Ask HN: How many hours do you sleep on average?

It's not as fun as staying up until the am every night, but I sure don't miss feeling tired and sluggish all day.

For me, I'm 100% a morning person and can't function at the end of my day. After 9pm, my brain shuts off entirely.

I try and exercise every day - I'm not sure whether that equates to me needing more or less sleep, but again, without the exercise I never feel I'm at 100%. Meditation also helps me greatly.

This definitely hasn't always been the case - I'm late 30s. In my 20s, less sleep (or working after drinking, etc) was very much doable. Or maybe I just care more / notice it more.

OP, I'm all for getting stuff done, I appreciate we're all (very!) different, and definitely I'm not trying to mother you(!), but just keep an eye on yourself and your health. Burnout creeps up quickly. Have been there more than once and it's miserable.

Between 3 and 3:30 am to 8am on Weekdays

1:00 am to 11:00 am on weekends

Personally, I have started tracking my sleep time using an app called "Sleep by Android". And I aim to sleep at least 7.5 hrs each day. This normally equates to 10.30-11pm to 6.30 am.

Earlier I used to feel compelled to be up late and doing something - sometimes even reading HN because I missed reading posts due to a busy day. That meant I had an irregular sleep schedule. Normally sleeping between 12-3am and waking up by 7-9am.

Now I have started doing mindfulness and learning to let things go. There's always another day. It has been hard but I have managed to stick to my schedule.

On nights I may be completing a few work items, I have a more difficult time falling asleep quickly the less time there is between stopping work and getting in bed as I am still thinking about it.

Had you asked me to give you an estimate 6 months ago, I would have said "8 hours". Getting a Fitbit watch was a big eye opener.

Before I had kids, I used to sleep 8...9 hours. I used to not set an alarm, and just let my body figure out when it was time to wake up. I felt I needed about 8h to function well.

Since I have kids, I get up before the rest of the family to get some work done (or sometimes, just to decompress and get some alone time).

In order to carve out that time, I consciously decided to sleep a bit less. I aim for 7h, but I use "Sleep as Android", which tries to wake me in a light-sleep phase "around" my waking time, so ends up between 6.5h and 7h.

Turns out, I can function reasonably well with that. Less than 6h and I'm pretty useless though. I notice I can't concentrate well, but most crucially can't resist the pull of distractions like HN and Reddit. Days after little sleep tend to be lost to procrastination.

I've also noticed that I'm becoming less tolerant of little sleep now that I'm nearing 40 years of age.

I run fairly seriously and get sick quickly if I sleep less than this.

To tie this to the post about workplace culture/stress affecting health, while my current schedule is perfectly sustainable, the one thing that got cut out of my daily routine as a direct result of spending 1.5hrs commuting each day is exercise. I went from running 40-50 miles per week and hitting the gym 2-3x to playing sports 2 days a week, going to the gym only on weekends, and not running at all.

I refuse to allow work to rule my life. If I consistently have more work to do than I am able within a reasonable amount of time (say, 45 hrs/wk, max), then I escalate and make it a management problem.

Also, be aware of "sleep debt", which can be paid back up to 1-2 weeks, during which you will sleep longer than normal, but it is normal, because one has sleep debt that is being paid back.

source: The Promise of Sleep, Dr. William Dement, Sleep Researcher @ Stanford University.

At times, I will do 4 to 5 hours when I'm really into something.

If I don't abuse that, it works fine.

When I do, it takes a little while, many 8 to 10 hour sleep days to recover.