between particular scientists, of course. The general consensus is 8 hours.

Regarding children - when we used to live in large groups, the need for getting up in the middle of the night to attend to children would be drastically reduced as the group share the responsibility.

Oh please, you honestly believe that exactly 8 hours (a measurement of time created by humans) is needed by every single person on the planet?

We all have unique requirements for things like nutrition, calories, hydration, hell even oxygen, based on our hormones, metabolic processes and lifestyle. Sleep requirements will also have such variables.

Even our circadian rhythms can shift, especially those that live in very northern or southern parts of the world where seasonal changes impact day/night ratios significantly.

Yes, I honestly believe we need a certain amount of time during the 24 hour cycle to spend asleep, and that is 1/3 of that, call it 8 hours or whatever you want - it's still a timeframe to work on.

The evidence suggests circadian rhythms in individuals do not change.

New research also suggests that we don't have all that much dissimilar metabolism.

We're much more similar than we like to think.

 

[Jean-F]

8 hours is not a hard and fast rule though, there is a range that averages 8 hours, some people are fine on 7, others ideally need 9, etc.

And that doesn't even bring quality in to the mix, 6 hours of quality sleep is worth more to your health than 9 hours of poor sleep.

Sounds sensible to me, I usually go to bed anytime after midnight, normally closer to 01.00, sometimes later than that.
Aside from waking up maybe 3 hours later to take a leak, fortunately never more than once, I’m awake by 07.00, but I am Methuselah reincarnated.
For the past 5 or 6 months, I’ve been getting up around 07.20-07.45, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, then going back to doze off again until 09.15-09.45.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[wingman]

Google says 7.
I didn't look up individually names scientists, but a whole bunch of articles all say different things.

Google doesn't say 7 specifically.

If we're playing that game...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+many+hours+sleep+does+an+adult+need

Between 7 and 9. Which, I'd say, is probably 8.

Genuinely recommend Matthew Walker's: 'Why We Sleep'. If you can read that and still feel convinced that less than 8 hours for any individual is fine then I'd be truly surprised, the connections between Alzheimer's and lack of 8 hours of sleep a night alone should be enough for anyone to consider taking it seriously, before we even consider cancer/depression/anxiety/metabolic negative effects.

 

[something daft already!!]

 

[BowdonUK]

I usually go to bed at 1am and wake up at 9:30am, so 8 hours 30 minutes.

 

[Chris1712]

0030-0100, get up around 0900 weekdays. Weekends will get closer to 0200, I’m definitely a night person. Whenever I have extended periods off work I quickly revert to staying up late and getting up late, 0300-0400 and get up 1100-1200. Feels much better for me.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[dazza13]

Any time between 12-2am, then up by 7am weekdays, weekends normally stay in bed till 9am

 

[pepp77]

My weekday alarm is set for 6.50am.

I generally head upto bed at about 10pm and aim to lights off by 11pm to try for about 8 hours, but as long as its lights off by 23.50 for 7 hours then I am okay with it.

 

[Sutters]

between 12:30 & 2, usually awake at 8ish

 

[Glanza]

22:30-23:30 depending on how tired I am up at 07:00 if I manage to sleep till my alarm goes off.

 

[Gixer]

Anywhere between 20:30 and 21:30. It's usually around 21:00, depends how tired I am. My alarm is set for 05:45 each day though I'm generally awake just gone 5am, sometimes earlier if the 11month old has made strange random noises.

 

[Lakeland]

Anytime between 10pm and midnight to be up for 7am. The earlier the better but it is only as I get older that I am capable of getting to sleep before midnight.

If I'm not woken I can easily sleep for 12 hours but I don't usually wake up as refreshed as I would if I slept for less time.

 

[wingman]

Some interesting articles on sleep here:

Effects of insufficient sleep on blood pressure monitored by a new multibiomedical recorder: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8641742

Sleep disturbance as a universal risk factor for relapse in addictions to psychoactive substances: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19910125

Acute Sleep Deprivation and Risk of Motor Vehicle Crash Involvement: http://aaafoundation.org/acute-sleep-deprivation-risk-motor-vehicle-crash-involvement/

Sleep and Motor Learning: Implications for Physical Rehabilitation After Stroke: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4656813/

Slow wave sleep deficits as a trait marker in patients with schizophrenia: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20826077

Why Sleep Matters: Quantifying the Economic Costs of Insufficient Sleep: https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/the-value-of-the-sleep-economy.html

Age, Sleep Deprivation, and Performance: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1982.tb02561.x

If you can list 30 books by different authors that fully substantiate what he says, then maybe.... but one source alone is not good enough. That's how people end up selling books on ancient aliens and getting us to wear magic crystal hats...

I've not read 30 books this year, let alone books on sleep, but what I can confidently say is that Matthew Walker is somewhat more qualified than us to talk about these things. Not to mention a lot of his findings are of group work with many other scientists with various backgrounds.

 

[PapaLazaru]

My brain defaults to about 6 hours sleep a night which I have just got used to since having a kid 6 years ago. It is not enough, but if I am asleep by midnight it is ok.

 

[Housey]

My alarm goes off at 6am most weekdays and I tend to go to bed around 10:30, read for 30-60 mins then nod off. No alarm weekends, get up when ready. Could be 6am could be 11am (reading)

 

[Spook187]

I don't have the luxury of office hours(easy life) so can be anytime on the 24 clock.