How many hours of sleep do you need to be "functional" for the day?

[mp170.6]

What happens when you don't get enough sleep?

 

For me, 0-4 hours = bad heart arrythmias and upset stomach

[Vegas Halo Fan]

I need 7-8. I normally get 5-6.

[maximus p]

Ages should be attached to these hours: 49 years old. 6-7 hours/night during the workweek (plus a 30+ minute nap everyday including weekends), 10-11 on the weekend.

[vlad27]

6-7 hours during the week - on the weekend I'm lucky to get 4 hours per night - learned to live with it

[nate]

What happens when you don't get enough sleep?

 

For me, 0-4 hours = bad heart arrythmias and upset stomach

 

0-4 hours makes me a bigger asshole.

[stevestevens]

I sleep 20 minutes every 3 1/2 hours.

[sneaky_flute]

Ages should be attached to these hours: 49 years old. 6-7 hours/night during the workweek (plus a 30+ minute nap everyday including weekends), 10-11 on the weekend.

I think it's generally true that the older you get the less sleep you need.

 

I've functioned well on 6 hours of sleep since high school and I've only slept in a handful of times in my life.

[Adam]

What happens when you don't get enough sleep?

 

For me, 0-4 hours = bad heart arrythmias and upset stomach

 

I drink a lot of coffee the next day and try and squeeze a nap in at lunch time

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

About 7 for me and that's usually how much I get on the weekends as well because I'm just used to waking up and I don't sleep in.  Maybe every 4-6 weeks I sleep about 9 hours one day on the weekend which has me recharged.

[REDemption]

I average around 6 a night. I would say 7, but I'm a super light sleeper and I wake up at least 5-6 times during the night to shift or turn over. I'm a stomach sleeper and sleep with my arm under my pillow so I also wake up once my arm goes numb.

[wopphil]

What happens when you don't get enough sleep?

For me, 0-4 hours = bad heart arrythmias and upset stomach

I also deal with bad stomach issues when I sleep too little.

One sleep deprivation incident scared the shit out of me. I had to get up at 4:30 in order to make the drive from Orange County to Bishop by 10:00. I took two benadryl to help me sleep. Oddly, the benadryl partially wore off just an hour into my sleep. I woke up groggy, but wired and nervous about the drive I'd have to make in a few hours. So I took another benadryl. I eventually fell back asleep, but when I woke up I had slept only 3-4 hours, with three benadryl in my system.

The drive was difficult from the get go. I drank two super caffeinated coffee drinks, but they didn't do much. Thankfully the road was empty and the highway rather safe. But then I got to the section of highway 14, just north of the red rocks park, where the road goes from divided to undivided. I am driving along when I almost went from the "right" lane into the "left" lane in order to pass someone. I had totally forgotten that I was on undivided highway and there was in fact only one lane in each direction. I wouldn't have even looked at the oncoming traffic because i wasn't thinking about it.

Thankfully I caught myself before I actually went into oncoming traffic, but the incident terrified me. I was probably much more dangerous than a drunk driver that morning, despite trying to drive as safely as possible.

[CaliAngel]

If I sleep exactly 7 hours and get up with the alarm, hit the shower, it takes me about an hour to wake up and I'll feel great and can go all day, 16+ hours of activities/work into the wee night even. Once I get into the 8-9+ hours of sleep, I get groggy and don't want to get up or do anything and could stay in bed for hours with the fan blowing on me watching dvd's of TV shows and movies.

 

I feel like I got trained on minimal sleep while going to College, I usually stayed up late because it was easier for me to work on projects and papers at night, so I can literally pull off 3-4 hours of sleep to get up at a must-needed time to take a test/do something diligently important like a presentation, and I can get my mind in work mode to critical think really quickly. If its something I'm looking forward to like doing like golfing or going on a trip with friends, I can get up for almost anything and last all day. But I will most likely catch up on the sleep I lost the next night.

 

My sleeping schedule is ridiculously sporadic, but I know when I fall asleep and how much sleep I've had when I get up, so I'm pretty good at maintaining a proper sleeping schedule.

[Sam Sanchez]

I average about 5-6 hours usually. I can probably function off 3-4 hours

[Ray McKigney]

I sleep 20 minutes every 3 1/2 hours.

 

Da Vinci sleep. That works out to two and a half extra days that you're awake per week. 

[arch stanton]

What happens when you don't get enough sleep?

 

For me, 0-4 hours = bad heart arrythmias and upset stomach

I make sure everyone around me is as grumpy and short tempered as me.