Poll: How much do you sleep? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: How much do you sleep?

57 pointspmoriarty54 comments

On the average, how much sleep do you get per day?

I'll put in a plug for ditching your alarm clock.

I was a terrible snoozer for years. At my worst, I went through a bad progression: I moved my alarm clock across the room, so I'd have to get out of bed to hit snooze. I got so I could walk across the room, stand on a chair, reset the snooze, and go back to sleep without ever knowing it. I removed the snooze button from my alarm clock, and covered the hole with tape. I would wake up, walk across the room, stand on a chair, manually set the alarm 9 minutes later, and go back to sleep without ever waking up. I did that for hours each morning.

The thing that finally worked for fixing my sleep habits: never using an alarm. I committed fully to a no-alarm mindset. It had a number of results:

- I got up out of bed the first time I woke up each day. It was easy because it was at a natural waking point. I got up easily an hour and a half earlier than I would with an alarm.

- I went to bed earlier, because I knew I had to get enough sleep. I couldn't just trust the alarm to wake me, so I paid more attention to how my body felt.

- I got sick much less. When I was getting run down, my body would sleep longer.

I've been living without an alarm for over twenty years now. I've never missed a test, a flight, anything, except I was late for work once. (It helps that I usually get up hours before I have to be at work, so if I need extra sleep I can get it without being late.)

I do the same thing with my alarm -- walk across the room and manually set it for 10 minutes later.. sometimes several times... sometimes without even remembering.

So what does no alarm mean in practice? How early do you go to bed? and how early do you need to be at work? Does this mean going to bed at 8pm?

I've been moving in this direction for a few months as well. In the beginning, yes, it might mean going to bed at 8 or 9. People who snooze like this (I used to) are probably going around with a significant "sleep debt". For example, if I set no alarm a couple of months ago, I would sleep for 12 hours. If I set no alarm again the next night, I would sleep for 12 hours again.

After maybe a couple of weeks of heavy sleeping (see note), your pattern will hopefully return to where you can go to bed at a normal time again without worrying about oversleeping.

NOTE: I don't recommend trying to make up that sleep night after night. Two nights of 12 hours in a row leave me feeling not my best. But consistently getting above-average amounts of sleep for an extended period of time will move you in that direction. (9.5ish has been good for me.)

These days I go to bed around midnight, give or take half an hour. I get up anywhere from 5:00-6:30. If I can get to bed around 10:00, I wake up at 4:00 or 4:30.

I can't remember exactly what happened when I first stopped using the alarm, but I remember a couple patterns:

- I used to set an alarm for 6:00, and snooze until 7:30 or so. Getting up when I first woke up meant I often got up around 6:30 or 6:45 - later than I set my alarm for, but much earlier than I usually got out of bed.

- I stopped "just staying up late". I used to get tired around midnight, then stay up until 1:00 or 1:30, not getting much done. I knew I needed sleep, so I started going go bed when I was tired.

Overall, it made me pay attention to the sleep my body needed, and stop pretending the alarm clock would just get me up.

It won't work when you'll have children :)

I have a four year old. :)

Maybe one of those alarm clocks that make you solve some challenge/puzzle would wake you up a bit more.

I always set my alarm each night, and I haven't heard it go off in about 6 years. I always wake up before my alarm would go off, without fail. Even if I set it to a strange time.

I think it has to do with the fact that I set it each night, but I'm not sure...

My first child turned 14 months yesterday.

For the duration of his life I've operated on 5-7 hours total every night. I (and my co.) were just acqui-hired, but prior to that I was in the 5th year of startup hustle, which became infinitely harder with a newborn.

The difference is that I appreciate the value of sleep more than I did before. During a near-acquisition a few years ago I was sleeping 3 hours a night thinking this was the solution to deadlines.

For anyone who has lived through that first 6 months or so, you know you never really sleep. Even if you get 6 hours, it's peppered with wakeups, rockings, diaper changes and feedings.

Last night I slept about 5 hours and I feel the way I used to feel with 8. This could be a function of age, but I feel like my body is acclimating to an abbreviated sleep schedule. This has led me to believe that people who "need" 8 hours of sleep can train their body to need less.

That said, if you can sleep, for god's sake do it. Once this kid starts sleeping past 6:15 I'm going to go nuts on the weekends.

No no no no and no. You can't train your body to need less sleep. Sleep deprivation actually effects your judgment on how much sleep you need. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1690

"Affects." Score one for the "sleep deprived." :)

First, literally none of the sources in that link works. Every single one is a 404.

Second, less sleep != "sleep deprivation." This assumes that people never get used to sleeping more than is physiologically necessary. I sleep 5.5 -> 6.5 hours a night. Plenty of people do. But I used to sleep 8+ hours a night in my mid-20s and anything less would leave me feeling worthless.

Most topics on this talk about 6-8 hours of sleep being the "sweet spot," so it's not like I'm talking 3 hours of sleep here. I'm saying that you can move around a little bit and your body will adjust, much like it adjusts to thousands of other changes in environment. You can't go without eating, but you can eat less and your body will respond, for example.

Humans are more pliable than we give ourselves credit.

I rarely sleep longer than that, but it's not a training, simply comes with the age (I'm 40). Real question is how long would you sleep now if you could sleep as much as you want? If every now and then you need to get a day of sleeping longer to re-energize, or you regularly have periods in night when you just can't keep your eyes open for a second longer, that probably means that you are not sleeping enough. On the other hand if you function like this in a stable manner, without sleeping "crisis", it's quite possible that you just don't need more than those 6-7h.

I considered the age thing, but given the rapid paradigm shift here (pre-kid, post-kid), I think that can be dismissed.

That I can feel the same with 2 - 2.5 hours less sleep than I did a year and a half ago suggests to me that I have conditioned myself.

Thats actually not the article I meant to link to but I can't find it again, oh well. Anyways, its obvious that sleep needs vary amoung different people and vary with age. Most people sleep less the older they get. Either way, sleep is very important to overall health and safety. People think they need less than they do.

And I'm not actually sleep deprived, my body just is broken. I have a debilitating sleep disorder. I take (prescribed) stimulants to get through the day, but it only just takes the edge off. I wish I could wake up feeling rested.

My kid will turn 4 in March. It's much better these days than when he was an infant, but there are still many interrupted nights - dreams, peeing, just coming in to say he's awake. It's sweet; I wouldn't give it up for the word. Some day he'll be too old to crawl into bed with us, so I enjoy every night he comes to visit us now.

What I'm finding, though, is that when I get uninterrupted sleep now, it's amazingly refreshing. I think I know how to operate on little sleep for extended periods of time now. When I get to sleep uninterrupted, I feel amazing energy the next day. And when I string together a few uninterrupted nights, it's even better.

I hope to keep the healthy sense of urgency I have in my work time now. Having a young kid keeps me very focused and efficient in my work time, because I know I can't just put in extra hours to get things done. I hope I keep that healthy urgency, but I'm aware it could slip away as I take full nights of sleep for granted again.

I agree with much of this (and eagerly await the next few years).

The difference between sleeping 6 hours uninterrupted and sleeping 6 hours with 2 interruptions is so dramatic. The cumulative effect of sleep deprivation takes awhile to really hit - the first three months or so I thought I was "fine" and then it really started to compound. Mood was really the most negatively hit aspect of my life.

It's fair to say my appreciation of sleep is perhaps more psychologically-induced than physiological. Happens often when something is taken for granted and then ripped from under your feet for some duration. :)

Also a parent of a 4yo, agreed 100%. I notice a difference even if I don't get woken up at night (which thankfully is a rarity). I think it's mostly a matter of how I get woken up in the morning (she's basically our alarm clock), even though I get up at roughly the same time when she's not around.

I've also noticed that the rare nights when she's completely out of our care (at her grandparents), my quality of sleep is even better still. I wonder if there isn't some sort of psychological stress that affects sleep quality when there's a kid in the next room who's your responsibility.

Considering I still regularly wake up and sleepfully check the bed for a baby that has been in his crib the entire night, I will attest 'yes.'

It's proof positive that I'm always subconsciously thinking about the safety of my son, and this has interesting analogs (to me, at least). When I had issues with my startup (again, pre acqui-hire), my sleep quality suffered mightily. When we had a new customer or a new contract or a well-received release, I slept better.

My hope is that I'll acquiesce a bit on the subconscious, constant fear for the nightly safety of my son, my sleep quality will continue to improve and in the near future I'll be a benevolent billionaire. Meanwhile, another long night :)

A more interesting poll would accept a vector rather than scalar value. For me, over the last week, my sleep cycle:

Sunday: 3 hours of sleep at night, 1 hour nap in the day

Monday: 3 hours of sleep at night, 1 hour nap in the day

Tuesday: 3 hours of sleep at night, 2 different 1 hour naps in the day

Wednesday: 4 hours of sleep at night, 1 hour nap in the day

Thursday: 5 hours of sleep at night, 1 hour nap in the day

Friday: 5 hours of sleep at night, 1 hour nap in the day

Saturday: 9 hours of sleep at night, 1 hour nap in the day

Sunday: 10 hours of sleep at night, 1 hour nap in the day

We had a deadline at work this week, and several times I stayed up late, writing code, trying to meet the deadline. So my sleep cycle was completely scrambled, last week and this week. I've been only partially catching up over the last 2 days.

I would think the average amount of sleep is less interesting than the variance people demonstrate, in their own lives, over the course of a month or a year.

this isn't related, but do you by any chance work at Mississippi State?

When you catch up with sleep, you should really try to do it by going to sleep earlier rather than sleeping in. Your circadian cycles are set by the light you see in the morning, you don't want to screw them up :)

I honestly wish I could live on 6 hours of sleep; I feel like I'd get much more done that way. Since college, I've never been able to go without 9 hours of sleep without paying for it the next day or that weekend at the most.

It depends a lot on your physiology. A certain number of people need 8 or more hours to feel "good" when they wake up. You have to live with what you got :) Until someone invents some sleep supplements to cut down on sleep time or something.

Here ya go:

http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/sl...

Not available at this stage, though, as a supplement :)

I know a lot of freak athletes and entrepreneurial superstars who can consistently go at an efficient pace with 5 or less hours of sleep per night. It boggles my mind - I'm just not one of them.

My work and mood just turn to garbage - especially mid afternoon. All my life, I could tell you within 10 minutes if it's about 3:30pm. I just crash like no other.

Turns out, there's a gene involved for some of those people: BHLHE41 (variant p.Tyr362His)[1,2]

1) http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-discover-why-thrive-less-sl...

2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25083013

Can't wait to be able to turn that guy down.

For me, here's what's working best for me:

* 5:30am wakeup, hit the gym ASAP. I'm a morning person so this is great.

* 7:00am - Home, shower, breakfast, check social media, and do some basic mindless nightly report kind of stuff for our site.

* 8am - Take stimulants and nootropics (right now on ~225mg caffeine, CDP choline, and piracetam), get the hardcore work done. Between 8 and 12 are my finest hours.

* Noon - Starting to come down. Take a couple adaptogenic herbs (right now on Rhodiola and Ashwagandha). That gets me a couple more solid hours.

* 3:30pm - Doom and gloom. Take a nap, preferably 20-30 minutes. If not, it turns into a 90 minute nap and I'm screwed up for sleep. Optional extra stimulants around this time, but even with them, I'll still be sleepy.

* 6pm - Brain turns back on, get some writing / email done (I like doing emails at this time because you're less likely to get into back-and-forth conversations that suck your time up). Watch some TV.

* 10:30am - Bed. Fall asleep around 11. Try not to read HN til midnight or else bad news for tomorrow's workout.

That gets me a workout, a solid seven, my best work hours in the AM, and some leisure time in the evening with the lady.

People who sleep 9+ hours a day--is this continuous sleep? I find it really hard to sleep for more than 7 hours without waking up and then forcing myself back to sleep.

Yes. I occasionally take melatonin, which seems to improve the overall quality of sleep.

I also use blackout curtains, and back when I didn't have those, I would use a sleep mask.

I'd also highly recommend earplugs to guarantee you're not disturbed by noise. (Vibrating phone works as an alarm).

They're probably unnecessary for most nights sleep, but they eliminate that odd night here and there where your sleep is ruined by some party across the hall.

For me it's about 7.5 hours continuous, then a good piss, then another hour and a half. Saturday and Sunday only, unfortunately.

I pretty much need 8-9 hours of sleep on a routine basis to function normally. I can get by on ~7 for a few nights, but I am definitely less effective. Anything less than 6 hours, I basically feel like shit the next day and I can rarely (if ever) do that more than 1 or 2 nights in a row. After that, I'm done.

All I have to say re sleep is: get enough of it, or suffer.

How much is 'enough' depends on your chronotype (lark/own type of thing) - see http://brainrules.net/sleep for more.

I've thought a lot about polyphasic sleep but in the end decided it wasn't for me -- too exhausting to have my mind running like that all the time (and this was the feedback I got from most polyphasics I spoke with).

However, I do need 1 - 3 nights per month were I pull an "all nighter" and sleep very little, and it gives me a huge cognitive and perspective boost -- I highly recommend this for those seeking to shake up their sleep cycle. Typically I would just stay up all night then crash about 4 hours earlier the next day.

For reference, I'm a slim 31 years old white male.

Biphasic sleep is what I role with after learning about it here on HN a few years ago. I really enjoy reading / learning late at night / early morning. Yet I can't sustain early morning exercise and other things like that after staying up til 1-2am every night. Going to sleep shortly after dinner and waking up around midnight for a few hours reading / coding / learning has really helped me get my shit together.

In fact, come to think of it, biphasic sleep was what got me into early morning running. One morning I woke a bit late and worked a bit too long, so instead of only getting a couple more hours I decided to ride it out and go for a run at 5am. Probably a huge turning point in my life and I didn't really think much of it.

I think this was the thing that really got me interested to try it: http://web.archive.org/web/20110629110723/http://www.history...

There is a lot of folklore about successful people needs 4, 3 and even 2 hrs of sleep, such as this article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-ceo-sleep-schedule...

But I am not sure how much of that is being selective in truth telling (it is easier to state that one has gotten by with as little as N hours of sleep, even though that isn't one's average) and being competitive/boastful as it can be a mark of pride.

My experience has been, "this works -- kind of -- but it is not sustainable, difficult to break into, difficult to maintain, and in the end you will have sleep debt and/or suffer in overall cognitive function."

I took this as, "4 hour nights are for code sprints and burning man."

I'm lucky to have worked in several places where there was no specific in/out time as long as you get the work done. As a result, I don't use an alarm. I've realized that sometimes, it's very hard to predict the amount of rest my body would need on a particular night, and having no alarm on, permits me to often be well rested. I've also realized, that I have rarely slept more than 8 hours, so looks like this does not lead to oversleeping. I recommend trying this out if you can.

While I was in my college I used to sleep for only 5-6 hours a day, which was okay in college. Once I started working I got severe back pain due to less rest to the body. Sometimes it was difficult to walk also.

After consulting a doctor, I started sleeping for at least 7-8 hours everyday and also changed my eating habits. I don't get back pain anymore. I did not have the slightest clue that less sleep could cause back pain.

Getting enough sleep is very important stay healthy and be productive.

I try to sleep in three hour chunks; I find that that's my natural cycle, so six hours is better for me than 7.5. I usually go to sleep around 10 and wake up around 5.

5 - 6 hours. I feel terrible all the time. I have stupidly never seriously tried to fix my sleep habits. I'm going to go to bed early tonight

People who don't get enough sleep, have you tried napping?

I find that a 20-30 minute nap after lunch is a decent replacement for hours 5-8 of sleep that I didn't get the previous night... until about 10pm or so at which point I crash hard but hopefully the day's work is done.

A few other people where I work have been napping. It's becoming culturally acceptable.

Don't doze. Nap!

Haha nice. Is there finally a proper nap room? :-)

I'll never forget the phone booth naps at WeWork.

I used to get 6 hours or so and felt terrible all the time. After I quit my job I stopped using alarm clocks, and find that I naturally wake up after 8-9 hours. For me, waking up naturally is the best thing about self/unemployment. Being interrupted during a REM cycle makes me feel tired the entire day.

5-6.5 hours sleep at night, 1-2 20 minute naps during the day.

Also: 1-2 days a week of 7-9 hour sleeps (weekends, lazier work schedule).

Sleep + nap is generally more productive for me, though on the low end (6 hours or less total daily), I hit burnout much sooner.

7.5 hours daily, but some times 6 during the week and about 9 on the weekends.

Ideally it would be whatever I felt like, for maximum cognitive and memory benefit. I hate being on someone's schedule.

If you really want to sleep get the mobile hypnosis app "Deep Sleep with Andrew Johnson." Listen to it regularly and you will sleep like you've never had before.

Typically between 8 and 9 hours a night. I usually head to bed around 11:00pm, and my alarm goes off at 8:00am. So it just depends how much TV I watch in bed.

I prefer 8 minimum, 9 is normal. I'm able to get so much more out of the day with that extra sleep. <7 and it's going to be a very rough day.

6 hours usually, in two bouts of 3 hours back to back. Rarely a night passes that I don't wake in the middle.

I try to make it about 6 and a half as that fits the 90 min deep/shallow sleep cycle better

My sympathy to whoever voted <= 4 hours. I'm at 6 and I doze off a little on bad days.

Round up or round down?

I'm at 4.5 hours per day. Is that 4hr or 5hr in this poll?

Less than I want, more than I should

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