Sleep - how much do you need/get???

[Skippy123]

As I get older it gets harder for me to fall asleep. I use to sleep 12 hrs in my early 20''s and in late 20''s I needed 9 hours. Now I need 7 to 8.

What do you do to help yourself fall asleep?

I am also curious what time people hit the go to bed?

Lastly, how much sleep do you need/get???

Thanks and sweet dreams.

 

[Sundial]

Skippy as I have gotten older I find that I can get by on less sleep and still function. I don't have any trouble falling asleep, but I do have trouble staying asleep. Most nights I will wake up sometime during the night and have trouble getting back to sleep. We usually go to bed around 11:00 and get up at about 6:30.

 

[WorkingHardforSmallRewards]

5-6 1/2, 8-12 on the weekends.

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 7/19/2007 12:23:09 AM
Author: Sundial
Skippy as I have gotten older I find that I can get by on less sleep and still function. I don''t have any trouble falling asleep, but I do have trouble staying asleep. Most nights I will wake up sometime during the night and have trouble getting back to sleep. We usually go to bed around 11:00 and get up at about 6:30.

I have that problem a lot too; I wake up at 2 or 3 and it takes forever to fall back to sleep. Sorry Sundial.

 

[snlee]

I go to bed around 11-11:30 on weeknights. I need about 8-9 hours of sleep a night. I've always need a lot of sleep and have trouble waking up in the morning!

 

[divergrrl]

I need 9 hours...always have. I''m 36 btw.

 

[Kaleigh]

I need 9 hours. And love to sleep in on the weekends.

 

[katebar]

Skippy I need about 7-8 hours go straight to and I rarely ever sleep in. In summer I am up by 530 in winter 6. I am definitely a ''lark'' and it was hard being married to an ''owl'' but as I now meditate I can go to bed about 10 pm rather than 830 .
But in the last month I have started to wake up a like 2 and not get back to sleep for a while. I fear its perimenopause and have just got some capsules from the health food shop hopefully to address this.

 

[Cehrabehra]

I do better with less sleep. If I get 8 or more hours my head is foggy... and if I get like 10 or 12 it''s a thick fog that doesn''t go away until I''ve had a few nights only getting 6. It used to be 3.5-5 was ideal but now it is closer to 5-6. I try not to get more than 6 hours but during the summer it happens a lot and I am SOOOO lazy for it.

 

[marcy]

I''m like Sara. If I sleep more than 8 hours I am groggy all day. I do good on 6 to 7 hours and can get by on about 5 hours. I have a hard time falling asleep and do wake up several times a night. I go to bed about 11 to 11:30. On weekends I stay up later but don''t usually sleep in.

 

[oshinbreez]

I try to get 6 hrs sleep, but never sleep all night. I wake up 3 or 4 times a night, but it usually doesn''t take too long to get back to sleep. When I was working double shifts all the time, I was lucky to get 4 hrs a night. That wasn''t enough.

 

[Cehrabehra]

Date: 7/19/2007 12:55:11 AM
Author: Kaleigh
I need 9 hours. And love to sleep in on the weekends.

oh I forgot to mention..... my absolutely *ideal* sleep schedule would be 4.5 hours of sleep at night (2-6:30) and a 1.5 hour nap in the afternoon (3:30-5)

I like naps

 

[Pandora II]

I would give anything (almost) to be one of these people who can bounce out of bed at 7.30 everyday and feel good!

I find it impossible getting up every morning. I force myself to go to bed earlier in the hope it might work, but unless I''m hypomanic it doesn''t happen. Mornings and I have a hate hate relationship.

My clock seems to be set 4 hours ahead of normal people. I would like to got to bed at 4am and get up at 11am the I would function properly. I have even been to my doctor about this but doesn''t seem to be anything they can do. Luckily I don''t start work till 10.30 here so I am very fortunate. Only thing is I hate my job and I''m too scared to leave in case I can''t find another with such good flexi-hours.

I really need to get cracking on my books and hopefully be able to work for myself.

 

[zoebartlett]

I love to sleep! I usually get 7-8 hours each night. I might go to bed at 9:00 during the school year while I''m working but in the summers when I''m off I usually stay up til at least 10:00. Long gone are the days when I would be up until sometime in the middle of the night on weekends. I''ve found over the past year that on weekends and in summer, when I don''t have to be up early, I still set my alarm for early in the morning. I guess I don''t want to get too used to sleeping late because I know that will be a very hard habit to break once school starts.

My FI is a night owl and if he could do his job at night, he would in a second. He stays up late late late. I don''t know how he does it.

 

[Pandora II]

Bed at 9.00?

But the evening has barely begun!

Mind you, I had a meeting last week that started at 7pm and didn''t finish till 1.45am and that was after a whole day at work - so I should probably be grateful I''m a night owl!

 

[AsscherGirl]

I am like Pandora! It''s not really the amount of sleep, but the hour in which I have to wake up. At my job, we have summer hours in which I have to be here at 7:30 am. If I am actually going to get up at 6:30 am (I don''t have to leave the house until 7:15), I need to go to sleep BEFORE 11 pm. I never do, and I am always exhausted! I wake up late, rush to get ready and then end up staying late at work to make up for my 10-15 minute lateness!

But if I have to wake up at 10, 11 or even 9, I can get like 6 hours of sleep and be fine. I might be a little tired, but I can at least get my butt out of bed on time!

I think my ideal schedule would be to go to sleep at 1-2 every night and wake up between 8:30 & 9 - and not have to be at work until 10.

On the weekends, I have just started to wake up a bit earlier. I used to sleep until 11, 12, 1, but now I am usually out of bed between 8:30 & 10:30. I like it because I do all my chores while my fi sleeps ! We generally go to sleep on the weekends around 2-4 am.

 

[Julianna]

I would love love love to go to bed at like 11 and wake up at 7ish. Unfortunately, my work and gym hours only allow for 10:00-5:20 Tuesdays and Thursdays and 10:00-5:45 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I wish I could stay up later because I don''t have much time to think when I get home from work, and I''m always going going going. But that''s the way it is right now.

Weekends I stay up til I can''t keep my eyes open anymore and then sleep in as far as I can. Which is usually like, 9:00ish.

 

[KimberlyH]

I typically go to bed between 9-10 and get up between 5:30 (work days) and 6:30 (weekends). I typically wake up once or twice during the night for about 30 minutes. I used to be able to sleep in...I miss sleeping in.

 

[metro]

I''m 33 y/o and I go to bed at 9:30pm and wake-up at 4:30am. Unfortunatly, I wake up a zillion times during the night but typically fall aback asleep 5-10minutes later. But if I wake-up after 3:30am, forget it - I''m up for the day. By nature, I''m not a morning person so it takes me awhile to pull myself together. I don''t leave the house for work until 6:30am.

The weekend hours are typically 10:00pm - 7:00am.

 

[VegasAngel]

I get anywhere from 6-8 hrs of sleep a night. What I need is 10 hrs to feel great. I go to bed between 10-11 which is a huge part of my problem. Atfer I put my daughter to bed I clean up then watch t.v. & read-yes at the same time. Even if I were to get in bed at say 8:30 I wouldnt be able to fall a sleep until 10-11 anyway so I might as well do something to tire myself out.

 

[Nicrez]

I think needing less sleep is the body''s way of maximizing the amount of live you get to live, the older you get....

I used to be able to sleep like a champ. I have always been a night person. I remember being a kid and watching the later show and Saturday Night Live with my parents, all the other kids had bedtimes. We didn''t. My parents often stayed up later (like 11-12) and when we all got tired we went to bed. Often times I was in bed alseep at 9pm of my own will.

To this day I am up way too late. I can''t sleep before 1am. It''s a curse really. Naps would be ideal, and when i am in Europe I take full advantage of them. Here the work schedules are different and it would just cause me to be up until 3am+... which I do as well.

Ideally I need 7 hours, but usually I get 5-6, and still function quite strong. My Sundays are my recharge, I sleep in until 10-11am and then brunch.

 

[Skippy123]

Wow, thanks for your responses.

It seems like people sleep well.

 

[Nicrez]

All this talk and I am itching for a nap...

I knew this guy who came up with the idea of nap centers here in NY. He was an old schoolmate of a good friend, so I knew him long ago when he said he was quitting his lucrative job to start his idea. We all sort of laughed at how his girlfriend would soon be either breaking up with him or marrying him... years later...

And clearly it worked.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/9549/

 

[Aloros]

I need 7-8 hours, and I get 7-8 hours a night. Sometimes I go less than that, if I''m up watching a good movie or reading a good book or I''m writing and I don''t want to stop just yet.

I do find that getting proper sleep does help me function better the next day.

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 7/19/2007 12:58:48 PM
Author: Nicrez
All this talk and I am itching for a nap...

I knew this guy who came up with the idea of nap centers here in NY. He was an old schoolmate of a good friend, so I knew him long ago when he said he was quitting his lucrative job to start his idea. We all sort of laughed at how his girlfriend would soon be either breaking up with him or marrying him... years later...

And clearly it worked.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/9549/

from the article: where you can drop $14 to doze for twenty minutes in a globular plastic cocoon filled with ambient sounds—with offices tucked away on the 24th floor of the Empire State Building. They made a pit stop.


I could use a nap; nice that your friend did it and made money!!!!! hehehe. I use to joke w/my boss that I was taking a nap in the afternoon under my desk so she knew where to find me. We would joke about our daily naps

 

[strmrdr]

2 to 4 sometimes 6 hours a night in 2 hour stretches.
Sleep 2 hours up for a couple hours sleep a couple more hours.
My sleep cycle sux...
Somedays 2 hours is enough other days 18 hours wouldnt be enough.

 

[Skippy123]

Sorry Storm.

I have a hard time sleeping but your sleep schedule sounds awful. I try and get some exercise in to help me sleep. I hope it gets better. Hey, how is Wifey doing???

 

[Mara]

i typically need at least 8 hours of sleep to really function well the next day. i can do okay on 7+. but anything under 7 and i'm like a zombie and need lots of caffeine and/or a nap!! i am so useless on mornings we are traveling somewhere and get up early like 5am to get a plane or whatever.

also i sleep like the dead for the most part...! when i lay down to go to sleep i typically replay my day in my mind and also go through the next day or similar...it helps kind of calm me and settle things down in my mind then i drift off.

if i get too much sleep like 9+ hours i tend to feel groggy and kind of foggy most of the day. totally odd.

 

[rainbowtrout]

need? without an alarm clock I sleep 9-10, my body still is on TeenagerClock. Am ok with 7-8. 6 and under I my moods flatten out, I get grouchy, need coffee, etc.

Usually during school I get about 7 a night.

 

[scarleta]

I sleep like a "log"Need nothing just a comfy bed and my DH next to me.Get far less than I would like to..Gardening helps as you get tired and feel happy to go to sleep..Also a glass of warm milk at bedtime and don''t eat too late.