Sleeping Habits

[Utopium]

Given how there are so many party animals on this board I figured it might be good to get a good estimate on how much sleep people get on average. For nights that I go out somewhere (which is a lot) I will get about four hours of sleep. On nights where there is not much going on (like last night) I will get about six hours of sleep and then just naturally wake up.

[Alexis]

Average? 8 hours. Less than that and I'm a zombie. I get about two hours more than my average on weekends

:zzz:

[5l1mm]

mine is between 6 and 7
if i get 8 i have a headache the next day.
under 6 i feel like a zombie.

[Methodus]

I used to sleep sometimes 12 and 14 hours... damn that was great. It wasted a day, but it was still great.

[sxulcmnky]

i can only sleep for about 8-10 hours (more often than not 8 hours beats the 10 hours due to waking up at the ass crack of dawn).. but on weekends if i go out, i can't usually sleep past like 930 or so... i will naturally wake up around 7ish which is techincally sleeping in since i get up at 530 for work. i of course take naps during the day on the weekends though :D

[someguy]

yea, 5 or 10 years ago when i was a teenager, i could knock down some hours and sleep an easy 12.... but now i feel fully rested after 7 or 8 hours.... 9 or 10 if i've been partying all night.

i've read that any more than 7 or 8 hours of sleep is the equivalent of overeating though... i'll have to find a link on that one.

[maynard]

I probably average about 5.5-6 hours a night during the week. That's all I really need.

I'd say I get 7-8 on the weekends.

[Funshine]

I'm usually in bed for about 7 hours during the week days. I tend to wake up and stare at the ceiling sometime around 2am for a few hours, but I always get back to sleep and end up with a solid 5 hours of rest.

Weekends are up in the air. Sometimes I get a handful of hours, sometimes the entire day is spent sleeping.

[BuzzCat]

Usually during the week I'm ok with 7.5 hours. If I could get 9 every night, that would be perfect though. Realistically - I'm getting 5-6.

The last few weeks I've really gotten to a bad sleeping schedule. Then last night, I was going to be able to get back to a healthy one, and Ben decided to have a beer before bed so he SNORED like a bear. I couldn't sleep in there. So I attempted to sleep on the couch. Between the sore right side of my back, the dog whining because he could see me, and already being exhausted I got no sleep there either. Finally around 4am he stopped, and I laid down in our bed until 7:45am. Needless to say, I'm exhuasted again.

[Funshine]

Poor Tasha, you always seem to be running full speed ahead...

[GiveMeFunkyBeats]

i make sure im in bed by at least 10pm on the weekdays...and im up by 6am...thats a good 8 hours...any less than that and i might as well just call out of work b/c im worthless

altho there is the occasional weekday party/event that i will make it out to...

i actually end up sleeping less on the weekends...anytime i go out and drink heavilyish for whatever reason i CANNOT sleep in...if i get home by 4am or so i'll be up by 10am and just roll around in bed not sleeping wishing i were sleeping

[5l1mm]

alcohol makes you pass out, but you dont sleep as soundly.
its kinda shitty really

[maynard]

I hate drunk sleep. Hate hate HATE it. I only sleep for 5-6 hours and then I feel like death all the next day, but can't nap.

[juicyjay]

I usually get in 6-8 hours. Oddly enough I get more in the weekday than on the weekends. For some reason on the weekends I still want to wake up at the same time that I do on the weekdays regardless of what time I went to bed. However lately, Dalton's introduced me to giving into food coma and napping

[Russell Christ]

its hard to say. during the week. on average, I usually get 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night. then the weekend hits and I could get anywhere from 8 to 14 hours. It's all or nothing over here.

[Verbal Radiation]

theres to much to do when i get home!!!
i cant just go to sleep after being home for 3 or 5 hours

[Jill]

On nights when I don't go out, I get around 8 hours of sleep, sometimes more. On nights I go out, I usually get around 5 or 6 hours. On weekends, I usually get an hour here or there. :)

[BuzzCat]

theres to much to do when i get home!!!
i cant just go to sleep after being home for 3 or 5 hours

:yes: I hate that! It's 7 or after by the time I get home. I need to spend an hour playing with my dog, go to the gym, (and you're supposed to wait 3 hours after a work out to go to bed) eat dinner, do chores, get clothes ready for tomorrow, clean up from dinner and get to bed at a decent hour? No time to relax or wind down and get all that done.

[Jungle Jessi]

I hate drunk sleep. Hate hate HATE it. I only sleep for 5-6 hours and then I feel like death all the next day, but can't nap.

tell me about it.

if i fall asleep drunk i will usually be passed out cold for like 2-4 hours and then i will wake up and toss and turn for the rest of the night. and i am right there with you on the napping thing....i once spent the entire day laying down in the dark trying to nap after only getting like an hour of drunk sleep and was denied. it SUCKS.

on average, non-drunk week nights i usually get like 6 hours of sleep. on nights that i go out more like 3 or 4. so it's no surprise that when the weekend hits it's my goal in life to get as much sleep as possible. but i don't usually sleep past like 1 or so, which is kind of cool i guess. it sucks to waste your entire day.....even if it is for something as glorious as sleep.

[Shawn_E]

Sleep! We don't need no stinkin sleep!

[Shawn_E]

:yes: I hate that! It's 7 or after by the time I get home. I need to spend an hour playing with my dog, go to the gym, (and you're supposed to wait 3 hours after a work out to go to bed) eat dinner, do chores, get clothes ready for tomorrow, clean up from dinner and get to bed at a decent hour? No time to relax or wind down and get all that done.


Well you can always start your own business, work for yourself and do as you please. :meditate:

[Jill]

I hate drunk sleep. Hate hate HATE it. I only sleep for 5-6 hours and then I feel like death all the next day, but can't nap.

I don't have this problem at all. I sleep like a baby drunk. Sometimes I'll have to get up once in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, but thats about it.

[jukata]

this woman right here can not sleep. too fussy.

pass out at 8PM on the couch? no problem.
Stay asleap more than 3 or 4 hours? not possible.

if it keeps up she'll either be getting her own bed, or sedated.


tell me about it.

if i fall asleep drunk i will usually be passed out cold for like 2-4 hours and then i will wake up and toss and turn for the rest of the night. and i am right there with you on the napping thing....i once spent the entire day laying down in the dark trying to nap after only getting like an hour of drunk sleep and was denied. it SUCKS.

on average, non-drunk week nights i usually get like 6 hours of sleep. on nights that i go out more like 3 or 4. so it's no surprise that when the weekend hits it's my goal in life to get as much sleep as possible. but i don't usually sleep past like 1 or so, which is kind of cool i guess. it sucks to waste your entire day.....even if it is for something as glorious as sleep.

[Maboroshi]

i try to get at least 6-8 hours but nope. my nights consist of tossing and turning, waking up at 3am and not falling back asleep until its almost time to get up. but on the weekends its nap time FTW. hehe.

[Utopium]

this woman right here can not sleep. too fussy.

pass out at 8PM on the couch? no problem.
Stay asleap more than 3 or 4 hours? not possible.

if it keeps up she'll either be getting her own bed, or sedated.

http://granadainfo.com/pino/Atrojes4.jpg

[pluryou]

Between 8-10 hours

[PotBelly]

in the butt

[BuzzCat]

Between 8-10 hours

how I hate you Dawn.

[spiggums]

man I'm lucky when I get 4 hours of sleep... my schedule is so fucking whack that on the rare occasion when I DO have the opportunity for a full night's sleep, I can't sleep cause my body clock is too fucked up...

I generally get home from work at about midnight... then have to be up at 6AM during the week.. and then of course on wednesdays I don't get home till about 2AM... then I really fuck it up on the weekends when I'm out till 6 and then have to wake up at 9-ish the next morning...

[jukata]

http://180degreeimaging.com/180mag/06feb/rita/barbarabillingsley.jpg
well golly, that looks just swell!

[Neptune]

if i sleep more than 7 hours, i start to get really wierd vivid dreams. then when i wake up i feel tired from all the information my brain is storing from the dreams. so in the long run, its better for me to wake up after 7 hours and not have the dreams.

[Jenni XO]

I average 6 hours. It would probably be more if I didn't get up several times in the middle of the night, either because of a fussing baby, or my back being sore.

[Jenni XO]

if i sleep more than 7 hours, i start to get really wierd vivid dreams. then when i wake up i feel tired from all the information my brain is storing from the dreams. so in the long run, its better for me to wake up after 7 hours and not have the dreams.


My boyfriend is an active sleeper - so even if he gets a full night's sleep, he doesn't feel like he's gotten good rest. He moves around a lot, and sometimes talks in his sleep. He always complains how active his mind is at night. Which is why he usually takes Tylenol PM when it starts to get bad.

[The Logic Theorist]

:yes: I hate that! It's 7 or after by the time I get home. I need to spend an hour playing with my dog, go to the gym, (and you're supposed to wait 3 hours after a work out to go to bed) eat dinner, do chores, get clothes ready for tomorrow, clean up from dinner and get to bed at a decent hour? No time to relax or wind down and get all that done.

I'm with you. I'm not "party animaling" anymore, specially not during the week, but I go somewhere directly after work every single day and get home at 8 at the earliest, usually between 10 and midnight. By the time I've made dinner, done things around the house that need doing, and unwound, it's usually 2am. Lucky for me I can wake up at 8am and get to work "on time".

[jibboo]

i need to get at least two cycles of rem sleep

dreaming is necessary for proper mental health

[The Logic Theorist]

i need to get at least two cycles of rem sleep

dreaming is necessary for proper mental health

Aren't those cycles in roughly hour and a half increments?

6 hours would be 4.

Although, I've read articles that say most people get by on 6 hours now, and it's really not enough sleep for anyone.

[jibboo]

i've been on a health kick lately (walking at least an hour a day, eating better, cutting down on my smoking and caffeine intake, etc.) and it seems like the healthier i get, the less time my body needs to 'repair itself' while i'm asleep

i got 6 hours last night and woke up well rested and very mentally alert

i think that since i started dreaming again the quality of my sleep has improved tremendously as well

[The Logic Theorist]

Well, I mean, I've been doing all those things for almost a year now.

I find that if I only get 6 hours of sleep, every afternoon around 4:30 I get drowsy and almost pass out on the bus.

[jibboo]

http://www.denverpost.com/fitness/ci_5882726

Naps awaken productivity
Employers seek health, work benefits in midday rest
By Teresa M. McAleavy
McClatchy Newspapers
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated:05/13/2007 09:02:48 PM MDT

Hackensack, N.J. - For Mike Vago, the only thing missing was the milk and cookies.

It's not the Jersey City, N.J., resident didn't appreciate what his boss was offering. It's more that the 31-year-old art coordinator for Workman Publishing Co. couldn't help but recall the midday routine of his preschool days as he picked up his yoga mat and headed for the Manhattan company's nap area for a snooze.

"I found myself feeling a little guilt because, hey, I just napped at work," said Vago, whose 1-year-old son tends to keep him up at night. "So I

really got right back to work." Because of the costs associated with energy lulls that many 9-to-5ers experience in the afternoon, some employers are embracing the idea Workman is testing: letting workers nap at work. An article in the January issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine says fatigued workers cost employers $136.4 billion each year in health-related "LPT," or lost productive time.

It's at least part of the reason companies such as British Airways, Nike Inc. and Pizza Hut International allow their workers nap breaks and found productivity increased as a result. A NASA study found that a short nap can boost workers' output by as much as 34 percent.

At Workman, a decision was made to test the veracity of one of its titles, "Take a Nap! Change Your Life," by Harvard University-trained psychologist and sleep researcher Sara C. Mednick.

She says that how and when people nap can improve their health, memory and productivity.

Workman asked volunteers to take part in a two-month napping experiment in which 20 employees slept for about 20 minutes midday throughout March - when our circadian rhythms are in dip mode - with another 20 doing the same in April. Employees filled out questionnaires along the way so Mednick can assess the program and advise company owner Peter Workman on whether napping should become a sanctioned workplace activity.

Workman editor-in-chief Susan Bolotin says that's likely after Mednick advises the company on ways to implement the most effective napping plan for its 200 or so Manhattan-based employees.

"It gives you much more energy than coffee and a real creative boost," said Bolotin, who also napped occasionally throughout March.

"It's a matter of the culture in a company acknowledging what we already know - that we're all sleep-deprived - and letting people get in a nap in a way that doesn't indicate we're all sloths." Providing office workers with a sanctioned snooze is so counterintuitive, at least in this country, that Mednick says plenty of Americans immediately balk at the idea.

"When I talk to people about napping at work, most look at me like I'm talking about smoking crack at work," Mednick said, chuckling.

"Others say they couldn't survive without a nap. It's a very polarizing idea." Still, Mednick, a researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., said the science encourages napping.

"The health benefits are beyond the cognitive stuff, like increased memory and productivity," said Mednick. "There have been some epidemiological studies that show decreases in heart disease and stress." The overall benefits have some countries where businesses had traditionally shut down after lunch for a midday siesta rethinking more recent efforts to stop the practice in the name of global commerce. The Spanish government, for example, pulled the plug on naps for civil servants in 2005 and is trying to end the daily doze for all workers.

China, the fastest-growing major economy in the world, also is increasingly ditching the venerable nap in favor of a 9-to-5 workday model.

But France may be moving back toward implementing 40 winks at work.

In January, French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand reportedly said, "Why not a nap at work? It can't be a taboo subject!" as the government announced plans to spend $9 million this year to raise awareness about the work-performance benefits of a midday snooze.

Napping benefits

Mednick and her colleagues, most notably co-author Mark Ehrman, found that naps "can restore proficiency in a variety of critical skills" and that "certain kinds of naps can produce improvements previously observed only after a full night of sleep." A nap that involves slow-wave sleep has been shown to improve memory, while stage-2 sleep increases alertness and motor skills, and rapid-eye-movement sleep tends to inspire creativity and heighten perception.

The author also points out that sleep deprivation has real consequences. In addition to minor accidents, it has been linked to contributing to workplace disasters such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Union Carbide chemical explosion in India and the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.

America, she writes, is a "nation of the walking tired ... so much so that 51 percent of the workforce reports that sleepiness on the job interferes with the volume of work they can do." Her work led to a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense and companies sometimes hire her as a consultant.

"The military is very interested in napping and fatigue countermeasures," Mednick says. "We've found that to be alert, people are trying to slog through the day with caffeine. Now we're learning the most popular drug in the world doesn't come close to the benefits of a well-timed nap." She isn't suggesting that companies shut down for hours each day to accommodate tired workers. Ideally, a 20-minute snooze between about 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. for workers who start at about 9 a.m. is all that's required. Within about 10 minutes of waking up, Mednick says, nappers tend to feel refreshed, "alert and ready to focus without needing that extra cup of coffee or afternoon candy bar." That's pretty much how it went for Workman's Inka Winter of Hoboken, N.J.

"I noticed I wasn't eating as much or having a Diet Coke or coffee in the afternoon after I napped," says Winter, 34, Workman's export director.

Even though it took some practice to fall asleep each day, Winter says she quickly noticed she was more alert throughout the second part of her day.

"My afternoons were a lot more productive, and I had more energy to do chores when I got home," she says. "Sleep is the new sex: People never get enough of it." That's a contention some newer businesses are betting on.

Manhattan-based MetroNaps started making and selling sleep pods three years ago and counts Procter & Gamble Co. among its corporate customers.

It also operates a napping center for 20-minute catnaps.

Yelo, also in New York, more recently entered the market with its Yelo Cabs rooms, complete with specially designed lounge chairs, aromatherapy and cashmere blankets.

Peter Bohan, Workman's marketing and promotions manager, doesn't require anything that fancy. A mat worked quite well for his occasional power naps in the company's storage closet.

"I just felt sharper, like my brain was working better," says Bohan, a Westwood native who lives in Jersey City. "I've got to admit, I snuck a nap in the other day even though the experiment ended. ... I actually miss it a lot."

[jibboo]

other things that have helped the quality of my sleep:

- change sheets twice a week
- turn off tv/stereo before i go to sleep
- changed the orientation of my bed so that my head points north

[CareBear]

I love Sleep. I make an attempt to get at least 8 hours a night during the week.

[Methodus]

I average waking up with a dead hooker every other week.

[punkasschikadee]

I didnt really know which option to choose...

when I go out (2-3 times a week) I get about 5 hrs of sleep

when I dont I usually get about 8-10

[The Logic Theorist]

I average waking up with a dead hooker every other week.

Do you bury her (or him) in the desert near Vegas?

[ChicoMDK]

My sleep habits change weekly i think on average I get 6 but some days i will only sleep like 3 others i'll sleep like 10 plus nap.

[Methodus]

Do you bury her (or him) in the desert near Vegas?

I prefer dumping them at sea and sometimes using them as bait.