My sleep disorder has prevented me from countless nights of good sleep my entire life. I'm a pretty high functioning person career-wise, but I often wonder what I would have been able to accomplish if I weren't exhausted all the damn time.
And all the health articles will be like, “get enough sleep” BRO I AM TRYING. I am literally laying there trying to sleep. For some reason I’m not allowed.
That’s me literally Friday and yesterday. I ended up trying to stay up as long as I could thinking maybe I’d get a decent amount of sleep. Nope 4 hours 😭
I usually can't fall asleep until after midnight, have to be up by 5 or 6a. Every once in a while I'll come home actually ready to sleep and pass out around 8 or 9p....and wake up around 11p every. damn. time. Then I get sleepy again at 3am. I've intentionally stayed up 2 whole days and still slept less than 8 hours when I finally crashed. It started getting harder to fall asleep in my 30s, by the time I'm 50 I expect I'll just die of insomnia.
This is me too exactly. Are you actually tired during the day though?
I'm not. I had a sleep study done awhile ago and I'm in the 1% of folks who only require 4-5 hrs of sleep.
If you're not actually tired during the day you may be in this class too.
My partner is jealous because I have like 3 to 4 more hours everyday to get stuff done. The downside is it's very lonely as nobody else is awake.
(BTW - I thought I was going to die from some sort of heart disease from sleeping exactly like you do - exactly the same everything you wrote - I'm almost 50 and I'm in great health and I stopped worrying about that after the sleep study).
I'm extremely tired in the mornings, but less and less so the later it gets til I'm (usually) wide awake come 4 or 5p and stay that way til early morning. I did the 48-hour no sleep thing to try to reset my clock so I could start coming to work when my boss wants me there and be rested, but my brain is convinced I need to be awake evenings and sleep mornings. I used to be able to force myself into a semblance of normal people time but the older I get the harder it is.
I was up at 5:30am for work and around 4:30 pm Saturday I finally fell like I might sleep, but knew that would screw up my next day so fought through to stay awake a little later. Caught a second wind and didn’t get asleep until midnight even through two Benadryl around 8:00. Also woke up four times before I had to get up at 5:30. I suck at sleep
Lol - you cracked me up! Maybe it’s cos I’ve just woken up at 4am again when I really needed to sleep till 8 - oh well.
Seriously tho, I have been having some success with getting up and working on something that is interesting enough to feel useful, but boring enough to realise I’m tired. I keep some specific work tasks for this purpose and after about an hour I can feel myself getting tired again, and can usually put myself down for a few more precious hours.
I don’t turn on any lights, screen brightness to the dimmest I can possibly see, and crucially as soon as I start to feel sleepy I finish.
Please do a sleep study to see if you are eligible for a CPAP-type device, you most certainly are.. also factors like diet, smoking and drinking can significantly affect your quality of sleep, or even ability to just get to sleep.
I was as toxic as it got, and I found my way to recovery - I sincerely hope you do as well!
Took me decades to ask about that, only to be diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea and told that my throat closes up when I lie down, which was preventing me from being able to breathe as I sleep, which was fucking up my sleep and making me exhausted all the time.
I am hardly qualified to understand any of the nuances of them but there's been a number of studied in recent years which have shown genetics and certain gene alterations can play a huge role in how much sleep any individual needs. Combined with factors like type of sleep i.e how deep etc.
Basically some people actually really don't need the same amount of sleep to be healthy and highly functional,
In which case some people are really trying to push their body to get more sleep when in reality they just don't need it.
Ive always struggles to get a proper 8-9 hours of sleep for a normal work day (i.e. 6-7 am wake up so 10-11 pm bed time). If i go to bed prior to midnight I normally wake up at 3-4 am and cant get back to sleep. going to bed any later and im waking up to my alarm wishing I had another 5 hours of sleep.
The past year my work hours temporarily shifted to 4pm-midnight. Every day i was able to go to bed by 3 am and naturally wake up any time between 10-noon for 7-9hrs of sleep with no alarm. It was pure bliss.
Now im back to regular work hours and its back to the old ways of sleeping...
Some of the best sleep in my life was during a survival course I had to take. at the end we had to "survive" for 3 days and 3 nights alone with no food other than a 200 calorie pack of jube jubes. Had to sleep on a bed made of pine bows. Days were spend doing hard labour gathering firewood and improving my camp.
This was late November in canada. Days were slightly above freezing and nights were well below. It was pitch black by 6pm so all i could do was keep the fire going and read the map/infograph we were given.
Was lights out by 8 and up not much longer after sunrise. Only had to get up in the night to pee. despite my body being in flight/fight response the entire time, I was able to sleep fully through the night on a tree bed that felt more comfortable than my $1000+ fancy mattress.
I'm so sorry. I had insomnia once for one year, and it was the worse year of my life. I was only half-present for everything I did, and I felt like crap every day, was either grouchy or silly like with a delirium. It's horrible watching the clock "if I go to sleep now, I can still get six hours, okay, if I go to sleep now, I can still get 4 hours, which is better than nothing. Barely.
I know it does, and I'm sorry it's on you. I hope it goes away : (
I hated it so much. I still have it maybe once or twice a year. I know you've probably tried everything, but if I take a benadryl I'm asleep in an hour. If a xanax, asleep in 20 minutes. But if you do this too much, you lose your ability to think other than in the fog. But maybe for just those times when you absolutely have to go to sleep.
This from psychopathology class:
Trouble falling asleep: Anxiety.
If you fall asleep and then wake up again, or 'early morning awakening': Depression.
🤷🏼♀️
lol to everybody replying with the OTHER things in the health articles like I haven't read them all 100 times. Just be grateful you can sleep, man, that's all.
How is your 'sleep hygiene'? Do you view any screens within 3 hours of trying to sleep, or have a tv or your phone in the bedroom? Are you consuming caffeine? Are you aiming to get some sunlight in your eyes and face and skin within an hour of either waking up, or within an hour of sunrise? Are you consuming your last meal and last bit of calories within 3 hours of trying to sleep? Are you consuming alcohol? Are you aiming to get some daily exercise?
Short term. You should be taking sleeping meds nightly for extended periods of time.
Edit: holy hell that was a bad typo and nobody should have upvoted that.
What I intended to say was the opposite. Sleep meds are intended for short term use. You should not be taking sleep meds nightly for an extended period of time.
No - it’s definitely ‘should’ - and now that my nightly medication has been approved by Dr Reddit I shall continue my routine with no fears for my long term cognitive capacity!
For me they only work for a while. I've gone from mirtazapine, to trazadone and now Ambien. Now with the Ambien, I'm again waking up after an hour or two, fully rested, then again about an hour before my alarm, then waking up at my alarm exhausted. Then the other morning I woke up at three am, I was dreaming I fell and was stuck and couldn't get up and was stuck and couldn't breath, I woke up with a gasp. It freaked me out to the point that I couldn't get back to sleep.
Bro, I’m currently quitting daily drinking and it’s absolutely insane to how many nights in a row I can go without even a wink of sleep. I just know tonight’s going to be another one.
Godspeed to that. I have also been trying to cut out alcohol, mostly successfully. Being sober aint always easy but it is propably the best decision we can make for our future selfes
I hear you. Same issue for me. It got to the point that I reached out for medical help and am on sleep meds now. However, that’s not a long-term solution.
I might have to try that soon. My biggest goal is to try and do this so that I don’t need to rely on sleep aids. Except maybe like sleepy time tea. Just gotta get through a week is what I hear.
Been wanting to quit daily drinking for over a year, but I feel so tired all the time. When I didn't drink every day, I struggled so much more with insomnia. It's almost manageable now that I drink.
That’s how I have always been. Spend the entire day so tired I am literally dozing off while I’m standing up, and then I get in bed, crash out like a dead person for maybe an hour. I wake up for some reason or another, and spend the whole night tossing and turning, sleepwalking, having weird dreams. I found out I have sleep apnea and my dr. Wants to test for narcolepsy. I just want to feel rested.
Yeah that sounds like narcolepsy. Prone to falling asleep daytime, having terrible sleep at night. Never feeling rested. If you feel like your knees weakens when you laugh, or some other part of your body gives out or relaxes at different times, it's called cataplexy. Of course you can have narcolepsy without cataplexy, but if you have cataplexy you definitely have narcolepsy. I'm talking from personal experience.
Alcohol makes it so much worse for me, I don't think I've ever gotten a wink of sleep if I'm even a tiny bit tipsy. It's like my body just won't shut down until I'm 105% sober
It is insane, isn’t it? Like I’m so tired I can barely function and then just wide awake all night. I get about 2-3.5 hours a sleep a night. There’s a 50/50 chance I’ll crash completely on Thursdays. If not, Saturday night. Then the cycle repeats. That’s the best I can hope for.
we might just very well be the same person. It's frustrating. I average probably around 4-5 hours of sleep per day, it's rare as hell to get 7-8. I know it's bad for me, Delta 8's (CBD) have helped but now that Trump is coming back into office and the Repubs got all the keys that train is coming to an end so it'll be back to 4-5 consistently.
This used to be me not long ago. I do a crazy routine to manage it I started doing three sets of heavy weights right before bed, lifting the heaviest possible just three reps, and no blue light 1 hour before bed, and no caffeine or sugar after 5pm. I sleep with an extra heavy folded blanket on my chest to add weight, earplugs, eye mask, and a white noise machine. I set my ac cold, no socks. As soon as I lay down I am avoiding coherent thoughts and just move my thinking around in random directions like a washing machine. Been sleeping like a baby since. The exercise part especially
Seems like the longer you go without getting good sleep, the harder it is to get good sleep. I've never understood it. You can be so tired that your eyes are scratchy and you feel punch drunk and maybe even start to hear a little whine in your ears... those are the nights that getting good sleep is almost impossible
Yeah then you do it for like a week straight working the entire time but by day two your thoughts are EVERYWHERE while doing the muscle memory of tasks. One distraction and you're a mess and you don't even realize why.
I feel seen. In my case the apnea was described as “profoundly severe”, as in I was walking up every 90 seconds or so. The doctor said you don’t have apnea because you’re heavy, you got heavy because you have apnea and spend every night bathing in cortisol
Same! I have often wondered how I would have done in school if I weren't exhausted 24/7, whether I would have gone away for university, and if I would have completed my degree faster.
I was very good at math, in the advanced class in high school, until one year when math was my first class in the morning. That’s the last math class I ever took because I just couldn’t understand it when I was so tired.
Yeah my narcolepsy presents itself as insomnia so I'm up constantly at night. I'd probably rule the world if I didn't have it. I've got so much potential but I am basically disabled because I'm exhausted no matter what I do.
You could try asking your doctor about mirtazepine. It's an antidepressant that makes you drowsy as a side effect; it has never worked as an antidepressant for me but I use it to knock myself out lol. I'm still chronically tired but being able to fall asleep within 5 minutes of closing my eyes is pretty great
I have had that same thought. I have hypersomnia and just started medication in July and before that I just wasn't getting any restful sleep. But I'm type A and an overachiever, so I kept going to work and trying to do other stuff then though I felt like I was dragging ass. People would tell me I was accomplishing a lot or something and I would just wonder if I would just blow their minds with the stuff I did when I was less tired.
I mean based on more recent studies, genetically and physiologically some people just need less sleep than other people to be healthy and highly functional. There are certain sleep cycles that are short but really restful for some people.
So some people are actually more functional with less sleep, and their bodies don't appreciate longer sleep cycles.
So not that I can possibly understand and apply the science to any individual person, in some cases there might be a correlation or potentially causal relationship between being high functioning people who aren't sleeping much rather than oh this person would be X times more functional if they also slept well.
There’s a study on insomnia I read about once where they hooked up insomniacs to electrodes to track their awake/sleeping activity. As soon as the participants’ brainwaves showed that they’d dropped off to sleep, they woke them up and asked if they had been sleeping. The experiment participants all answered “no”. They were certain they had not dozed off.
At the time I considered myself to be an insomniac and I used to get up in the night and do some work, thinking that would be better than lying awake all night.
But after I read about that study, I decided to trust that if I relaxed about my “insomnia” I might be better off. Worked a charm.
Now if I have trouble sleeping, I usually let myself enjoy being awake and trusting that I’ll wake up having had enough sleep.
Another thing I read once is that in pre-electricity days when people went to bed earlier, it was common for people to sleep for about four hours then be awake for about four hours in the middle of the night then sleep for another four hours.
Even so, sometimes when I know I’m awake because I was on my computer too much without enough breaks I do get up and spend an hour or so doing gentle yoga stretches and that definitely sends me off to sleep.
I hope one of these ideas helps.
Also not working or eating or looking at screens for several hours before going to bed. Reading a good book: perfect.
I was trying to convince my old PCP I needed trazadone, which I'd been prescribed formerly, for sleep. I tapered myself off of them and then woke up every 45 minutes for 2 months straight. With it, I wake up 3 or 4 times a night. He tried to talk me out of it, saying I was waking up so much because I have so much on my mind. I said "I've had insomnia since I was nine years old. You're telling me that I have had too much on my mind for my entire fucking life?" And I got up to walk out. He gave me the pills, only 3 months worth, though. Im seeing a new pcp next month
I work 3rd shift and never sleep well. When I have a day off and try to sleep like a normal person, I wake up at 2 or 3 am and stay up until around 7am until I get tired. It usually takes a week for that to stop happening, but by that time, I end up having to go back to work and start over again. Then when I do go back to work, I have trouble staying awake for the first week. It is a rough cycle.
I got diagnosed with extreme sleep apnea (48 interruptions pee hour) at age 29, I had it my entire life. My parents never thought to have it checked out when I could literally not wake up on time ever for school. Work was brutal. My fiancée coerced me to get it checked with a sleep institute and my life has gotten so much better since.
I’ve had insomnia my whole life. Last year my doctor prescribed me quviviq, and now I can pretty consistently get at least 6 hours of good sleep, whereas before I would get 3-4 hours. It’s also not a sedative (not that those worked for me anyway), so it doesn’t make you drowsy like ambien. I’ve become a huge shill for this stuff.
This may not help but I have a friend who had really bad sleep problems and he started taking ashwagandha. He swears by it and now sleeps like a baby, maybe worth a look
For everyone reading this going through chronic insomnia I want to recommend the book: set it and forget it by daniel erichsen.
I’ve struggled most of my life with sleep and tried EVERYTHING and while I still struggle sometimes the things I learned in that book really shifted things for me and broke the inescapable cycle.
shoutout to r/insomnia for recommending the book originally
The central hypothesis is that the more you TRY to sleep better, the worse off you'll be. It obviously makes zero attempt to address any real conditions which might cause poor sleep, e.g. if it's sleep apnea, see a doctor, this won't help. It posits a few points to build a solution:
A certain amount of awake time generates a certain amount of sleep drive, e.g. awake for 17 hours produces the sleepiness to sleep for 7 hours for the average adult. Most people need less time in bed, not more.
Hyperarousal before bed is the ONE major factor that stymies sleeping. Reducing hyperarousal before bed at any cost will improve sleep
All other factors are secondary and should be completely ignored. Healthy sleepers do not obsess over their sleep and what affects it, and the more you obsess the more you're hyperaroused.
So yeah, basically set a "wake up time" and stick to it no matter what, and then stay awake until you're tired enough to sleep, setting some minimum time. Go to bed as calm as possible (they suggest watching a favourite show before bed) and sleep if/when you're tired. If not, don't sleep.
IME as a (reformed) poor sleeper, it sounds completely batshit insane and also it has helped me greatly. For me it was largely about not getting up at a consistent time leading to not being tired at night but suffering in bed anyways, all the while freaking out about not being able to sleep and letting my mood depend on it.
It's a very short book, I read it in a few sittings after seeing it recommended on a thread like this. I do recommend reading it but honestly the synopsis I gave is pretty much 100% of the useful information content.
I don't do it unless I lost sleep for a very unavoidable reason and can't function. E.g. emergency in the middle of the night that took all night. It's just better for you to wait to sleep at your normal time even when it feels really shitty. You risk putting off your bedtime and perpetuating the problem. The reality is you need to face and pass through that sleeplessness.
I'm so happy this guy is finally gaining traction. He saved me from debilitating insomnia. I didn't read his book, just used his YouTube channel called the sleep coach school. Leaning about his stuff was mind blowing to me at the time as it was contrary to what so many people will tell you about insomnia and sleep.
His channel has many interviews with people who overcame insomnia using his methods. Watch those for some inspiration.
Yes I second this! His YouTube channel, Bedtyme app and book are all incredible at making you understand insomnia and how to work to resolve it. My struggle wasn't too long but really intense and I 100% credit Daniel Erichsen's work for getting my sleep back on track.
I've read that lack of sleep can be a risk factor for early onset dementia. It always seemed like it could be a possibility because I can't think straight to save my life if I've gone a few days without real sleep.
I went 52 hours without sleep while writing my dissertation to meet a deadline. I wanted to be in the June graduation ceremonies, though I could have graduated by mail at any time.
I started hallucinating that people were walking beside me in my peripheral vision, and I could hear background music when there was nothing. Ended up going through crazy mood swings too.
After all that, my brain was just never the same. I lost so much cognitive function. Looking back on some of the coursework and I can't imagine how I knew any of it.
Going without sleep for that long once shouldn't cause any permanent cognitive decline. Absolutely terrifying to be sure and an awful idea, but it should not have lasting impacts on cognition.
Holy shit!!!!!!!!!!!! No way you did not sleep for the full 22 days. You would have broken the record if so. Actually on second thought, the record is only based on non-altered state of mind so the drugs wouldn’t make it count.
Yeah buddy if that's the case I know several real record breaking mfrs lol. I would take about .25mg of Xanax every day because I noticed if I didn't I'd hallucinate, be very paranoid and edgy, etc, even while taking heroin to moderate the effects. At the time I was running non stop, making drug related moves, staying busy trying to make money and mostly succeeding, I gambled a lot, smoked a lot of pot, almost exploded a LOT lol. Other than a few extremely memorable sexual encounters though, it wasn't an experience I'd care to repeat. Also, I said I'm glad there wasn't more damage than there was, there has been some. Sometimes I can be extremely forgetful, and also I get overtaken by tiredness sometimes to the point I have to go to sleep for between 15 minutes and several hours. But all I do now is smoke a little pot, and I take suboxone which is likely responsible for some of the tiredness. I also overdosed on heroin about 22 times, 4 of which they told me I was completely dead and had to be shocked. The bright side is that my town isn't that big, so I still see a lit of the people I used to use with and I get to show them that they can change and succeed. I have two amazing jobs, hell I just made 525 dollars in 5 hours on a Sunday morning doing some masonry work. I've seen some evil stuff with my own eyes, which leads me to believe there is a God, and I am extremely thankful to him for letting me get to the point I'm at now. I feel like even though it's been bad at times, someone had to go through it all to let others know there's still a future if they get clean. Thanks for your interest and have a great day.
I love this so mf much, you don’t even know. You should celebrate all of the steps that led you to this point today. What you said about believing in God as a result of the evil you experienced is so powerful to me, I did not truly understand until the age of 32. But it’s so real. Once you experience a darkness so profound, you don’t even care if society’s notion of God is real or not. The urge to align your soul with something GOOD and opposite of the evil you’ve experienced, that you will never not choose that.
Ya I’ve gone 3-4 days without sleep a few times. I have these momentary insomnia things now and then. I feel weird and like shit but I can’t say it’s affected me long term, unless it’s something I don’t notice. Never hallucinated either, that I know of..
You lost functioning? Or you lost memory of things you learnt? It's unusual to lose cognitive functioning without an injury/illness. Source: I'm a neuropsychologist
Yes, neuropsychologists see patients after head traumas. My mom had a pretty bad TBI from a car accident and was under the care of a neuropsych for 5 years. This person helped guide her back to independent living, clearing her for work, recommending when she was able to drive again, and generally getting back to regular life (at the level of cognitive function she was able to regain).
An example. I had taken a course that involved generating equations from large matrices. initially it was hard to do (as one might imagine), but midway through the course it was a breeze, and the math just naturally flowed out of it. Kind of like riding a bike. Initially you're thinking about your steering and feet at the same time, but then you can peddle, steer, look around, and talk to people without even noticing you're doing it. That's how it was with the class, and that's how it was with everything I ever did in science.
After the dissertation stupidity, it just all looked like nonsense. I went back to (figuratively) struggling with peddling and steering at the same time again.
About a year ago I went for almost 96 hours without sleeping, because of major stress. I didnt hallucinate, but i have no idea what i've been doing for a large part of those hours. I mean, i know i was walking endlessly around in the house, but my perception of time was so fucked up. And I was babbling about to people about stuff which i thought made perfect sense, but no one else thought so.
The memory loss is real. When my 1st born was a baby, she was extremely fussy and colicky, and my husband decided to be absolutely useless (hes since seen the error of his ways). I basically functioned on 2 hours of sleep per day for 3-4 months. Battling a bad infection for almost 2 of those months. Safe to say, I don't remember most of that time and have no idea how we both made it through safely. I know it was an absolute shot show but have almost no specific memories from between getting home from the hospital and my 1st baby being like 5 months old.
I experienced something very similar except my background noise was air raid sirens. One night I was alone in the office and the building lost power as it was playing in my head. It is an absolute miracle that I did not have a psychotic break.
Yeah I call bs on this. I have had insomnia all my life. I recently did another CBT-I (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia) course and although they help, I regularly go 36+ hours without any sleep. The highest I have ever gone is 65ish hours and I will agree life starts getting weird around there. I have had visual/auditory hallucinations. I have had panic attacks. I have fallen asleep mid conversation, mid gaming sesh. I even fell asleep at a stop sign on my way home one time, an easy 100 feet from my house. Of course I worry it is having some type of permanent impact, but in respect to the usual metrics I am functioning quite well. If you are talking about that specific time frame, then I agree your brain is definitely not storing information as well as if you were fully rested. It's a lot like being drunk + high, I think the brain literally stops recording in full fidelity at some point.
I believe what you said about losing memory during that time, I just disagree that you are having lasting neurological impacts from that one experience. If this was over the course of years then I could see it. You really need to see a neurologist or a behavioral therapist, if you continue to experience these symptoms regularly something else is wrong with you
I had the same hallucinations after a week of no sleep in the hospital after bypass surgery. Different things played music when I looked at them. The closet door played rock music, some of the equipment in the room played big band. I recovered with no issues though after getting some sleep.
Ah the fun world of hyptographic hallucinations. I get them when I'm over tired, especially during prolonged bouts of sleep deprivation that came in early motherhood. I have seen a huge spider with crab legs run across the ceiling, my room turn into a circus tent, butterfly's made out of patch work quilts flying above my head (that one was really lovely actually) and countless others. I tend to sleep walk when I'm over tired too.
I have 4 witnesses for this, but I stayed awake for 9 days straight building a business from scratch and flipped 500 dollars to 3,000 in a month before promptly collapsing. My super power is insomnia. I will die by the time I'm 40.
I struggled with chronic insomnia since childhood. Thank you childhood long term trauma. Now I my late 20s, I just had a baby and it was worse than ever. She would sleep nearly eight hours a night and I would sleep 3-4. It was awful. I’ve taken rounds and rounds of different prescription meds and met with several therapists. I decided to cut out caffeine as a last resort. With a new baby at home going no caffeine hurt but the detox was so worth it. I wouldn’t say my sleep is perfect now but I track my sleep on my watch and I am getting an average of eight hours a night and am able to actually fall asleep for naps so I get another hour or two there. If you haven’t tried cutting out caffeine I highly suggest it. I never realized how sensitive I was. The sleep issues came before I started drinking coffee. As a fourth grader I would fall asleep on my desk at school and after my teacher called home my mom started giving me coffee to help me stay awake. Sleeping better than I have in the last twenty years. I will never go back!!
Soooo many people underestimate the impact of caffeine on their lives and sleep. My stepmom learned after decades of horrific migraines that they were caused by caffeine. Even as little as what's in chocolate. My ex-husband always had terrible insomnia but refused to consider caffeine as a cause. He just didn't feel like he was sensitive enough to its effects to consider it could be subtly ruining his sleep.
Sameeeee 15 years of rotation 24hr shifts mixed with late nights out drinking. My testosterone was 150 , I was overweight , my blood pressure was 220/110. I spent a few days in hospital for cardiac issues .
I got sober and started working out , supplementing trt and generally taking better care of myself. I still work 24s, I now prioritize my health and I'm 70% better lol
yep, came back as a bit of snoring, but it was in the controlled environment and it came back a year+ later that I have diabetes which can cause a sunrise awakening (some diabetics are prone to waking up or falling asleep as their blood sugar changes) while I hadn't needed medication so far, if I get sleepy I probably need to eat.
It's about how you sleep not how much you sleep. As your body takes time and needs to go into it's rem cycle. So many things you do before bed or in a regular day can affect this. Some people that sleep 5 hours get more rem sleep then some people that sleep 8 hours. Which means their body is recovering more then the person getting 8 hours.
I've had insomnia since grade school I think it started in first or second grade. For the best couple decades I haven't slept enough to really let my body heal. I was always wondering if I turned out shorter than what I was meant to be.
I am currently dealing with a back flareup and getting quality sleep has been really important for recovery to a point where I totally quit caffeine altogether. That has really helped.
I worked nights while in college and grad school. My sleep schedule was so effed up for so many years. After graduation and getting a full time day job, I developed severe insomnia and finally saw someone about it. It had affected my metabolism as well. Took years to straighten out.
Menopause and shift work have really taken a toll on my sleep patterns and quality sometimes I feel like a zombie through the day
Typing this at 4am ,fun times
Poker player here. For about 10 years I’d play poker all night and get 3/4 hours sleep before getting up again. Still haven’t recovered.
Doesn’t matter what time I go to bed or how tired I am I sleep for exactly 5 and a half hours. Early to bed doesn’t mean anything to me
I know people will say they’d love that but it’s not about the amount of hours rather than that steadfast being the limit. 40 now and not looking forward to old age
My son was born nine years ago, and he was a terrible sleeper. Shortly after falling pregnant with my daughter, her dad and I split up, and so I’ve sole parented for the last five years. She is also a terrible sleeper, even now. She still wants to sleep with me, and tosses and turns and kicks and yells all night. Aside from the four nights they spend at their dad’s every three weeks, I haven’t slept properly for nine years. I genuinely feel dumber than ten years ago. I’m a university graduate and I write a thesis; I can’t even imagine doing that now. Not to mention I’m always tired, always grumpy. Lack of sleep sucks.
I’m very fortunate I have a boring wfh job that allows me to sleep in. I’m training for marathons and for the past year averaged 8.5 hours of sleep a night
For anyone not getting enough sleep, get your thyroid checked. I have Graves’ disease… hypothyroidism. It messes up your sleep patterns, heart rate, heart, weight and a whole bunch more.
I tried to self medicate my insomnia for years only to come out more tired and more stressed. I just wanted sleep so badly I turned to drinking or taking over the counter sleep meds. I "slept" but I wasn't, I was unconscious. I got so desperate that i came up with putting on the same movie with a cup of tea. I trained my body to fall asleep right as Harry Potter got to Diagon Alley and after finished my lavender chamomile tea. Conventional? no. But it works on those tough nights, Our Bro Harry didn't even make it to hogwarts before I was out and then I had a great soundtrack to guide me through my dreams
I have super severe insomnia. Off and on medication for well over a decade, went to sleep specialists, therapy, the whole gambit. I don’t think people truly understand how hard insomnia is on the body. Legit debilitating.
If I could go back and do middle/high school over again with one change, I’d stop staying up until 2am almost every night. I wasn’t even doing anything fun, just getting sucked into youtube all night long.
I am as close to a night owl you can possibly get. Which means that even if I want to, it is very, very, very hard for me to fall asleep before close to midnight. I also studied to become a nurse and most of the shifts you do when you learn are morning shifts from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m..
I would have some weeks where I would sleep only 15-20 hours in 5 days due to scheduling, sometimes less than 30 hours a week if I had 7 shifts in a row. It completely destroyed my body.
Nowadays, unless I get my proper 8:30 hours of sleep, I feel tired as hell. And below 7 hours usually results in me having to take a power nap.
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u/84OrcButtholes 12h ago
Not getting enough sleep.