Can One Need Only Those Hours?

[Deleted member 27340]

I'm usually bothered a lot with my inability to slep those famous crucial 8 hours. I will rarely stay asleep for longer than five.

This time is a little special, though. I purposely stayed up until 4:00 a.m. so that I could sleep till 11:00, because I'll be working on a film production for 24 hours straight from 12:00, and hoped to sleep as close to rhe beginning of those hours as possible to avoid being awake for 30+ hours.

I slept fairly well, and fell asleep almost instantly. Guess what? I woke up a few minutes before the clock hit 9:00.

Same thing happened when staying at a friend's place. I fell asleep around 3:00 a.m. and woke up at 8:00. If I go to bed around 1:00 a.m. I'll end up getting up when my alarm goes off at 6:00 because I fell asleep instantly. If I go to bed when my dad tells me to, around 10 or 11 pm, I will still be awake closer to 3 am and get up no earlier than 7:45.

Is this just an odd case of disordered sleep, or do I simply need only 5 hours of sleep? Is that even possible for someone my age?

 

[Seagreen]

Some people can get by on as little as 5 - 6 hours. How do you feel? Do you feel adequately rested when you wake and do you have enough energy through the day?

 

[Deleted member 27340]

I feel rested, yes. And there's nothing wrong with my energy, I actually struggle a lot with excess energy and have to excersice 7+ times a week to keep it somewhat under control.

 

[Namenotdiagnosis]

I think if it's straight hours without being disturbed then it is possible to function on 5 hours sleep. I personally need 8 anymore or less I feel unsettled.
It depends how it makes you feel , and if you feel rested.

 

[Friday]

My normal, before PTSD, was 5, 7, 9, 12.

Any of those 4 I could feel awake, refreshed, grab the day by the balls with a grin on my face. But if I got 6, 8, 10, 11, or 13+? I was a bleary mess. Took hours to "wake up", pour on the caffeine, run, shower... Just blah.

Post PTSD... 5 & 7 still stand. 5 in the daytime, 7 at night. But that's only when I'm doing well to not great but still hanging in there. When I'm doing bad? All over the effing map. Catnaps of 15 minutes here and there to 22hour stretches. My sleep has no pattern, or changes pattern every few days, or is in direct reflection to my mood. I'll go on insomnia runs of awake for days, or weeks if I'm catnapping. I'll lose weeks spent asleep, just waking long enough to pee and drink something, and maybe ravenously eat enough to feed a family of 15 for a year (slight exaggeration on the food bit).

When I can regularly be getting either 5 or 7? It's a very good sign for me.

 

[Deleted member 27340]

Sounds exhausting, @FridayJones

I feel fine with those 5 hours. If I get any more I'll be a zombie, any less makes it hard to wake up properly, but I can function normally. It's just a little harder. I've gone to school with 1 hour of sleep, it works. 7 hours and I'll be lost in another world. 5 hours and I'm fine.

So that means I'm lucky enough to have 19 awake hours to do fun shit? :p

If needing only five hours is the case with me it could maybe explain my struggles to fall asleep after being awake for 16 hours and then stay asleep for 8. As I said, I sleep so much better when I go to bed around 1 am and get up at 6, or bed at 2 and up at 7.
Should I be doing that, then? Because those hours from 10 pm to 2-3 am always turn into overthinking and overwhelming depression. Blah.

 

[Seagreen]

5 hours might just be your thing then Trauma. Enjoy the energy while it lasts ( :

 

[Rumors]

I don't know how old you are, however I am a 5 hour a night sleeper as well. I can tell you the older you get, the less energy you have ;). There are multiple studies that suggest less than 7 hours can lead to health issues later in life. I think sleeping is a habit. If you can form a good sleep habit now, perhaps as you grow older it won't be an issue. I think it is a goal to work towards 7 total hours. Maybe start with 5 1/2 then work your way up in time. Try some melatonin and stay off computer screens for a couple hours before bedtime.
Good luck!

 

[Deleted member 28403]

You are lucky for that, darn lucky.

I sleep 2-3 hours most of the time, and even when I somehow got 7 hours of sleep, I was tired. I barely have energy for anything, but I still push on like a zombie. I am barely alive half the time and often have to try hard not to fall asleep. You are lucky for being fine with that much sleep.

 

[Changing4Best]

I am up at 2AM after having gone to sleep around 9PM. I've been awake for about an hour, so that makes 4 hours I got. I don't know if I'll be able to go back to sleep at all anymore. I do this frequently, but sometimes will get 9-10 hours for a night or 2 and then back to this again. I don't recall having felt overly tired on any particular day, although sometimes I will drift off to sleep in my recliner for a hour or so during the day if I am bored. Sometimes, also, I will do this right before my bedtime like from 8-9PM. Then I get up, take my meds and a bedtime snack and go back to sleep. It is this waking in the middle of the night that upsets me so.

Now I have an added trouble. New neighbors moved in next door and the woman has a cough. Their bedroom and mine are right next to one another and the walls in our building are not sound resistant. So that kept me awake just now, when I awake to it. I am dreading the fact that this could happen every night (and probably will).

Now I might be in trouble, as this woman seems to cough all day and half the night. EEEEEK!

I hate ear plugs. They keep me awake as they are not comfortable and also, I can hear with them in anyway.