The New (sleep) Reality

[lagilman]

The new reality seems to be that I need seven hours of sleep, rather than the six (and occasionally five) I used to get by on.

Some people might say that this means I get an extra night of sleep every week.
Some people might say that this means I lose an entire night of work every week.

Guess which is my immediate reaction?

The real problem, though, is that my sleep-hours seem to have become 1AM to 8AM. That means, by the time I wake up, feed the cats, shower, and get the coffee made, my brain is telling me half the morning's already gone*, and I'm not even started yet. I need to reset myself to midnight-7, and see how that works.

Still. Seven hours, "lost." I'm going to have to reconsider a few deadlines. 


How much sleep do you need?  Has it changed, with age/jobs/personal situations?


*I am not a morning person. I do, however, like the early morning's quiet energy, where if you get things accomplished you're ahead of the game for a bit.

Comments

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

This has been a huge issue with me through chemo etc. I used to be a solid six hours per night person. Chemo had me as high as fifteen hours per day of sleep, and post-chemo I'm running seven to eight, and occasionally more. Like you, I really feel the productivity loss.

[lagilman]

yeah, Major Medical always changes things. :-(

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

I used to subsist pretty well on 6 hours of sleep.

These days, 7 solid hours is what I need every day. Yeah, less time to read, write or do anything else.

[katfeete.livejournal.com]

I have an eight-month-old. What is this "sleep" you speak of?

More seriously -- I need, and have pretty much always needed, eight hours. At the moment I'm not getting them, which makes me a cranky person... and I can't really predict [i]when[/i] I'll get them, which makes me even crankier.

I also have the running issue where I am Not A Morning Person... except actually I am. I don't [i]like[/i] getting up early, but I am at my most productive early in the morning. I [i]like[/i] staying up late, but the probability of cat videos and trawls through TV Tropes is very high.

Clearly, the universe is mocking me....

[pbray.livejournal.com]

When I was younger I could get by with 5 or less hours of sleep a night, then catch up on the weekend.

Now there's no catch up. I need at least 6 hours a night, and since my body clock has reset itself to being a morning person, I've finally had to acknowledge that I can't stay up till midnight.

[lagilman]

Hah. I have never been a "weekend sleeper" sort - my body doesn't believe in playing catch-up on a regular basis (only after I've pushed it particularly hard/been sick).

I listen to people saying "I slept all weekend" and all I can think is "how?"

[girasole.livejournal.com]

Once, left to my body's own devices, I would be up until 1 or 2 am and sleep til ten. I had a child, I got a job that was more or less 9-6, I bent my habits to my will. A dozen years ago, when I began working from a home office, I kept those hours so that I would be in sync with the rest of my family (and much of my world) but I didn't like it.

However, since turning 50 (about the time I began working at home), I find I need to stay up until midnight to wind down enough to sleep, and while I never sleep past 8 or 9 any more (can't, the body won't do it) I sleep comfortably until 7.

The caffeine habit has changed mightily, too. I used to need the kick of tea "strong enough to trot a mouse over" in the mornings; now I need a gentle cup of green, and I save the strong Assam for just after lunch. At 50, I could drink tea until midnight; at 64, I had better stop by 3pm.

Be well, dear Suri. The body will adjust, and you do have to listen to what it wants.

[lagilman]

Unless my work schedule also adjusts to do more in less time, I'm still grumpy and unappeased. :-(

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

I've just turned forty and, as easily as some people catch a cold and completely by accident, ended up with a dayjob running a teensy bookstore all by myelf. There was no way to see it coming, so my freelancing schedule's still the same amount I need to keep the light on, which is a lot. The old me would just smile, albeit a bit deliriously, and stay up all night. I did that last week and it went well. This week, I need to do it again and I seem unable.

So it's clear that I aged a great deal in a mere eight days. Even friends are shifting away from, "I don't know why you do that to yourself," to, "I don't know how you do that to yourself."

I tend to need six hours and tend to be able to do without sleep a night or two a week if need be. I'm coming to grips with how that's not working the way it once did, but I'm wondering if taking better care of myself (less coffee, more exercise, etc.) will make it easier again.

[lagilman]

more exercise ALWAYS helps. That's one of the things that makes exercise bearable. :-)

[firynze.livejournal.com]

Sleep is an issue for me. I need more than the average bear - I go to bed around 10 each night, though I don't sleep until 11 or so, and I have a hard time getting out of bed at 7am. It bothers me, because I feel as though I'm losing a LOT of productive time, and yet if I don't spend that time in bed (again, if not asleep...that's another issue), I'm nearly nonfunctional the next day, and sometimes even for several days after.

Oh, and I hear you on the morning thing. I dislike mornings intensely, and yet I get TWITCHY if I haven't been working from 8am on...

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I used to stay up until 11 or midnight and get up at 7ish. Then, one day, as a treat, I got into bed early--10 PM--read for a bit and then went to sleep. It felt wonderful, almost luxurious. These days, I hit the sack around 10, read, and go to sleep. Sometimes I skip the reading.

But a new trend has developed over the last year or so. I find myself waking up at 3 AM. It's always around 3 AM. I stay awake for anywhere from 15 minutes to 90 minutes and then fall back asleep, waking up between 7 and 8. I hate this. I've tried staying up later again and sometimes it works to get me through the night. I find I just don't enjoy staying up as late as I used to, though. I get antsy, unsure what to do with myself.

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

I've never been able to do without seven or eight hours of sleep - even when I was a teenager. I don't miss the "extra" time because I've never had it. Normally I go to bed at 9 p.m. and get up around 5 a.m.

This means that I can't watch late-night TV - so it's a good thing I've never cared much for TV. It was kind of the pits when I was in college and my friends hung out till 2 a.m. and I ... didn't, but so it goes. I wouldn't have been good company at those hours even if I'd tried.

Of course, it's currently late January, which means that my system thinks I'm supposed to be *hibernating* for about five weeks! Bleargh.

[lassarina]

In college I usually did 5 hours during the week and 12 hours on the weekends; after I graduated and had the customer service job from hell, I forced myself to get by on 6 during the week and 12 on the weekend. After I moved from hell job and actually could stay up until midnight *and* sleep until 8 and still be on time (commute drastically reduced), well, that fucked everything up. Now I rarely sleep past 10 no matter what, and I can barely get by on 6 hours for a day or two before I have to have 8 (or else I start sliding into the Very Bad Anxiety Place.)

Of course, now, I also take the commuter train, and I have learnt to make excellent use of those two hours plus my lunch hour for the $dayjob to do relaxing things and/or write, so that helps me feel a little less time-deprived.

[jslinder.livejournal.com]

As I passed 40 I noticed that 7-8 hours of sleep has switched from 'preferred' to 'need to be functional'... Where I used to be able to cheat a few hours if I need to, now if I haven't had at least 7 getting out of bed requires an amount of effort I am not always prepared to give.

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

I definitely need more sleep now that I'm getting older, but I was always a huge fan of sleep -- sleeping incredibly late on weekends.

Now, b/c I have to schlep to the company's downtown office Mondays & Tuesdays but work at home the rest of the week, I find my sleep patterns are weird. No matter how hard I try, how early I sack out, or what pills I take, I cannot get a decent night's sleep Sunday night. Mondays and Tuesdays are usually an exercise in endurance for me -- survive the office so I can come home and pass out.

When I WFH, I do much better. I can go to bed at a decent hour, and unless I'm sick, I'm at my desk usually by 8 am -- lately it's even been earlier. Honestly, I'd love to find some way that I could WFH every day; I'm sure I'd be much healthier and happier.

[cepetit.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

After I left active duty, with its unusually rigid schedule (if chow hall inspection begins at 0630, it begins at 0630... especially if you are the one doing the inspection), I discovered that the best way to deal with things is focus on when the day ends rather than when it begins. On my present schedule, that means try to go to sleep around 0200 and waken around 0830 -- equivalent to having a cup of coffee into me by 0700 on the west coast.

Of course, I have the dubious "advantage" of lifelong sleep disorders...

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

I used to be a stay-up-late, get-up-late type of person.

Then I had to be at work at 7:15 am with an hour drive to get there. Plus fit writing time in the schedule. My hours changed.

Aging is also a factor. I can stay up later (well, for certain values of "late," midnight is pretty much it for me) but I'm still up by seven.

[calendula-witch.livejournal.com]

I seem to need 7 these days, except when I need 8. That's down a little from when I was younger, which is nice. But, even though I have a job where I need to get up earlier now, my body is resisting resetting. I just don't get sleepy till midnight or so.

About the same. Exercise matters.

[wolffire.livejournal.com]

I've been in the 6.5-7.5 hours camp for my whole life. What has changed as I've gotten older is that I'm more in sync with the cycles of daylight. I tend to need a little more sleep in winter than I do in summer. And I wake up with dawn most days.

The only times I break this pattern are when I've been up past 1am a couple days in a row. Then I can sleep in past 8:30.

Periods when I am only getting 5-6 hours of sleep, I nap. A 15-30 minute nap mid-afternoon usually gets me through. That's been true for, um, 20 years?

Exercise is definitely a vector here too. I sleep MUCH better when I keep up an exercise routine. When I'm not doing that, my whole pattern tends to get screwy until I start sweating intentionally again; 3-5 hours a week of that is what my body needs.

Re: About the same. Exercise matters.

[lagilman]

Exercise always helps - but that routine hasn't changed for me, to explain the new sleeping patterns.

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

I used to sleep 5 hours on the weekdays and make up for that on the weekends. Then, I moved in with J. He's a morning person. I felt guilty when I slept in. Now, I go to bed around 8:30pm and sleep til 5:30am, except for weekends when I sleep til 7am.

[axsister.livejournal.com]

Is this ongoing like for the last year or a newer development? My sleep cycles. This week of the year is actually the WORST for me, new moon with short daylight and every biological instinct is screaming to hibernate until the groundhog gives me permission to come out. I would be thrilled if I could convince my morning sleeping self that seven hours were enough.

But the one thing I've found making the largest difference in daytime energy levels is my eating habits. The whole thing about the healthy breakfast? If I eat one (lots of protein, little starch and some fruit in either whole or juice form) I don't crash at night and I can get up easier the next day. Also if I don't eat after 8pm (early Mogwai hours I know) then I'm usually hungry enough to help me get up in the morning. Annoyingly also if I don't drink the night before then it's easier to get up the next morning, even if it's just a glass of wine.

You might find if you play around with your diet and your other habits that you will be able to cut back to six hours. It's amazing what you can learn with an annoying to keep detailed food/diet/movement/sleep journal. It's amazing how interconnected things are.Of course I might just be telling you things you know.

I'm not a morning person either and find it a continual struggle to try and get up early enough to save those possible hours of productivity.

[lagilman]

Absolutely nothing has changed - this is the recent development of the past few months, with the same dietary and exercise patterns (both of which are reasonably healthy and balanced). I'm not even stressing more/less than usual.

Random changes are one thing - they come and go. This has been a decided shift in how much sleep I need.

[patchwork-prose.livejournal.com]

I used to survive nicely on four or five hours of sleep, but for the past 20 years or so, I have found that I function throughout the day much better on eight or nine hours of sleep. I have a home office, and I take several naps during the day, because I do stay up too late at night.

[igrrrl.livejournal.com]

I haven't slept normally since 2005 and the Project from Hell. (225 hrs of OT in 3 months, over the holidays.) Before that I needed 7-8 hours, and if I woke up in the middle of the night, I felt like I'd pulled an all-nighter. During the hell project I drank caffeinated beverages until 6-7 in the evening, and then crack a beer at about 1:00 AM to start to wind down enough to sleep before I had to get up at 6:00. This has borked my sleep patterns since. Although it could be said I was ready for permanent borking, because at the time I had a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old. The toddler sometimes woke in the night, and the pre-schooler had night terrors.

There's a lot of research around "sleep hygiene" - no glowing screen for an hour beforehand (hah!), etc. - but it hasn't worked well for me because if I'm up late, I'm usually working right up until I fall over. As all have said, exercise makes a huge difference in staying asleep once I get there, and even one beer or glass of wine can negatively affect the quality of sleep.

[neko-san.livejournal.com]

Hrmmm. I may not be the best person to talk. For a number of years I used to do an average of 4 hours a night (sometimes 4 in a row, sometimes two 1 hour naps with a solid 2 hour sleep), with some periods of time with 7 hours sleep per week (sometime 1 hour per day, sometime say awake 2-3 days then sleep for 2 hours). I figured life was too short to waste any of it sleeping. I have asked, and this was neither "manic" nor "hypomanic", but it's possible I didn't communicate it well. Then I started sleeping around 17 hours per day, which also takes real dedication. (That would be 10 hours a night, with as many 1-2 hour naps as possible.)

I'm currently on about 8 hours per night, with usually a nap each weekend. I wish I wouldn't nap, but I learned to nap too well in my 17 hours sleep a day phase. I'm a bit afraid to go below 4-5 hours a night, even if I wake up early, because life can get squidgy fast then.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I'm appalling - ideally, I'd like about 10 hours of sleep as this is the only way I feel vaguely OK throughout the day, but for obvious reasons this isn't practical. I've always been like this.

[6-penny.livejournal.com]

For most of my life I have been happiest with 7 to8 hours with a nap in the afternoon. Even in my student days I couldn't pull an allnighter. Menopause was a nuisance -long periods of insomnia, and consequent zombie mentality. Now I'm back to 8 as the desired amount, with occasional jumps to 10 or so when I forget to set the alarm. I have also gotten more light sensitive. I had to get blackout blinds for my bedroom to eliminate my neighbors porch light, which didn't bother me for years. Now I run around draping towels over the radio which has a lighted time display and the odd little lights on the air filter and humidifier.

sleep

[john williams (from livejournal.com)]

I fluctuate wildly. Tonight I'm liable to get around ten hours of sleep. On an average weeknight, I get six. Some weekends I'll sleep 12-14 hours.