Ask HN: How and how much do you sleep? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How and how much do you sleep?

13 pointstoombowoombo35 comments

Asking for a friend :)

It used to be 9-10 hrs in my twenties. With young kids it was much less but has now steadied at about 7-8 hrs. It’s usually interrupted through the night. I can fall back asleep at the drop of a hat.

My wife finds getting to sleep incredibly hard, she can be awake for hours reading, trying to fall asleep, so for her some nights would minus 2-3 hrs from that.

She is always brighter and more energetic than me, I never seem to get enough sleep.

> I can fall back asleep at the drop of a hat

Classic parenting skill. I was staying with friends and they were blown away with how I woke up to answer a phone call, coherently answered a few questions, and fell back sleep -- all within a minute or two.

Not everyone is the same but what worked well to fix my now rare sleeping issues is to keep it consistent. I go to bed about the same time and I wake up about the same time. Also during weekends and holidays. I also used to keep about the same time despite the stupid summer and winter time zone changes, but I don’t anymore and I am more tired for a few days twice a year.

I also sleep better when I’m physically active. And sex helps to fall asleep.

I am getting 4 hours of sleep a night and then 4 hours of napping time during the day. That’s not a good approach but I’m working FT during the day to fund my startup venture. My job requires me to wake up at 2:30am and be at work for 4:15am. I’m usually done by 12:45ish and I then need to nap because of the lack of sleep . So it depends really but I would love to have 8 hours in a go.

4-6 hours. Always struggled with sleep. I wish I could slow time down for others and have like 60 hours a day to do stuff. Just ain’t enough time with so much to do. I also don’t feel comfortable taking sleeping pills, and I have struggled with insomnia since I was a kid.

I do try to get some movement in during the day. I try going to bed around “normal” times but end up waking around 2-4am.

On the bright side maybe I’ll just live a fulfilling life and my body will eventually just sudo shutdown -h now lol. Yolo.

What activities is your day filled with that they take up so much time?

Job and trying to work on my startup product on the side.

I managed to validate my idea after talking to a bunch of potential customers but the product itself is taking me a while to build on my own.

Also life stuff in general.

I tend to sleep on weekdays around 8'5 hours (from 1am to 9:30). On weekends I sleep usually 9'5 hours. I'm not on my 20s anymore. I don't wake up in the nights (unless I drink a glass of water before going to sleep, then I wake up earlier in the morning usually).

Edit: on summers I usually sleep one hour less (because it's too damn hot in the morning). I hate sleeping during the summer.

If I get 7.5 i'm solid. If I get less, on occasion due to kids or whatever, I will need to 'catch up' after a few days. I can survive on less, but I did lots of leetcode on low sleep and compared it to not on low sleep, and I can't solve algorithms as fast when i'm sleep deprived. I also can't focus as well. So generally, poor sleep for a software engineer is costly.

I recently turned 21 and I am sleeping between 6-7 hours but lately I feel like I'm wasting my time thinking that I could have woken up a little earlier, no matter how early I wake up. Maybe anxiety issues lately. Feels like running out of time while catching up with the speed the world is changing.

5-7 hours, I should get more but young kids are the biggest barrier (they sleep fine, it's just that my wife and I need to fit most of our one-on-one time and chores into the kids sleeping hours).

From what I can tell, I seem to function pretty on this amount of time relative to others (e.g. my wife, who needs at least 8)

I toss and turn a lot. Usually sleeping on my sides, my back gets stiff if I'm still for too long.

I think a breathing machine (CPAP or the inverse?) would help if not for my stiffness.

I manage to go to sleep quickly... but also partially wake up regularly.

Seven or eight interrupted hours is where I usually land

My sleep quality has been worse than usual lately. I tend to fall asleep around 22.00-00.00, but then wake up at about 04.00 and sometimes don't get back to sleep after. It's degraded over the last few weeks, so something for me to work on.

6-8hrs, more like 8+ more recently as I am doing a lot of physical work away from the PC in the open air.

Also, I drink valerian root tea practically every evening around 1800, and that definitely helps get me off to sleep and keep me that way.

Around 9-10 hours a night and a 2-3 hour nap if possible. MS is fun.

I typically get 8-9 hours.

What time interval? And how regular is your sleep?

6h 41m on average for this year according to fitbit. That aligns with my aim of between 6 and 8.

Anything less than 5 and I cannot function. Between 5 and 6 I'm very tired. 7 is my sweet spot.

I seem to sleep more (8-10+ hours) and tend nocturnal in the hottest and coldest parts of the year, while in fall and spring I sleep much less and more of that at night (5-6 hours).

Ideas on why it changes?

Not really, but my appetite and weight also fluctuate on a similar pattern so I suspect it's some genetic metabolic thing, maybe related to sunlight or something.

Usually 5-6 hours. For the life of me, I can't consistently sleep anywhere above 7 hours, let alone get more than 8. I do always wake up well rested.

7-8 hours. If less than 7 I feel like garbage and can't think straight.

10. I’m jealous of people commenting here 4-7 hours!

Don't be. Those undersleeping are needlessly taxing their bodies which has short term and long term consequences.

When you're young, you probably can brute-force through those, but it'll catch up with you.

Not nearly enough, and it's my own fault.

Expand?

On days I work, I might get 4-6 hours. I really need 7-9 hours to function properly. I stay up to late, then have to get up for work, because everyone loves to have their pointless meetings first thing in the morning.

I was always more of a night owl, but working the night shift for several years broke me. If I could, I'd never go to sleep... that still happens sometimes, where I stay up so late the sun comes up and I decide to try again tomorrow night.

I'd probably do ok working noon-ish to 8-ish. But mornings, even starting at a relatively late 9am, is a killer for me most days and really hurts my ability to get a full night of sleep.

I say it's my fault, because there is no reason I'm saying up this late, I just never decide to end the day and go to bed.

According to my Amazfit watch, over the last 10 days:

5h 40m

3h 12m

4h 24m

0h 30m

4h 4m

4h 17m

3h 21m

3h 32m

5h 11m

I am really really tired all the time.

Why? Too busy or not falling asleep?

I fall asleep just fine, I just wake up too much

Get a sleep study. I was like you, turns out there's reasons why people can't sleep and one of the most common is apnea. It's not just old, fat guys who have it. Not saying you do, but it's so easy to check that reason off the list.

Seriously this helped me tons as well.

are you me? I fall asleep just fine, but after around 5 hours I wake up. If I don't have to face the day, I can fall back asleep some 3+ hours later - but the opportunity is seldom. I'm tired. I've cut caffeine, sugar, I go to bed at the same time every night, exercise, eat pretty well, etc. Usually around 3am, *pop*, brain is now fully active; dry, tired eyes be damned. Had a take home medical watch as a light-weight sleep study. It showed enough issues to get prescription sleep aids. I don't like using them.

Antihistames help but apparently they give you dementia so I'm trying not to use them. I don't know what to do.

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