Daily Sleep need

[rosegold]

I read somewhere that you only need 4-6 hours of sleep a day and if you feel inclined to have more, it means your diet needs improvement. Right?

[Liveformx64]

Originally Posted by rosegold

I read somewhere that you only need 4-6 hours of sleep a day and if you feel inclined to have more, it means your diet needs improvement. Right?

I am not sure if you meant this for Steve, but I would say there is some truth to your statement. But it is highly circumstantial, and will vary from person to person.

I would argue the most effective people throughout history slept 6 or less hours each night.

I for one can't get out of the 8 hour routine, just yet. I will set 5 alarms, and do a pirouette around the room turning them off one after another at 6:00AM with my final step back towards the bed for another two hours.

[PVince81]

I am already sleeping 8 hours per night, but I still feel like it is never enough.
In fact, I have the feeling that whatever how much time I sleep, more hours or less hours, I will always feel tired throughout the day.
So now I'm reconsidering my current not so clean diet.

[Calculusaurus]

Originally Posted by PVince81

I am already sleeping 8 hours per night, but I still feel like it is never enough.
In fact, I have the feeling that whatever how much time I sleep, more hours or less hours, I will always feel tired throughout the day.
So now I'm reconsidering my current not so clean diet.

IMO I think perhaps the most common cause of this is low morning cortisol levels, which often happens with burned out adrenal glands -- this is not uncommon for people with histories of caffeine, sugar/refined starches, lifestyle stress, etc.

Is this thread in the wrong forum?

[rosegold]

What can you do to up your cortisol levels?

[Calculusaurus]

I'm not an endocrinologist, but a lot of factors affect the "hormonal symphony" going on inside your body. Look up adrenal fatigue, and you'll read that the most common causes of burned out adrenal glands include caffeine, blood-sugar/insulin highs and lows (e.g. from sugar and refined starches), lack of exercise, too much exercise, and psychological stress. Fix those factors and your adrenal glands will repair themselves and start secreting normal amounts of cortisol in the morning. It has worked for me.

[Sam988]

An interesting research: Sleep less, live longer?




You only need as much sleep as you feel you do. If you can do fine with 5 or 6 hours a night there's no need to get more.

Someone above said that successful people tend to sleep less. I think it's true, but only because they're so excited about life and goal-driven that they can function normally even with some less sleep. They're so excited about life/goal driven that they barely feel the effects of sleep deprivation.


Most people who think that they need 8 hours of sleep a night actually don't need more than 6 and a half hours. I was like that, used to need 8 hours of sleep a night but i've been very busy lately (in a good, exciting way, not in a "i work like a slave" way) and it's done wonders for my sleep; i get really great quality 6:30h of sleep a night and feel no need for any more.

[canyontothesky]

I'm wondering if anyone has any good tips for getting yourself off over-sleeping. Some days, when my boyfriend wakes up early at say 7:00, I get awake, too, and I have this moment sitting up in bed where I'm like, "wow, I feel really alert and awake right now, maybe I should get up. Nahhhh, I have 5 hours till I need to get up! Bed! Yay!" and I go back to sleep for hours and hours, only to feel groggy when I wake up. But it's like an addiction!

[PeaceCat]

canyontothesky - I hear you, I'm something of a sleep adict too!

Though I'm now an early riser and have been since I started the 9-5 lifestyle in my early twenties (nothing beats the Pavlovian conditioning of a 9-5 job ) Prior to that, I'd easliy sleep until noon unless dragged out of bed!

I managed to carry the early rising habit over to weekends by keeping my alarm clock set for the same time, keeping it on the other side of the room, and getting out of bed straight away (kind of have to in response to screeching alarm and sharing bed with a grumpy late-riser bear).

However, my weakness is naps. Basically, if I'm at home and it's day time, I'll give in to the temptation of a nice long nap. I've attacked this a couple of times but haven't quite beat it yet. A couple of things that helped were:

30 day trial - I recomend reading Steve's "early riser" article in your case (it's on the sidebar of his blog under the most popular articles). In my case I did a 30 "no daytime naps" trial, but caved on about day 21

Exercise - this is the perfect remedy for sleepiness, you can do this first thing in the morning by getting up and going out for a brisk walk or just jump around your house in your PJs (try it, it's fun ). I've had some success with exercising during my afternoon lull instead of napping.

Re-set your body clock - I read an article last year about how a night of partial sleep deprivation can re-set your body clock (and subsequently improve mood and sleep). I tried this by going to bed at 4am then getting up at 7am, then avoiding sleep all day (by exercising a lot, keeping busy and indulging in some coffee). I found that I was really hyper all day and woke easliy in the mornings for weeks afterwards. I now do this occaisionally, and feel that it kind of re-boots my brain and gets my sleeping habits back in order

Hope that helps, I think you've inspired me to attack my nap addiction once more, so thanks!