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Poll: How much sleep do you get per night?

88 points by gnosis ↗ HN
Are HN users chronically sleep deprived? Let's find out..

Approximately how much sleep do you get per night, on average?

Other questions related to the poll:

- Do you sleep continuously, or are you on a polyphasic sleep schedule?

- How does your sleep schedule affect your work and the rest of your life?

- Does the work you do affect your sleep?

114 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 175 ms ] thread
bane
I do about 6-7 on weekdays, then crash on weekends and sleep 12-13 hours. If I don't get my weekend crash and roll into the next week, I'm practically brain dead by the end of that week.

I have some respiratory problems that make the sleep quality not that great either and 6-7 often more like 3-5 depending.

I'm chronically sleep deprived. It's not healthy.

I'm also a supreme night owl, doing my best work around 6-9pm, and shutting down the brain to sleep is a constant struggle.

Don't do what I do, it's not good, but it's a vicious cycle I'm slowly breaking out of. I used to do 4-5 at night and crash 14-16 hours on weekends. So there's that.

Left to me own devices and no schedule, I'll fall into a cycle where I sleep 8.5-9 hrs, and consistently go to sleep at around 2am and wakeup at 10-10:30am. Sometimes it'll fluctuate and I'll go to sleep at 3-4am, but I'll always wake up about 8.5-9 hrs later, and I'll eventually stabilize on my 2-10 cycle.

[dead] yashg
Ditto me. I know its not good for my health, trying to break free of the habit. I miss school days where I compulsorily had to get up early. Once you get up early you naturally goto bed early.
AlexV
I tell a very similar story. I sleep 5-6 hours. No respiratory problems. Supreme night owl.

Now I feel tired...

mmwako
I think this is a tendency for entrepreneurs and/or tech people. The exception are those guys that sleep 4 hours per night and are fine the next day. I hate/envy them so!
tbrownaw
I do something similar, around 4-6 hours weeknights and 8-12 on weekends.

But, if I make an effort to go to bed earlier during the week (and get 6-8 hours) I tend to completely miss a night towards the end of the week. Not quite sure what that means, since I certainly don't feel like I'm getting enough sleep on weeknights.

finnw
> I'm also a supreme night owl, doing my best work around 6-9pm ...

Me too, and I get 6-7 hours of sleep a night, yet I do not feel "sleep deprived" at all.

bane
My wife sleeps comfortably on a 6-7 hour schedule. That's just what she needs. We've tried to lock sleep cycles together, but I usually end up in pretty bad shape after 3 or 4 weeks, and she'll be perfectly fine.
vgrichina
Try adding a nap in the middle of the weekdays, it should make you feel much better (around half an hour should be enough)
bane
I agree, when I worked at a place where I could, I did, and it made the day much better.

Unfortunately, working on a contract at a customer location doesn't offer me much nap time.

vgrichina
Maybe you can try to explain customer that it is needed to improve your productivity? I think any sane customer would understand that.
bane
I wish, I work for the government on contract by day, which by definition is insane.
AerieC
Did... did I write this and forget?

Exactly my habits.

Nat0
Pretty much exactly how I work as well. I have been able to set a more healthy schedule in the last couple months, but it is really hard to shut down in the evening when I feel the most alive and productive.
EToS
'Beer' can help with sleeping earlier during weekdays :)
nagrom
Beer may help you sleep, but it will, in my experience, leave you feeling groggy the next day and impair your performance more than you would have suffered through lack of sleep. There are many good reasons to drink beer, but to help you sleep and improve performance ain't one of 'em.
JJMalina
Like you mentioned, that in your experience it leave you groggy, personally I think this depends on the person and how their body reacts to beer. I've found that one beer (500 ml) at least an hour or two before sleep doesn't leave me groggy in the morning at all. If I drank beer right before sleep that probably wouldn't work well.
nagrom
Well, one pint an hour or two before bed time wouldn't leave me groggy the next morning either, but it also wouldn't help me sleep at all ;-)
alexyim
Alcohol in general may ease your ability to fall asleep, but it impairs the quality of sleep.
vgrichina
Cannabis would work better, lead to no hangover and is healthier.
Tim-Boss
I'm not sure that this is 100% accurate!

While it does have more of a sedative effect than alcohol, I don't think you can count is as healthier unless you're eating it or vaporising it!

Also in my (entirely subjective) experience I find it harder to wake up in the morning, given the same amount of sleep as sober days. No 'hangover' as such, but definitely feel more groggy for the first hour or so after waking!

umjames
Do the respiratory problems include sleep apnea? If so, do you use a mask?
bane
I use a nose clip (sometimes called a nasal dilator) that has improved my sleep quality tremendously. I used to wake up feeling dizzy and cotton headed. I usually couldn't cognitively function until mid-afternoon and felt like I had a sinus infection every morning. It's made a huge difference. I wake up clear headed, my wife says I don't snore as badly, and I've started remembering my dreams again suggesting I'm getting quality REM sleep again.
mindcrime
That's pretty close to my pattern as well. I get my best work done late at night, so there's a chronic temptation to stay up late... but when I was working the $dayjob, I had to be at the office by 9:30am, so I went sleep-deprived all week, then would crash hard late Friday night or early Saturday morning and sleep like 12 hours.

Left entirely to my own devices, I'd sleep about 8 hours a night, but I'd wind up gravitating to a pattern of staying up until 6 or 7 am, and then sleeping until 2 or 3 pm.

bad_user
I have weeks where I do 5 hours per nights, sometimes even less. It makes me feel awful.

I survive with 6 hours, but I really need 7 or 8 to be in top shape.

krmmalik
I manage about 7 or 8 hours on weekdays. I used to get a good 9 hours until i moved into the new house. I find lack of sleep very severely affects my productivity the next day and can even continue onto the second. I would love to have a polyphasic schedule or even something that remotely alludes to it, but its difficult to pull off. I really value my sleep and i miss my afternoon naps. I used to wake up feeling extremely productive with afternoon naps.
tbassetto
On average, I sleep 8h on weekdays and 10~12h on weekends. I have no choice but sleeping at least 8h, otherwise I get a headache…

I organize my life and my work in consequence. I can "rush" and sleep 6h / night but no more than 3 nights in a row.

tiernano
i try get about 7.30 - 8 hours most week nights, and could get 10 or 11 during the weekend... Weekend, i probably wont go to bed till 2 or 3 am, but wont get up till 1 or 2pm... most week days in bed around 11 or 12, up for 7...
brackin
I sleep an average 4 - 6 hours a night.
imalolz
I get at most 6 hours on weekdays, and even that's not continuous (I have a baby). On the weekends I do 7-8, if I'm lucky - babies don't know what day it is :)

I've been used to getting very little sleep since I was a kid, so I don't feel like it's affecting my work. I typically work-out before work, so that definitely helps starting my day off on a positive note.

silverlight
We also have a baby in the house, so I voted 6 even though I go to bed about 8 hours before my alarm goes off :-)
Wab
More than 12, but no per night. Usually I stay awake working for 2 to 3 days straight without any sleep, surviving on constant coffee and energy drinks. After those 2 or 3 days I usually crash for 12-14 hours. It's not healthy so I do not recommend doing so. It seems that no matter how many times I get my cycle in order, it will still get out of order. Heck, I don't even bother anymore, guess it's just supposed to be this way.
manmal
Have you tried the approach made popular by Tim Ferris, napping every 4 hours for 20 minutes? He claims that he is able to live by that for days, but once he misses a nap, he is essentially wasted.
driverdan
That was not made popular by Tim Ferris. It has been around a lot longer than that.
robin_reala
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man not me. I try to be in bed by midnight, and my alarm is set to 7:15am.
fredley
I usually go to bed 8 hours before my alarm goes off, though I'm aware that it takes me an hour or more to drop off (so I've voted 7 hours). At weekends I'll usually sleep 8-10 hours (no alarm).

I've always been a terrible sleeper, unable to get to sleep, and unable to get out of bed in the morning. I've got my night-time rituals, dark, quiet room, reading before bed, regular wake-up time, but none of that seems to help, some nights I'll hear my room mate getting up at 5 before I fall asleep.

kahawe
Those with 10 and more hours each night on average: how do you do that, don't you miss those hours for doing stuff and do you just like it or would less hours actually make you feel tired and sleep-deprived?
DTanner
Well, let's say you sleep 6 hours a night, and some one asks you: "If you slept 2 hours less each night, image what you could accomplish with that extra two hours every day. Just start sleeping 4 hours a night and eventually you'll get used to it!".

For some of us 10+ hours is a biological necessity, I've tried forcing myself to sleep exactly 8 hours a night for two weeks at a time and it destroys me mentally, every waking hour is torture because I'm so sleep deprived.

jamii
I vary from 6 to 10 hours depending on the season. It averages out.
matwood
Most (all?) people are productive every waking hour. I imagine the people who need 10 hours each night are getting those extra hours from time they would have normally been watching TV or some other daily entertainment and not from their working day.
gnosis
I bet a lot of them are unemployed. This survey should really be correlated with how many hours a day the person in question works. It's very likely those who can afford to sleep longer have to work less.
acuozzo
I experience headaches if I sleep for more than 6 hours continuously. (No, I don't have sleep apnea.)
MichaelApproved
My sleep level varies with the amount I workout. When I exercise regularly, I sleep 5-6 hours most days with a quick 20 minute power nap in the afternoon. When I don't, I sleep a few hours more.

Both figures are how much sleep I get without an alarm. When I don't exercise regularly, I set the alarm for ~7 hours later and wake up groggy for 30 minutes or so.

randallsquared
I sleep anywhere from 5-9 hours, though usually on the low side. I usually set my alarm for 7-8 hours from when I go to sleep, but I hardly ever sleep all the way to the alarm, so I can't be sleep-deprived, on the whole.
Symmetry
I sleep a bit less than 8 hours most nights, from around 11:30 to 7:30. I used to be a night owl, but then my body started wanting to dayshift and I went with it. I tend to get up about the same time even if I was up late the night before, only sleeping in 'til 9:00 even if I was up to 4 AM the previous night.

Oh, and I used to get migraine headaches if I dozed in bed too long after I woke up.

manmal
I need 8 hours of sleep to maintain, 9 hours to feel very good. If I stay up until 3 or even 5am, my brain does not work for two days (lack of concentration, unjustified anger,...) - strangely, the second day is worse.
nnoitra
I usually sleep 7-8 hours per night, I used to be a night owl but I had some problems with depression so I decided to fix my sleeping schedule, and since then I function really much better and my overall mood has improved. Sunlight is really important for people to function properly and not get into depression.
kuroyume
6-7 on weekdays, 8-9 on weekends.

I used to have a lot of problem sleeping, until i forced myself to keep a tight sleep schedule... it works

guitate
Usually 6-7 all week, my baby doesn't let me get more hours on weekend, less than that my brain gets lazy
michaelleland
Usually 8+, but usually interpreted by one or more of three kids.
dagw
I aim to spend 8 hours lying in bed a night. How much of that time is actually spent sleeping is very much up to my daughter.
bobochan
Hang in there. I will not be long until you are tapping her on the shoulder and saying, "For the last time, you've got to get up and get dressed for school."
dugmartin
And then going back to school to drop off their hats when you get there and notice they didn't wear any and its 5 degrees F out.
Vivtek
And of course nowadays they can text you "I forgot my Spanish folder; I think it's on the TV - can you bring it by 11:48? KTHXBYE" No, I didn't have any deadlines today WHY DO YOU ASK?
xutopia
I found it hard to say. I have a sore back and wake up a few times a night to make myself comfortable again.

It does affect my production if my workplace does not allow for a nap.

davidw
Caught me on a bad day - our son got vaccinated yesterday and ran a bit of a fever, and woke up crying about every hour last night.
drbawb
I try to get exactly 8 hours. Most nights I've only been managing 6 and it's really starting to show.

Work itself isn't tough for me... what's hard is working all day, and then only having a few hours to catch up with friends in the evening.

I'm definitely no night owl though. Without someone working to keep me up I'm crashed out by 1am.

Tycho
4-6 hours on week nights but I try to compensate by skipping 9 or 10 hours at weekends. The reason I get so little is spending too long in the office and then unwilling to simply go to sleep at normal time having enjoyed hardly any leisure time. Plus I start work at 6.30am.