7 hours of sleep per day enough?

[Guy665]

Hi all,


One the habits I have been installing for 2008 is to get up at 6.00 am every morning. So far I have done it for 5 consequtive mornings.

I have a quick question, I fall asleep at around 11.00 pm and get up at 6.00 on the dot. However I feel very tired when I wake up and am still feeling tired throughout the day.

Is 7 hours of sleep enough for the day? Bearing in mind I don't take any naps or do any other sleeping method. Those 7 hours are my main sleep. I am wondering if it is too little or is it enough and will my body adapt?

Thanks

[Minsc]

7 hours is fine, but you might be waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle, ect, especially if you make sure you go to bed and wake up at exactly the same times.. You could try Steve's method of going to bed when you're tired but waking up at 6:00.

You could try 7:30 or 6:00, since those are multiples of 1:30(one sleep cycle). Add some time to it depending on how long it takes you to fall asleep(say, 3-10 minutes. I wouldn't go over 20).

If you're tired throughout the day but can still go to bed and wake up whenever you want to then you could try taking a 20-minute nap..

(There are people who are fine sleeping one or two hours a day so seven is plenty)

[Brutha]

Do you also get up at 6.00 at weekends?

Is 7 hours of sleep enough for the day? Bearing in mind I don't take any naps or do any other sleeping method. Those 7 hours are my main sleep. I am wondering if it is too little or is it enough and will my body adapt?

There was a large study that showed that the death rate for people who sleep 8 hours a day is higher than those who sleep 6 or 7 hours. Naturally that doesn't mean that there aren't people who need more sleep than the average.

So far I have done it for 5 consequtive mornings.

In general the body needs some time to adjust to every change of the sleep pattern (even the one normal people have from waking up an our earlier when we adjust our clock for summertime).

[Ralph]

Seven hours is definately enough. I've started getting up at exacly 5am six days ago. I was very sleepy in mornings and afternoons and felt energetic at evenings. That's the adaptation period I guess. It all seem to be stabilizing now. If you feel more sleepy than you'd like, you shoould try exercising at morning(that's what I do), removing animal products, sugar and caffeine from diet, not eating before sleep. Steve posted somewhere that he knows a guy who tried one week juice fast and slept only 4-5h per day. Sleeping longer is one of many ways to get rid of sleepiness.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Guy665

Hi all,


One the habits I have been installing for 2008 is to get up at 6.00 am every morning. So far I have done it for 5 consequtive mornings.

I have a quick question, I fall asleep at around 11.00 pm and get up at 6.00 on the dot. However I feel very tired when I wake up and am still feeling tired throughout the day.

Is 7 hours of sleep enough for the day? Bearing in mind I don't take any naps or do any other sleeping method. Those 7 hours are my main sleep. I am wondering if it is too little or is it enough and will my body adapt?

Thanks

2 Things I found with this:

(1) When I sleep for 8 hours normally, and try to convert to 7 or 6 hours I'm usually tired for the first few weeks. However, after that, my body is totally fine with only 6 hours. In fact, it's more alert with 6 than 8 after the adjustment.

(2) The time you pick to wake up makes a difference as well. For example, it's easy for me to wake up at 6am but not 5am or 7am. I can also wake up at 9am etc. Whenever I wake up at 5am I feel like throwing up, whenever I wake up at 7am I feel more tired than if I woke up at 6am.

I normally now go to bed around 2am-3am and wake up at 9am. Once I'm out of bed, i'm totally fine.

So, to answer you question. 7 hours is more then enough. I went on 6 for a long time.

Oh, one thing I did do though is picked one day (Saturday) to sleep however long I felt like sleeping. SO if my body wanted a few extra hours, it would wake me up.

[harrem]

The normal hours of sleep per day is 8 hours. But it is definately ok if you sleep 7 hours of sleep per day. Why don't you sleep around 9 or 10 pm and wake up around 6 am. I'm sure you will be contented.

[Calisto]

I live alone so I can please myself about mealtimes, bedtime etc. I don't have a set bedtime, when I can't keep my eyes open, or I can't read what is on the computer screen, that's when I'm ready for bed. Since I stopped drinking tea and coffee and not eating after seven, I sleep pretty good, but I only sleep for about 5-6 hours a night. Actually it's more like 4-5 hours. Admittedly, depending on how busy I have been, I do seem to enjoy an afternoon nap every three or four days. I do relaxation and meditation which may or may not have something to do with it. A while back I was experiencing a bit of the Twilight Zone and waking at 4.20 every morning. Now, most nights I go to bed between one and two and wake up around 6am. I used to worry about getting enough sleep when this began but I feel fine, even better than I did before, so I decided to just go with it. Family and friends call me an night owl cause they think I don't sleep or sleep very little.