Ask HN: How many hours of sleep do you need to have a productive day? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How many hours of sleep do you need to have a productive day?

18 pointsthrowAway_2929 comments

Have met people who scoff at the idea of "regular sleep at regular hours" , and those who are zealously disciplined about it.

Also curious, about the proportion of "night-persons" vs "day-persons" on HN.

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I used to sleep 6 or less hours a night when I was younger, and I was chronically sleep deprived. I had this mentality that there weren't enough hours in the day, and there were so many things I wanted to do that it made no sense to waste another 2-3 hours just lying there. But as I got older (meaning, post-college), increased responsibilities and the need for complex thinking made this impossible. A year or two out of college, and any sort of sleep deprivation sapped my motivation, ability to focus, and ability to think strategically. When I haven't slept enough, all I can accomplish during a whole day is rote tasks. So now, I think of the 9 hours I try to sleep every night as an investment in the other 15 hours I'll have awake. Or to quantify it for you:

Option 1 - 18 hours awake at 50% capacity. Option 2 - 16 hours awake at 100% capacity.

It seems a no brainer. But don't get the wrong impression; I lack the discipline to sleep 9+ hours every single night. But I try my best!

I know exactly what you are talking about.

Many-a-times,the urge for putting in "pouring out heart and soul" and do late-nighters takes over common sense.

I have come to the sober realization that debugging with lack of sleep is the equivalent of a drunken monkey controlling the trajectory of a space shuttle. :(

I need roughly nine hours a night be fully productive, coherent and happy. I can get by on eight. Less than six, and I feel physically sick to my stomach, and lose my short term memory and sense of balance (really - I tend to bump into things and have fallen off things I was sitting on).

Working alongside people who can function on 4 hours a night, I feel like my need for large amounts of sleep is a big disadvantage.

This all being said, I've started consuming caffeine again after dropping it for nearly 10 years. Consuming a small amount of caffeine in the morning after having not enough sleep does wonders for my productivity, short term memory, and happiness...

Assuming average sleep quality, I feel that I need 6 hours if I'm going to be productive for a full day. I can do that for a 5 day period (e.g. Mon-Fri) but I'm going to need to get at least 8 hours the next day (e.g. Sat) to pay back some of the sleep debt.

Oddly, my sense of alertness during the day has less to do with the sleep I've gotten and more to do with whether I was able to shower, brush my teeth/hair and get properly dressed. Sleep has more to do with how long I can keep going before I crash, but if I can put myself together I feel I can operate at 100% efficiency until that point.

I think I need an average of about 8-9. I can get by on 7 during the week if I make up for it in the weekend. If I really have to, I can survive for a few days on 5, but my body will punish me for it afterwards!

Relevant discussion from yesterday with added insight: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829124

I actually began to adjust my sleep and work schedule last night based on other people's comments in that thread.

It was painful to wake up a little earlier, but nice to come in and get an hour of peace & focus before the rest of the troops show up to the office.

I can jump out of bed after ~7 hours without an alarm. Used to be an extreme night owl, which worked for me, but not the people I work for/with. Going to sleep at midnight to 2am means I still get a bit of night peace, and can be up at a reasonable hour. Sometimes I'll pass out around nine and wake up at four, which feels much more awesome than going to sleep around that time.

I try to get 9-11 hours if I can on the weekends, but generally I run on between 4 and 6. I can do 4 overnight, then 2 in the following afternoon/early evening quite comfortably. If I miss those two extra hours I end up sleeping for 6. Lately I've been managing 8 and sleeping terribly. I'm hoping to try to get it back down to 7 to see if that improves.

as a dedicated strength trainer, bodybuilder, and all-around gym rat, i absolutely NEED eight hours of sleep. i can feel a massive difference when i wake up for work in terms of soreness and stiffness if i don't get a full night's sleep. waking up the day after a heavy squat or deadlift session on a full night's rest feels AMAZING - doing it on 4 hours of sleep is 1000% the opposite.

on top of that, if i don't hammer a huge breakfast in the morning before work i'm about as miserable as i would have been had i only slept four hours.

sleeping well and eating well means i'm productive at work. being productive at work makes me leave the office with a positive mood, ready to get back into the gym and start the cycle over.

to anybody that believes they can survive on 4-5 hours of sleep nightly, i suggest you pick up an exercise routine immediately. after a few weeks it will be quite apparent to you the relationship between a healthy body and a full sleep schedule.

I like to get at least seven hours during the week and aim for nine Friday and Saturday nights. I can do a couple of days of six hours or less, but my efficiency goes way down.

These days I'm not a good daytime sleeper. It could be that what I need is blackout shades, but it suits my preferences to be up and about early.

6 or 7. I'd love to sleep less than that, but i'm worried it might damage my health.

I used to be 8 back in the day (which was a Wednesday, by the way). Now a days, 7 seems to be the magic number for me. I can sink to 6.5 and be ok, but lower than that and I can get cranky. ;)

I survived on 4-5 hours a night during grad school and was pretty successful, but I feel much better with 7. I also usually get at least one night a week of 9+ (on the weekend).

I get about 4-5 depending. I practice a version of Polyphasic sleep. I cannot get down past 4, but I have read people that do only 2 hours.....Yikes.

If left alone I will sleep 9 hours. That is sufficient. Much less than that (and frequently less is what I have to settle for) and I feel groggy.

I normally can't sleep more than 6 hours a night. Typically I get 4-5 hours of sleep, usually not continuous, between midnight and 6 am.

You can Hack your Brain.

Check it out http://dustincurtis.com/sleep.html

I'm slow at anything less than 7. Less than 6 and I can't really focus at work.

8 usually.

I hate the whole idea of sleeping, seems very wasteful to spend 1/3 of life sleeping.

Why waste it? It's a perfectly valid state of consciousness. Look into dreaming techniques such as lucid dreaming. You might find creative solutions to problems or new ideas to integrate into your waking life.

Last thing before you go to bed, get stuck on a problem. Go to bed. You'll wake up with a solution, and in the meantime get to lay in a comfy bed for hours, and maybe even have some cool dreams. Best brain hack ever.

For me, that usually just leads to insomnia. If I read anything remotely interesting within an hour or so of bed, it takes me a long time to wind down. YMMV.

When I'm stuck during the day, a context change (such as a gym break) often has the same effect though.

Yeah, you have to get stuck enough to give up and want to sleep. Ordinary stuck does just keep you awake.

6-7 hours of good sleep. At regular hours. I enjoy mornings.

8.5 minimum. I cannot write good code without it.

I'm the exact same. 8.5 is what i need to have a good coding day.

P.S: Those who liked this question- please comment!

I think sleep and mindfulness / productivity are influenced by long term patterns more than just day to day. If I get a good 7-8 hours of sleep for a while, but only 4-5 one night, I'm usually ok, but a week of 5-6 hours takes its toll.

There's also a lot of individual variation, though.

Also, It's not unusual for posts on the new page to fly by without many comments, particularly depending on time of day. (I'm a bit disappointed that nobody has noticed this one (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1834864).)

"There's also a lot of individual variation, though."

Bingo. I need 9-10 hours. Sometimes I sleep 11 hours. And I never feel groggy after getting that much sleep, as some people do, nor do I just lay around in bed. I literally sleep 10 hours straight. I only got 4-5 a night during undergrad, and it took a severe toll. Speaking of undergrad, I knew a guy who had to get 13-14 hours/day, but he had some sleep disorder. Still, he had enough time to study and graduate with a great GPA, was very in shape, played hockey, and was a nice guy. I think a lot of people who think they'll be more successful at 4-5 hours/day are just less efficient and have a distorted view of what their "successful" role models do (i.e. they think their role models must not sleep a lot, therefore if they don't sleep/do work more, they'll also be successful). Just what I've seen in my personal experience though, I don't mean to impose this as a general fact.

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