I'm curious to know how much sleep most of us need

[CFS_for_19_years]

I was having a discussion with my sleep doc about how much sleep I need and he seemed to think I could get by on less sleep than I was claiming to need.....oh well. I agree that oversleeping can lead to grogginess and that somewhere there is an optimal amount, but that the usual recommendation of 7 or 8 hours is not sufficient for me. What about you?

 

[soxfan]

For me it really isn't the quantity of sleep rather than the quality of my sleep. I can seem to sleep a great 8 hours but still wake up feeling un-refreshed and awful. If I lay around in bed too long after waking in the morning I will get up and not feel great either. When I wake in the morning (around 7) I get up within 5 minutes.

If I could get a great quality of sleep for 6 hours I would be able to function pretty well.

 

[Sushi]

Here's a funny one. In the time I took ambien (a long time!) I noticed that I was needing progressively more sleep. 10 hours was the usual.

A while back I stopped ambien and now find that I only need 8 hours!

The problem though is getting to sleep without ambien.

Sushi

 

[urbantravels]

I definitely need more than 8 hours. I take a combination of clonazepam and trazodone. Trazodone is supposed to be the best sleep aid for maintaining a natural sleep cycle, and I never wake up in the middle of the night any more, barring a car accident outside my window or something.

Since I got a Fitbit I have observed that I sleep very soundly without a lot of restless episodes. (That's with the meds.) So it really highlights for me what "unrefreshing sleep is" when I've just clocked 9+ solid hours, with dreams so I know I'm getting REM sleep too, and still wake up feeling like crap. But I get a different kind of tiredness when haven't slept enough hours - on top of the body-tiredness and the standard daily malaise, it's a kind of "head-tiredness" where I feel goggle-eyed, headachy, cloudy. Hard to describe but there is a definite difference in the "not enough sleep" tiredness.

 

[Esther12]

I do best on nine, but normally get 7-8. It does vary though.

 

[LaurieL]

Solid 7 hours, and I wake up automatically. When I go through a healing crisis, I need more, and in broken intervals. Such as lately.

 

[Bob]

Even for healthy people, sleep patterns vary considerably. Some people can get by with 6 or 7 hours sleep. Margaret Thatcher notoriously only slept for 4 or 5 hours a night. And some people, like myself, need more than average. I've always needed at least 9 hours sleep, to feel half-human. When my symptoms are severe, then I need up to 11 hours a night. Luckily I rarely have sleep problems: I sleep and then I wake up when I need to, which is usually between 8 and 10 hours.

Also, some people are owls and some are larks. Which means that some people (owls) feel groggy until late morning and spring to life in the evening, and prefer late nights, whereas the 'larks' spring to life in the early morning but get tired early in the evenings and can't cope with late nights.

 

[golden]

i am an owl and a lark. more lark at present.

when i was severe i needed 23 -36 hours straight sleep.

currently i would say 9-10 hours.

 

[golden]

p.s. i am not needing any naps during days yay