Ask YC: How many hours do you sleep on average ?
Since years I tried to wake up earlier and reduce my sleep time. But it is a daily struggle for me. By reducing sleeping hours I hope to be able to do more everyday. I know that some people need only 4h sleep and they are full of energy. I wish I could do so but I usually need 8.5 hours. I would like to know how many hours you guys sleep and if you have some tips to reduce sleep time. Do you think we are "born" with a needed amount of sleep or can we change it? I am also interested to know at what time do you wake up every morning.
128 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 180 ms ] threadI try and shoot for around 8 hours of sleep each night. You could argue that I could get more work done if I only got 5 or 6 hours, but the quality of the work would not be the same. I also find that going to bed at 11 and waking up at 7 is not the same for me as going to bed at 2 and waking up at 10.
Einstein and Donald Trump supposedly needed very little sleep which is why they could work so hard.
Interestingly, I read in a magazine from my country that Einstein slept at least 10 hours each day (and more if needed).
So, reading your statement, I decided to search more about this typing "einstein hours of sleep" using Google.
I found some links like:
"... while others have been known to require 8 to 10 hours (such as Albert Einstein)." - in http://webhome.idirect.com/~readon/sleep.html
"She points out that Albert Einstein sleep nine hours a night and was still able to get plenty done." - in http://evenstaronline.com/resources.html
"Einstein, on the other hand, demanded 10 hours of sleep every night for himself." - in http://www.quickiesheets.com/
I'm not sure if this is really true, but I do believe that a lot of hard work people can easily sleep during 10 hours.
Um, yes they do, in fact they need more. Toddlers can sleep up to 14 hours a day, children up to 5 usually need 10-12.
If you are very very serious about reducing total sleep time, you can attempt polyphasic sleep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
I recommend trying to find Why We Nap by Dr. Stampi. Its the only detailed research on the subject. Basically, dont trust much of the info about polyphasic sleep around the net as much of it is false.
http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/category/polyphasi...
His conclusion: It sucks because life isn't set up for that sleep pattern.
He switched back to monophasic several months later so that he could spend more time with his family during their traditional awake hours. He also simply got bored of being awake when no one else was...
"The #1 reason I decided to call it quits is simply that the rest of the world is monophasic. If most of the world was polyphasic, I probably would have stuck with it. Obviously when you go polyphasic, you fall out of sync with the way other people live. You’re awake most of the night while everyone is asleep. If you sleep like most people, then the hours you’ll gain from polyphasic sleep will come in the middle of the night. And as I gradually learned, nighttime hours are not the same as daytime hours when you live in a monophasic world."
What I have found though is that you can sleep less at night if you take more naps during the day. Whether everyone can make a full transition to polyphasic is unclear. When I can manage, I sleep less than six hours at night and then take one or two 15 minute naps during the day.
Lucid dreaming is another approach to take to sleep- instead of avoiding sleep trying to be productive while sleeping. (inventor Ray Kurzweil does this)
You need as much sleep as leaves you alert and non-drowsy, even when bored. That's less than eight hours for me or any other adult I've lived with.
The only problem is the nap schedule makes it impossible to have any scheduled commitments. As soon as school started, I just couldn't keep up with the naps.
My advice: polyphasic sleep is great, IF you don't have any scheduled time commitments.
(If you're curious about polyphasic sleep, I suggest you try it. It's an interesting experience, regardless of whether or not it's practical.)
once i wake up, any additional sleep is usually meaningless, i find a nap after lunch to be of much better use to me.
There are some techniques by ex. some very intensive buddhist meditations (you can't perform in normal daily life) which can help you slow down your metabolism and so also need for sleep and eat without impact on your health, or techniques how to wake up exactly at 7AM (it's the best time IMO) without alarm clock.
Anyway, I don't care about my time of sleep if I can be very focused in my work for several hours. And this does happen often (when I'm not reading News.YC, heh).
I believe there are enough hours to work each day if you are really focused in what you do and if you're really feeling rested with your sleep time.
If you are at your best after 8.5 hrs, listen to your body and don't try to reduce sleep time.
... and you guys were trying to convince us that the NE isn't so bad?;-)
Oh, and you don't even need snow...
http://www.shovelglove.com/
One of the most important things that you can do is just get up, once your alarms rings don't hit snooze, just get up! It's easier once it becomes a habbit.
I usually drag myself out of bed with my blanket, turn on the kettle and do some stretching on the lounge floor. I drink tea, eat cereal and then I shower.
Read a book like Maas's Power Sleep :
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Sleep-Revolutionary-Prepares-Per...
I'd recommend a better book but I don't know of one yet. I spend my time sleeping rather than hacking sleep.
You can tinker with when you sleep (using naps, etc.) to try and improve the quality of your sleep and adjust the times of day when you are most awake for maximum productivity. Just realize that you're basically rearranging your sleep and not magically reducing it.
If you can't find time to sleep the 8.5 hours that you need, you need to fix something else. Find a partner. Hire an assistant. Outsource. Prioritize. Postpone unimportant features. Get a better paying job with fewer hours. Play less World of Warcraft. Kill your television. Read David Allen or Tim Ferriss. Set noprocrast to numbers like "1024".
One of the key things I discovered is the need to have a chunk of undisturbed time so I can really be productive. So I started going to work later in the morning (flexible schedule) and working more at night (guaranteed to have less distractions, even if you wanted to watch TV you can't find anything on).
As an ER nurse, I've worked nights for 14 years. And, for the last 5, I've gone completely caffeine free. I've felt better than I have in years. It's amazing how easy it is to get into a (sleep deprivation -> stimulant -> sleep deprivation) cycle. Why? Because caffeine stays in your system for 24-26 hours. So, that cup of coffee that you had yesterday is still in your system when you go to bed the next night. And, the caffeine is stimulating you while you sleep preventing you from getting the normal cycles/amounts of the stages of sleep that you'd be in normally.
It takes a few weeks to come down off the caffeine addiction, but after you do, you feel so much better.
Don't recommend it.
He was continually out of it for the last two weeks. It if isn't for the faint of heart.
Read Steve Pavlina's polyphasic sleep log if you're interested in doing it right.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/
Another key is DON'T try to sleep for more than 30 minutes. The deeper you fall asleep, the harder it is to get up. If I snooze my alarm even once for 10 minutes, I'm probably going to be too asleep to bother getting up when that 10 minutes is over.
The good news is that my experience (Steve Pavlina echoes this) is that once you train your body to work on the schedule, then even if you revert to a normal schedule, you can switch back to polyphasic sleep without having to go through the painful first week again. Right now I sleep polyphasic 5-6 days a week and have 1-2 days a week where circumstances prevent me from napping during the day and I then take a full night's sleep at night. Interestingly, I feel terrible after the full night sleep but pretty darn alert during polyphasic sleep.
Here are some of my experiences:
http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/category/polyphasi...
http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/sleeping-in-your-c...
http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/what-happens-when-...
The biggest benefit of polyphasic is not squeezing every possible minute of awake time. Its the improved concentration and mood. If you want to leave 3-4hrs of core sleep at night thats perfectly fine.
So that's what I shoot for.
Same goes for waking up after, say, 9:30 because then I feel guilty about wasting so much time.
I have a job and since I need to be there at 9, I have to wake up at 7:30, which means setting the alarm to 6:30 and snoozing for an hour.
I should be getting more, but there is just too much to do and not enough time to do it all in.
8:30-9 commute, 9-5 work, 5-6 commute, dinner, then work again on my startup, then some games for the icing on the days cake.
I also noticed a big correlation when I was doing math competitions in high school. 9 hours or more of sleep and I could usually get a perfect score without too much trouble. 6 hours or less tended to cut my score in half.
For that reason, I try to avoid shortchanging sleep. I figure something important's going on upstairs, and I don't know exactly what it is but if it's missing, it costs more in productivity than it gains in time.
I've read that the amount of sleep people require varies a lot from person-to-person...I know some people can get by 3-4 hours a night, but I always feel like shit if I try that. Can't concentrate, wake up with an upset stomach, can't sit down to work. If I have 4 hours of sleep the next day is essentially wasted for me, I might as well have just pulled an all-nighter and gone to bed early the next day.
i find the trick is to sleep, whenever you are tired, take naps, and don't try to fight it. don't use alarm clocks, and don't lie in bed. you should either be asleep or awake, but don't lie in bed trying to decide. i also found that having a bedroom face east, does wonders for your biological clock and keeping it really regular.
Something that got engrained in me, is that you tell yourself what time you are going to wake up, and then you make it standard, 7 days a week. Your body will adjust quickly and you will be tired when you need to be tired. Also sleep in 90 minute cycles, so I go to bed around 1A every night. if you still feel really tired during the day, take a nap < 20mins.