Hours of sleep a night??

[Scott K]

I am just wondering, what is everyone getting for hours a sleep a night? I think I average between 4-6 hours a night, and I just cant get more then that. I know if I eat anything with sugar in the evenings, that will keep me awake at nights. I dont drink caffine after mid afternoon. I have tried sleeping pills, but they just make me more tired and drowsy during the day. Do most people get the 8 hours of sleep? I dont think I have gotten 8 hours of sleep since high school.

[fishersofmen]

I struggle if I don't get 7-8 hours myself. My body shuts down if I get less than that especially if its several days in a row. I think everyone is wired a bit differently though some people don't need more than 5.

My wife has a hard time falling asleep but has no problem sleeping in.

[mrklean]

during the week i push myself to get that 7-8 hours weekends it varies sometimes more sometimes less

[picksbigwagon]

I run on basically six hours a night, my internal clock basically tells me when enough is enough. If I spend the day walking while hunting, or have a really strenuous day, I will get 7-8 hours of sleep. I wake up betwen 5:30 and 6 every day, unless I travel, then I wake up at 6 am CST, which was rough when I was out in Hawaii

[nofishfisherman]

I have tried sleeping pills, but they just make me more tired and drowsy during the day. Do most people get the 8 hours of sleep? I dont think I have gotten 8 hours of sleep since high school.

Have you tried the melatonin pills? When I travel overseas I have a hard time sleeping and I've found that the melatonin pills work better for me than normal sleeping pills. They are also nonhabit forming and are basically just an extra dose of the melatonin your body already produces. Taken 30 minutes before bed they really seem to work well.

[CANOPY SAM]

Boy, here's another one I could elaborate on for hours!

I've NEVER slept well. Extremely active dream sleep wakes me. Frustrating dreams. Pain wakes me a lot. I probably squeeze in 5-7 fragmented hrs. per night. 4 on a bad night, and maybe 7 on a really good night!

At 46, I have to get up every now and then, not every night, to go to the bathroom.

4wanderingeyes. You sound just like me. I love my coffee, but if I have even half a cup after 2-3 p.m. I'll be up till 1:00 a.m., and anything with a lot of sugar, ice-cream, soda pop, whatever, I absolutely can't have it after 5:00 p.m. or I'll be up all night!

I've tried Melatonin with some success, but it sometimes makes me feel a little weird the next day...not that I'm NOT a little weird already.

I'll give you guys a little tip. I do quite a lot of air travel as well, and sleeping on a plane is just not something I'm terribly good at. With my last trip to Africa I purchased some Zzzquill, after seeing the ads on TV. The directions say to take two just before crawling into bed.

Well for me, two will pretty much turn me into a puddle. Sleep like a baby, but as mentioned earlier, feel pretty groggy for a while the next day, and initially crawling out of bed can be really tough.

I found that taking just one of these Zzzquill pills is just right to get me to sleep, and keep me sleeping pretty well through the entire night. Just like a lot of over-the-counter meds, if you take them too regularly they don't work as well over time. I probably take 1 pill per night maybe 4 or 5 days per week. Taking breaks seems to help me not develop a tolerance to the med. They're a little spendy, but I think a decent night's sleep is worth it.

I'll tell ya', and you guys probably already know this, but if I work my tail off doing physically difficult work I generally sleep better. Pushing pencils all day just doesn't make a person very tired.

[UMC]

I'll tell ya', and you guys probably already know this, but if I work my tail off doing physically difficult work I generally sleep better. Pushing pencils all day just doesn't make a person very tired.

This has become one of my biggest reasons to work out. I can tell when I have not been working out much because I don't sleep nearly as well. Spicy/salty food for dinner doesn't seem to help either.

[fishersofmen]

Its certainly interesting how peoples bodys are wired so much differently. I can eat a box of cookies and have caffeine with it and still sleep like a baby. Sugar has very little effect on me, maybe because I consume so much of it.

[GSP4ME]

I really go in cycles. I will go a week or so getting 3 to 4 hours a night and then all of a sudden it will catch up to me where I crash and sleep for 12 hours. The FT season is coming up quick and then the sleep cuts back to a "normal" 3 hours at a time. Could be in a rest area with the seat of the truck reclined or in the horse trailer or maybe if I am lucky a nice hotel bed. Then when I do get home I crash and sleep most of the day away for a day or two and then at it again. Crazy but my body will tell me when it needs it. Coffee, well I can drink a cup while sitting in bed and be a sleep in twenty minutes.

[toughguy]

I get 8 hours or so every weeknight. I'm always up at 6:00 AM so on the weekends it's less. I need 7-8 hours to keep up at work.

[leechlake]

I get 8-9 a night most nights.

It seems the quality of sleep is better when it's cooler in the house, 66-68 degrees for us. I had been gone for 5 days until last night and with the weather change last night the house was a lot more humid and even at the normal temperature I was really hot and kept waking up so quality wise it was a bad night sleep. Throw in our little daughter that jumped into the bed at some point and it just made things too hot to get a good night sleep.

I think you need to figure out the best conditions and make sure you go to bed early enough on the nights you can because inevitably for us we'll have a kid at a late hockey ice time and there's no getting to bed as early as I need too. My wife and I are professional sleepers but we go to bed early (9pm or so) and get up pretty early too.

What's funny is that on the weekends I have an easier time getting up early than on work days, gotta be a mental thing there.

[nofishfisherman]

What's funny is that on the weekends I have an easier time getting up early than on work days, gotta be a mental thing there.

Its for sure a mental thing. Getting up at 7am for work seems brutal some mornings but I never have trouble getting up at 4-5am when heading for a weekend on Upper Red Lake or when deer hunting.

I'm also one of those people that is not affected by caffine or sugar. I can slam a 20oz mountain dew at 11pm and be asleep 15 minutes later. The probelm is caffine also does do much for me in the morning if I need a pick me up.

[GSP4ME]

try sleeping next to a menopausal woman that has the hot flashes and one moment is freezing and the next kicking the covers all off oh my is it fun

[Scott K]

My lack of sleep seems to be caused by something different every night. Some nights it is from, being sore, and tossing and turning all night. Some nights it is from eating something with sugar, sometimes my mind wanders, and I just sit there and think all night long, sometimes I have to get up to pee 3 times a night, a lot of the times when the heater kicks on, I get too hot. I even have all of the bedroom vents closed off, and I will run a fan most nights. I am also a very light sleeper, and I can hear any little noise. Sometimes the dogs will make a noise, or they will hear a neighbor and bark. Sometimes I accidentally leave the air compressor on, or the heater on in the garage, and I can hear when they kick on, so I have to get up and shut them off.

It really doesnt matter if I go to bed at 9pm, I am up at 2am watching TV because I am not tired any more. If I go to bed at 1am, I am up by 6am because I am not tired anymore. I cant sleep in the day, I cant take naps. I will however after a week of only getting 4 hours, need to catch up on a couple nights, and sleep for 6 hours.

[DrJuice1980]

The number of hours you sleep really has no meaning. It is the time you are in REM sleep that matters. That is when your body is in recovery mode. That is what matters. To know if you are in recovery mode is simple. Do you dream and remember your dreams vividly? If not then there is something missing and pills will not be the answer. It is most likely breathing habits or some other neurological issue. I have the answer for you if you want to PM me. I do not want to advertise on this site.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

I used to be what I would classify as a 'challenged sleeper'. I seem to have figured it out over the last year or so. Give me a pillow and I can be sleeping in 30 seconds, but I have always had a tendency to sleep soundly, and then wake up between 1-3am for a couple hours. I used Dyphenhydramine (active ingredient in Tylenol PM) 3-4 days per week for awhile, which kept me asleep about 80% of the time through that 1-3am period. Eventually it started to lose effectiveness, so I stopped. Melatonin works pretty well, but caused some crazy dreams.

For me, a cocktail before bed helps me get to sleep. Much more than one and I have to wake up to take a leak. It definitely causes me to have less sound sleep. I drink coffee during the day, but never after 3:00.

Knock on wood, I've been doing pretty well. Now if I could just fix that 6:30am internal alarm clock I'd be happy!

[PierBridge]

I'm generally 6 to 8 hours but much less on weekends. I use to take naps fairly often but since I started working out again I rarely take one and I seem to sleep better and have more energy.

[that_guy]

I'm fiercely loyal to my 8-9hrs a night. I find if I get to bed early enough I'm able to wake up without the use of an alarm clock, which is the best true measure in my opinion of getting a full nights sleep.

[CANOPY SAM]

My lack of sleep seems to be caused by something different every night. Some nights it is from, being sore, and tossing and turning all night. Some nights it is from eating something with sugar, sometimes my mind wanders, and I just sit there and think all night long, sometimes I have to get up to pee 3 times a night, a lot of the times when the heater kicks on, I get too hot. I even have all of the bedroom vents closed off, and I will run a fan most nights. I am also a very light sleeper, and I can hear any little noise. Sometimes the dogs will make a noise, or they will hear a neighbor and bark. Sometimes I accidentally leave the air compressor on, or the heater on in the garage, and I can hear when they kick on, so I have to get up and shut them off.

It really doesnt matter if I go to bed at 9pm, I am up at 2am watching TV because I am not tired any more. If I go to bed at 1am, I am up by 6am because I am not tired anymore.

The story of my life!

Years ago I found that "white noise" in the background is often very helpful. My wife also finds this helps her sleep as well. We run a small fan every night. The cool breeze is soothing, and the soft fan noise is mellowing, and drowns out most other intrusive noise/noises.

Had to laugh at your last comment 4WE. Late night TV sucks!!!!

I spent many years on-call for local emergency room services. Years of jumping out of bed and being wide awake in a moments notice in the middle of the night really screwed up my ability to sleep really deeply. For years afterward even the tiniest little noise would bring me fully awake, and I was programmed to be up and wide awake for several hours. Really hard to break that pattern.

[fishersofmen]

My wife uses a fan too Canopy. I call it her "crazy fan" because it helps drown out all the noise inside her head....

[PierBridge]

I use a fan in the summer, it's actually a window fan and its usually on exhaust. I do find there is some transition to getting to sleep in the winter once the fan is removed!

[Duffman]

We run a humidifier in the bedroom every night all year round. Haven't filled it with water in over three years.

[CANOPY SAM]

That reminds me of a funny story.

We had some neighbors in college that had a little boy that absolutely wouldn't sleep unless the vacuum cleaner was running. They went thru 7 vacuums in 2 years! They laughed when they said, "All our friends and family think we're the "cleanest" people in the world, cause every time they call us the vacuum cleaner is running!"

Just a little "clean" humor.... har har har....

[nofishfisherman]

My wife and I also need white noise to sleep. We always run a fan when sleeping, most of the time its just pointed at the wall.

When we travel if there isn't a fan of some sort where ever we are staying we have actually gone to the store and bought one. If we have to fly home we just leave the fan behind.

[PierBridge]

Personally speaking I'm a Brown Noise guy..