Short Sleepers Might Be Benefiting From a DNA Mutation 159
An anonymous reader writes: As someone definitely not in that category, I envy people who can get along with little sleep. I have sometimes secretly believed they're exaggerating. Maybe not. The BBC reports on DNA research that says there might be a genetic basis for the very low sleep needs that some people have. The article says that UC-San Francisco researchers "compared the genome of different family members. They discovered a tiny mutation in a gene called DEC2 that was present in those who were short-sleepers, but not in members of the family who had normal length sleep, nor in 250 unrelated volunteers. When the team bred mice to express this same mutation, the rodents also slept less but performed just as well as regular mice when given physical and cognitive tasks." If it's stuck in the genes, though, I guess I'll still want more hours in a row if I don't want to start hallucinating. So how many hours do you need? I seem to get along with six or seven, but sleep past noon on the occasional weekend day. Update: 07/09 19:24 GMT by T : The latest Freakonomics podcast has some interesting things to say about the economics of sleep, and hours-per-night is a big part of it.
I'm a short sleeper (6 hours) (Score:5, Insightful)
I really can't sleep more than 6 hours. And I usually wake up automatically (before my alarm clock) around 4AM. I've been this way for decades (back in high school I could sleep in).
If I get less than 5 then I suffer that day. It seems like my sleep needs are just being met, and if I fall behind at all then I feel like crap that day and need to go to bed early that night (and then I just wake up earlier the following morning, but rested).
I perform best, by far, before noon, but that could be the nature of the work (mind grinding).
I do enjoy a nap in the afternoon when I can get it (Saturday afternoon sometimes). There's actually not much nicer than a good afternoon nap.
Re:I'm a short sleeper (6 hours) (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be nice if North American business instituted "siesta time" across the board. A nice 20-40 minute nap after lunch would really improve productivity in the afternoons.
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Yep, we are a nation of "afternoon yawners".
And of course most of us need additional caffeine in the afternoon to not yawn too much.
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I'm in a similar boat. 5-6 hours seems to be perfect. I typically go to bed between Midnight and 1AM. My alarm is set for 6:30AM, some mornings I am up before it, sometimes I hit the snooze button for that extra 7 minutes it gives me.
There is the odd time I go to bed between 3AM and 5AM, and still up before 7:00AM. I will admit those days are not a walk in the park, but I certainly don't go about my day like a zombie. I'm still functioning and get my work done, though I may be a little more irritable than n
6 hours for mental refresh, (Score:1)
you are not superhuman (Score:1)
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Statistically some will be "special". Just because you are not doesn't mean they won't be.
Oh I'm "special" all right. Just not in any way that could be construed as positive.
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No fewer than 7 (Score:2)
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What this sort of study can't tell you is if those mice actually do something useful with their additional wakefulness. Look for escape routes? Solve puzzles for treats?
Or just go round and round on the wheel.
Think about it for a moment. Careful what you ask for....
NFL coaches (Score:1)
NFL coaches are legends for being workaholics, and many seem to get ridiculously small amounts of sleep [slate.com]. What to they do with their time? A lot of it is spent reviewing game videos of their own team and those of opponents, very slowly with lots of stop action, to assess as precisely as possible the strengths and weaknesses of different players, team units, and schemes. Then they have to come up with plays and new variations of plays, and new practice drills. And of course, people management.
I think it mostly comes down to discipline (Score:1)
I prefer 7-8 hours a night.
That being said... In college, I learned how to survive on little sleep. I kept doing this all through my 20s and 30s. Now I've gotten to the point where it's physically draining, but going wthout sleep is mostly a matter of willpower and caffeine. I start hallucinating after about 24 hours without sleep, but this can be solved by taking small 5-10 minute naps from time to time. I found out the hard way that eventually you burn out from going without sleep for long periods of time
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I prefer 7-8 hours a night.
That being said... In college, I learned how to survive on little sleep. I kept doing this all through my 20s and 30s. Now I've gotten to the point where it's physically draining, but going wthout sleep is mostly a matter of willpower and caffeine. I start hallucinating after about 24 hours without sleep, but this can be solved by taking small 5-10 minute naps from time to time. I found out the hard way that eventually you burn out from going without sleep for long periods of time, but it doesnt' require special genes.
These days, I just do a better job of setting expectations and agreeing to longer project schedules so I can get the job done without killing myself.
I also need 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I've tried getting by on less, and I can do it for a few days, but I eventually need to repay that sleep debt. Caffeine does nothing for me, so fighting tiredness that way is a non-starter.
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Sounds more like it mostly comes down to *stimulants* - think how much more productive you'd be with crystal meth :P
I still think melatonin and serotonin are some of today's most underappreciated stimulants... All-natural, too.
But does it favor natural selection? (Score:2)
People who don't sleep much may annoy their partners and have fewer babies. Similarly, there is no selective pressure against Parkinsonism, diabetes, or heart disease, since people rarely die from them before having children.
Poster Needs More SLOW sleep (Score:2)
...genetic basis for the very SLOW sleep needs...
Please get more sleep...and I can recommend the fast kind.
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I'm sure that was a typo, and Yes, perhaps it was generated by a lack of sleep ;) I've fixed that now, and Mr. Anonymous can complain if he meant "slow" instead.
Sleeping is different. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've learned over time that it's almost impossible for me to get 8 hours of sleep unless I've worked for multiple days in a row. I've done data center moves or had a crisis with production where I was up for somewhere around 48 hours or more, but when I went to sleep I would only sleep 8 hours before my body would wake me. I would then sleep again "for the night" in a shorter range of time (something like 16 hours of being up rather 20), but then I'd re-regulate after that.
I do kind of wish I slept more though. I don't think my brain feels as awake as it could if I had slept more.
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I can't sleep much at night (only a few hours), but can sleep all day. As I got older this became more and more debilitating until I had to start working my own hours. Many sleep problems are probably people incompatible with 9-5 schedules and waking to the terror of alarms going off (tigers in the cave).
I'd trade with my cat... (Score:4, Funny)
16hrs of napping a day plus athletic abilities of felines? Plus aren't we all more happy dreaming anyway? There was one of scenes in Inception that group of sleep drug subjects preferred dream reality from awake one... what's reality anyway...
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"If that's the case (happier asleep than awake), you need to find a way to improve your life"
What are having only zombie nightmares?
Thank you for misreading... that was supposed to be zen metaphor... you've just spoiled with your correct but very flat existential point of view :) but wow! you got 5 score for that!
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What are having only zombie nightmares?
Good dreams, if you ask me! Pass the shotgun.....
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> Pass the shotgun.....
People who sleep happy and have good dreams do not pick shotgun fights with strangers for no reason. Why are you so against people who like to sleep longer and nap happily as a cat?
When 900 years old, you reach Sleep as good, you will not.
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Short sleeper (Score:1)
Five to six hours (Score:4, Insightful)
I discovered that when I tried to sleep the eight that was supposedly required, I would either wake up at 0300 and not be able to get back to sleep for an hour and a half, or I'd sleepwalk. I read a book a few decades back that suggested that by gradually decreasing your nightly sleeping time, you could find the amount of sleep you really needed (it was some decades back, sorry I can't remember the title now) and I tried what it suggested. Found that I'd wake up decently rested at 7 if I went to bed at 2.
On weekends, I wake up at 8 without the alarm clock. Weekdays, even holidays and when I forget the alarm clock, I'm up at 7. Habit.
My wife hates it.
Sleep is when the transcription takes place (Score:3)
Short sleep might restore the muscles and other organs and prep them for another day. But "doing physical and cognitive tests" as well as well slept mice says nothing about the long term memory of such short sleepers.
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I'm getting 8 hrs, but my body wants 9 - 10 hrs (Score:2)
I have three little kids, the youngest not yet one year, so I'm unable to get all the sleep I'd like. I make do with about 8 hours a night, sometimes only 6 or 7. But on the very rare occasion that I'm away from the kids, I naturally sleep between 9 and 10 hours (and feel much more awake in the morning.)
Of interest might be my kids' sleep times: 9 hours for the six year old, 10 hours for the four year old, and 7 hours plus multiple naps for the infant.
7.5 is ideal, 6 for several days (Score:2)
7.5 is about perfect for me on an ongoing basis. I'm just as productive / alert after 6 for periods of a 5-10 days, but then it starts catching up with me. My wife needs 9, and anything less than 7 for more than a single night is asking for trouble.
Interesting sociological study (Score:5, Funny)
1) Pick some rare advantageous trait (e.g. short sleepers, super multitaskers)
2) Post a story about it on Slashdot
3) Observe the large number of posters who claim to have the trait
Optionally:
4) Cross-correlate these posters against list of posters claiming to possess a different rare advantageous trait in previous Slashdot discussions
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Haha, as a fellow supertaster I hear that one -- I've got to where I say "no sauce" as if by reflex, and dislike a lot of "good" stuff as being the wrong kind of bitter. OTOH, I have often refused to eat something that tasted wrong to me, and meanwhile my fellow diners are busy acquiring food poisoning.
As to sleep, dogs vary wildly in their sleep needs, but it's most obvious with pre-weaning puppies. Most sleep a lot; some slow-developers do almost nothing but sleep. But a few are up and at-em very early in
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I am a supertaster.
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My voice is not affected by helium.
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You're leaving out the part about my 12 inch wiener.
So how many hours do you need? (Score:5, Funny)
I need about 1-2 more hours than I get.
Exactly 8 (Score:2)
Down to the minute - I find I'm most rested if I sleep *exactly* 8 hours. I can go a long time on 7 before it starts catching up to me (which is good, because that's how much I often get these days, because my brain has now decided that I really want to get up when the sun comes out even though no I totally don't), but I'm happiest if I can consistently get 8, exactly.
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To time it that well, you must be able to go to sleep pretty quickly? I know there are people like that out there who can lie down and be out in less than 5 minutes, but it's alien to me. I'd say 15 is a minimum, 30-45 minutes is typical before I actually fall asleep. On rare occasions when I'm desperately tired and start to fall asleep in less than 5 minutes, the rapidity of descent actually startles me and tends to wake me up.
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I'd say probably.
I'm the type of person that can be asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow (less than a minute, tops). I also sleep like the dead and will sleep through anything, including being physically assaulted and natural disasters, until morning.
last time i researched natural human sleep cycles (Score:3, Interesting)
I was amazed to learn that before the advent of artificial lighting the common human sleep pattern the world over was to sleep in two ~4hr shifts with an hour or two break in between in the middle of the night. The commonality of this is evidenced partly by various allusions to it in literature--as if it were simple, common knowledge. Some articles mentioned that some people go to the doctor thinking they have a sleep disorder when they continually wake up in the middle of the night, only to learn that their body is simply reverting to its own natural sleep cycle.
Beggars in Spain (Score:4, Interesting)
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Sleep helps the body, but its primary benefit is for the mind. If you think of the mind as a computer, sleep is when it performs all of the needed maintenance tasks that it can't do when you're awake to keep the computer operating at peak efficiency. If you don't sleep enough, you can get by for awhile, but your brain will become more and more muddled until you can just barely function. Removing the genetic need for sleep wouldn't be a simple procedure and would likely have some very ugly consequences.
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http://science.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
iirc TFA says the circulatory system doesn't really penetrate to the cranium's innards bc space is a premium in there, and that means a loss in waste removal. Says during sleep the spinal fluids rise up and flush the brain, in lieu.
That alone would still be a physical, chemical demand, which hypothetically could be subverted somehow. But I still expect there's men
Thyroid (Score:2)
6-8 hours (Score:2)
Oddly the time I get up also makes a difference. I've found that if I set my alarm for 6 AM, I'll usually wake up a
I never sleep in (Score:2)
On Friday and Saturday nights, though, I tend to go to sleep around 10:00pm and wake up around 4:30am or 5:00am. Weird, I know, but for some reason, I wake up with the thought in my mind, "This is my time! I'm not sleeping through it!"
I saw a documentary about sleep (Score:4, Interesting)
It's been awhile since I saw it, but I was struck by one thing in particular. One of the researchers talked about a period of 4 hours during the sleep when participants usually could not remember dreaming, but apparently they were. They could be awakened during this time and recall their dreams. The researcher would also disturb the sleeper somehow without completely waking them up but it would still disrupt their sleep somehow. When the subjects woke up they believed they had gotten a good night's sleep and felt fine. But cognitive tests showed they were not operating at maximum potential.
Generally sleep is poorly understood, but it seems to be an almost universal phenomenon and need in the animal world. Muck with it at your risk.
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That reminds me of something else I often wonder about myself. Many (most?) people seem to say they don't dream all that much, or never remember them. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, where I could swear I'm *always* dreaming, and assuming I don't have to rush, whenever you wake me up I could tell you about the dream in great detail. I cannot remember a time when I woke up and didn't think I'd just been dreaming. I've often wondered if somehow I'm not getting into the deeper sleep that other people
Polyphasic Sleep (Score:1)
It is also interesting to note that the practice of lucid dreaming [lucidity.com] (having conscious awareness during a dream while it is happening) happens during REM sleep - which increases in frequency and duration throughout the night (or sleeping time) - with the majority of REM sleep occurring
Combination (Score:2)
As with most things, I suspect there's a certain amount of this you can "learn" and beyond that is where genetics comes into play. Even as a kid when my twin sister went to bed I was allowed to stay up and read for 3 more hours until my parents went to bed. For about 6 years I was sleeping 3 hours per night but it wasn't enough and I'd come home after work and crash for a 40 minute nap. My former room mate used to ask how I got so much stuff done but he slept 10-12 hours a night, which is the opposite e
Does less sleep == full recovery? (Score:3)
No one believes me... (Score:1)
Until they live with me, or work with me. I sleep between 2-5hrs a night and average about 4/night per any given week. Given that I'm bipolar too I cycle a small bump into the mania section monthly and usually don't sleep at all 1 - 2 nights per month. None of which has any ill affect on health or functionality. When I get distracted by a project or my art, I will often just work a straight 18 - 20hrs without even thinking of sleep (food gets low priority too then). As a child I never napped past 6 months a
10 hours (Score:2)
I'm an odd one... (Score:1)
When I was under 7, I needed the normal 8-9 hours of sleep.
During the summer of my 7th, we moved a fairly long distance - and I stayed up until 4AM, then slept til 7AM.
AFTER that, I found I couldn't sleep until 3AM or so, woke at 6 as usual, and had a "normal" day. I would read 4 to 5 books a night.
I got classed as a borderline epiliptic, and was put on sedatives to make me sleep a more normal period, which I still do, mostly. After 18 I was off the drugs (finally!), but still sleeping relatively normally,
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Age related? (Score:2)
I'm guessing the submitter is a lot younger than I am.
When I was in college, I could (and did) easily sleep to noon or 1pm on weekends when I didn't have to work. Now in my mid-40s, I usually wake up around 5am without an alarm clock, and average at best 6-7 hours per night. I would love to sleep more, but I just can't.
Meanwhile, I have a hard time getting my teenage daughters out of bed before 9 or 10am on the weekends. Grrr.
- Necron69
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I agree to this. Until high school I used to sleep 7 to 8 hours every night. During my bachelor studies I was studying, working part time, and doing some graphics programming until late at night. After a few years like that, I got used to sleeping 4 to 7 hours per night. Now I can't go to bed before 2AM, or I'll be like O_O
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Disagree. I was in the military so the early mornings and short sleep schedule were part of the job. I never got used to it even after years.
Genetic, backed up by research (Score:5, Interesting)
The military has studied this quite a bit, and there has been no way to achieve a statistically significant reduction in sleep requirements over long term studies.
Re:Genetic, backed up by research (Score:5, Funny)
They have an entire fucking army that reports for duty every single day at 0fuckyou hours.
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Don't worry...I got it. :-)
No amount of practice will allow me to short sleep (Score:4, Insightful)
Like most abilities, getting only a few hours of sleep and feeling fine the next day is an acquired skill.
Disagree. I'm fairly disciplined in my sleeping habits these days but if I get less than 7-8 hours I am absolutely going to feel it and my performance will degrade some. I won't be a vegetable but I won't be feeling fine either.
Yes, it requires time, discipline and willpower, but blaming your genes for being a lazy bum is not an excuse.
Good sleep hygiene requires some discipline but no amount of discipline is going to let me get away with sleeping only 4-6 hours per night. Some people clearly can including some in my family but speaking only for myself I cannot get away with that little sleep for more than a day or two and I feel the effects immediately. I know for a fact that most people need more sleep than just a few hours and no amount of discipline will change this.
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I'm experimenting. I sleep 6-9 and 2-6, or try to; I'm a late chronotype, which means those 10pm-2am hours are fantastic and otherworldly, but those early morning hours... let's just say I am fucked up as hell if I stay up until 1am and sleep until 6am, but can stay up until 5am and sleep until 10 and feel refreshed and god-like. I tend to sleep 6-10 and then want to sleep 2-10 anyway.
Shortening that first sleeping span seems possible, if I can get more REM. I've seen strategies of napping 20-30 minut
Experimenting with sleep (Score:3)
I'm guessing you are fairly young compared with me if you have the flexibility to sleep odd schedules like that. I used to do all sorts of weird sleep experiments too but such things aren't really compatible with most jobs and family responsibilities. I know it's possible to do successfully do some very unusual sleep schedules but it's hard to reconcile those with societal expectations. My work hours aren't especially flexible and my wife would be pissed if I was asleep between 6-9pm every day. I'd basi
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I'm like 30. Most people are just stupid; I'll fix that one day, too, and it'll probably be more piecemeal than solving poverty. After that, people will find more inclination to adapt to novel situations, instead of just shitting their pants and forgetting to wear their helmets. Human intellect is, fortunately, completely mutable.
Re:Acquired skill (Score:5, Insightful)
Like most abilities, getting only a few hours of sleep and feeling fine the next day is an acquired skill. Yes, it requires time, discipline and willpower, but blaming your genes for being a lazy bum is not an excuse.
This would seem to be refuted by all of the literature I've ever read on the subject, as well as my own experience. I used my discipline and willpower to sleep less, and all it did was make me a low-functioning zombie at work. After a few months, I had to give up and get my 8 hours every night.
But even assuming that you can train yourself to be a more efficient sleeper, there must be a limit to that as well, which may vary by person. So some people may "enjoy" 8 hours but only "need" 5, and others may "enjoy" 10 and "need" 8.
I will go along with the idea that you can get better sleep quality and thus require less total sleep, but there is still a wide genetic variation in the amount of good-quality sleep that particular individuals need. Even if I get perfect-quality sleep, I still need 8 hours. I wish I didn't but at this point in my life I know better than to get less. Based on what I've read, there are other people who only need 6 hours or less of perfect-quality sleep, and I can never be like them. I'm no expert on the subject, but I've never read anything that seriously claims you can train yourself to need less sleep (as opposed to increasing the quality of your sleep).
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Sleeping is a very complex process, and the duration of sleep could be genetically altered by compressing various stages of sleep, e.g. making the transitions more efficient, etc.
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I believe those who say and live by the motto, "I'll sleep when I'm dead" will find themselves ge
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I assume this is bad, so I make sure I get at least 7+ hours. Of course I can handle 1-2 days of almost no sleep with
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When forced into it (new baby, long crunch times at work) I have found that it is not an acquired skill. After more than even a couple weeks of only getting about 6 hours I end up miserable, constantly groggy, slow to recover from exercise, and with impaired complex reasoning.
Back in college I lived in Alaska. Over summer I worked in a student lab with near constant daylight. I found that my happy spot was to work about 16-20 hours, then sleep for about 10-12. It was not uncommon to sleep for 7-8, get u
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And nothing to do with all that coffee you're guzzling.
Oh, I can get by on 3-4 hours a night too! Hell I can do it without caffeine. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking we're functioning perfectly fine on this little sleep. The legendary short sleepers the article is talking about don't ever sleep in and they don't set alarms to wake themselves up. You jumble up their circadian rhythm and they'll still be paddling along just fine. They don't wake up tired; they wake up refreshed.
One of the things s
Re:Five is plenty (Score:5, Informative)
When I was young I definitely required a full 8 hours of sleep. For some strange reason, almost immediately after I had my first child (I'm male) I developed the super-human ability to function quite well on 3-5 hours of sleep. Three years later I'm gradually regressing and currently seeing the need for 5-6 hours of sleep.
Re:Five is plenty (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a similar discovery with kids, although I concluded it wasn't so much that I was functioning normally as I just didn't feel the pain or notice the fog anymore. As they've gotten older and I've started getting more sleep, that imperviousness to the discomfort of being short on sleep has disappeared again. (I can remember one night, rocking an angry child at 3 a.m. where I thought to myself, "I slept from 11 to 3, so that's 4 hours. Even if she takes forever to go back to sleep this is already a pretty good night!" Yes, I did immediately realize that sounded pretty absurd.)
Outside of the newborn months, I like 8 if I can get it, but 7 is just fine. 6 leaves me tired, and anything under 5 makes me feel foggy. One very occasional night of 5 isn't too big of a deal as long as I get rest the next night, but two in a row of less than 5 and I feel pretty wrecked.
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If your like any of the other new parents I know, you only believed you were functioning quite well... To the rest of us you looked like a sobering idiot, Sure you didn't crap your pants or drool on yourself so compared to your first born you were a high functioning human, but compared to others your age without children you appeared to be a complete idiot.
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There is definitely some "new parent no sleep superpower" that develops when you have a baby that screams to be fed/changed/just because every 2 hours*.
I would take "the night shift" and let my wife sleep. (Besides, if my wife tried rocking them to sleep, my kids would smell milk and decide it's feeding time. With me, no milk smell = time for sleep.) As my kids got older and slept through the night, we got more sleep. My oldest would wake up at 6am sharp every morning no matter what. School, vacation,
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I have been diagnosed with severe chronic insomnia, I have had it my whole life. I stay awake for days and then sleep just a few hours though I sometimes crash hard and sleep or a whole 24+ hours (not in a while though). My problem is that if I wake up then I am awake. I had a hell of a time getting to sleep and if something wakes me up just a short time later I am done sleeping. I spend a lot of time with my eyes closed but fully awake. It is good for introspection but the mind dwells on some pretty stupid things that can not be changed.
Have you tried just going to bed when you're tired, and getting up when you wake? Or won't your lifestyle allow it? It does mean changing a few other things - like when you eat and the size of your meals (3 -4 smaller meals eaten shortly before sleeping).
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I am retired so, yeah, I pretty much sleep when I want to sleep. I probably get four hours out of every day on a good day. The thing is, I really do not get tired until after that day is over. Even then when I do get tired and go to bed I end up sitting there, thinking, trying to ignore everything.
The active mind bit is familiar - when I used to try and sleep in a single block I had that problem. The only way to get around it and avoid involuntary all-nighters (sometimes two in a row) was to exhaust myself mentally and physically, ensure that mental stimulation (conversation and noise) as well as bright light was avoided for an hour before bed (which didn't make relationships easier). Any light at night was enough to make sleep difficult.
I meditate sometimes, that helps at times but not always. Sometimes just a short spell of meditation makes me feel refreshed and then I can not sleep again for another 20 - 30 hours.
Sounds similar - the biggest problem I found with that was loss
Re:Five is plenty (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, not in my case. If not for those first 3-4 months I would probably have a second kid, but I really became an exhausted wreck until things got more regular and fell into a (mostly) once a night feeding schedule. Our coping mechanism at that point was that we traded nights to get up with him and I was only a zombie every other day at work instead of a constant zombie/a-hole.
The USA really needs to have much better maternity/paternity leave than we do. 2 weeks (burning through all my meager vacation) was not enough. My wife at least was able to get some cat-naps during the day, not so much for me (no, she didn't have it easier, but she did get more sleep from weeks 2-12). It is pretty darn hard to come home after working all day as a zombie and have to take over because your wife is an exhausted wreck, all knowing that the cycle won't have a break until the weekend.
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I use different sleeping cycles.
During the workdays, from monday to friday, I sleep between 3 and 4 hours, but I meditate during 2 hours and I don't nap.
During the weekends, I sleep from 5 to 7 hours with some napping, because I meditate a lot less (probably 15 minutes).
Several years ago, I was sleeping 6-7 hours every night, but I was always tired.
I started meditation 4 years ago, and everything changed from this moment: I'm never tired, I listen to my body (no abuse), and I have a deep sense of joy.
Deep m
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Me too, man. My solution is to date one night owl and one early bird, then sex them both before and after I sleep. So I do sex like twice and then my donger is so big I can often fit in a nooner, but the gas bills for my sports car add up. I'm a millionaire but it's the principle of the matter. Annoying case is right.
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The Palm sisters?
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My sleep schedule tends to rotate if I don't have any fixed obligations (say, on vacation). I'm naturally a night person (worked overnights for years and really enjoyed that), but I tend to have a daytime awake phase and a nighttime awake phase.
With my current work, I'll go to sleep at 0000-0130, wake up from 0530-0630, work until 1600, come home, nap from 1900-2100, read the news, putz around, and start all over again. One day out of the week, I work from 0730 to 2000, with a couple of 30 minute breaks at
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Er, one day a week, I work from 0730 to 2200. Stupid typos.
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Five hours seems to do it for me, but I've had many partners where they couldn't function on any less than 7-8. Annoying case, it is...
That's about what I get. I don't know if it's genetic or just environmental but my siblings, my mother, and many other relatives all get little sleep. My mother said she was an insomniac - but she insisted on going to bed at a "normal" time, getting up early and then complaining of lying awake all night. That meant that she was always getting up through the night to cook, clean and read - which may have created a pattern in her children's sleep habits (the washing machine was right next to our bedroom wall)
Re: 2 hours (Score:1)
I suggest you always wear your sleeping mask, and try not to get too drunk. I had a friend who died from sleep apnea because he was drunk and did not wear his mask that night. Sad story,
Father of 2 And only 42 years of age.