Can you function with only a few hours sleep a night?

[Stryc9]

I can but I don't like it. I've gotten as little as one hour of sleep and gotten up and gone about my daily routine, I felt like shit the whole day and no amount of coffee fixed it.

I like to get about 6-8 hours of sleep, then I can function normally during the day. For me that means not having anything with caffeine after about 3 in the afternoon too. I'm a tad bit sensitive to the stuff.

 

[Nicarus]

Being an engineering student, I'm already working on an occasional 5 hours of sleep or less. Granted I get distracted a lot of times when I should be sleeping (like me being here ), but most of the time it's from homework and research projects.

But yeah, 5 hours is functional for me.

 

[Goofguy]

Being an engineering student, I'm already working on an occasional 5 hours of sleep or less. Granted I get distracted a lot of times when I should be sleeping (like me being here ), but most of the time it's from homework and research projects.

But yeah, 5 hours is functional for me.

Wow, suddenly I remember what it was like being an engineering student myself... I don't miss it whatsoever. Good luck!

 

[Furbyz]

I used to function on 1-3 hours sleep when I first went back to college. I was basically nocturnal at the time so I couldn't sleep at night, but I had to be up all day. Grabbed a pillow in the wee early and got up and moving when my alarm went off. Slept pretty much all weekend and repeated that for a few weeks until I was able to sleep at night.

 

[Jessta]

I need 6 hours or none, if I go to sleep at night it MUST be for at least 6 hours. that is to say if I get to the deep sleep part, I can run for about two weeks off of an hour or two here or there in the day. These are more like mini naps though and less like actually sleep, since they are only about 20 minutes at a time, riding the bus home from school, lunch break, the fifteen minute break I get every 2 hours since I'm a minor.... Heh, I ran a job that works 8-12 hours a day everyday while in school...

 

[SodaDew]

Strangely I do better with 4 1/2 - 5 hours of sleep better then if i get 6+. Its weird.

 

[Light 086]

Depends on your definition of function. I get about 5-6 hours average, but on weekends I get7-8 hours. I can function very well on this schedule, and I've been doing so for years.

My friend takes the prize though, he slept an entire day away once. He averages out to 11-14 hours of sleep and can't function properly.

 

[bulbasaur765]

I get 5 hours of sleep on average, and 3-4 hours if I go to sleep late. I can function enough for classes, but I crash afterwards for the next late night hours.

 

[WaReloaded]

I get around 4 to 6 and a bit hours sleep a night.
I've lived my entire life with little sleep and I function perfectly fine.

 

[Easton Dark]

4 hours and I can run a marathon.

6 hours and I'm sleepy for atleast another 3.

 

[CyanideSandwich]

I recently proved that lack of sleep is hardly a setback for me. I recenlty went 37 hours without sleep, and could've gone even more if my family told me I needed some sleep because I had a test the next day. Sure, I did feel a little lethargic, but that happens to me regardless of sleep pattern.

 

[joshuaayt]

2-6 hours of sleep at night on a weekday but I often rest during the day for an hour or two aand I sleep in a lot over the weekend like 8-10 hours, anyway my mental stability is perfectly fine... actually scratch that get proper sleep or you'll end up worrying that you have every mental disorder known to man.

I'll vouch for this wise man's statement- the anxiety is ridiculous.

I get (at best) 5 hours on a weeknight, even less on weekends. Unless I am here or playing videogames, I can barely stand myself. I envy those who can readily go without...

 

[Waaghpowa]

Due to a sleep disorder I generally manage about 2-3 hours of sleep a night. There are periods of time where I go a few days without and still function very well. I believe the longest I've gone without sleep was 64 hours and I was alert as I would be with a full night. Full nights sleep actually give me a headache and make me feel like crap.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

anyway I read somwhere, I think it was a Cracked.com article that it is possible to function perfectly fine on 2 hours sleep and that you can train yourself to be able to do this

Complete utter bullshit. You'd start hallucinating relatively quickly and probably end up with microsleeps after a handfull of days, if not full on passing out. I've witnessed people trying to do this (and had to do it myself for several days). It does not work. In fact, NONE of the schedules that purport to allow you to get less sleep and function fine ever work in the long term. The science is pretty clear on this.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I got about 2 hours of sleep last night, and I'm just now getting ready for bed. It's 2 AM Wednesday here, and I've been up since 6AM Tuesday, after being up from 1:00PM monday to about 4:00 AM Tuesday the night before. Ordinarily, an amount of sleep that small would be worse than no sleep at all, but I meditated before going to sleep, and I'm pretty sure my body never went past a light doze as a result; I certainly didn't hit REM sleep last night. That said, I usually get more sleep than that, anywhere from 6-12 hours of sleep a night, but with frequent all-nighters mixed in. Ah the joys of being a college student...

To answer the question in the OP, I can function on very little sleep in a 48 hour period, but it takes copious amounts of caffeine to get me to do anything productive past the 30 hour mark, or to get me up in the first place if I allow myself to go into a deep sleep for less than 4-6 hours minimum. A light doze can be a great pick me up, but a deep sleep is tough to wake up from unless you let the cycle complete.

 

[latenightapplepie]

I need 23 hours to properly function and at least 45 minutes to wake up and get ready for the day.

I don't get very much done with my days.

 

[SenorNemo]

I normally aim to get seven to eight hours of sleep at night, but at college I more often get four to six (sometimes less, rarely more). I usually try to balance this out by taking an hour or two nap right after my early morning class (I have to get up before eight every day during the week for some class or another). How well I function depends on a number of things. I sometimes find myself almost unable to stay awake after my early morning class once I get back to my room, as if going to class were the functional equivalent of getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Yet, oddly, I function perfectly well when I'm actually in class. What's more, I sometimes find myself oddly drowsy after waking up from a nap. On a side note, I also tend to have very weird dreams if I go into REM sleep while napping, though this is likely because of me hearing the people talking in the room next to me.

During the weekend or on vacation, I usually get a solid seven to eight hours and function perfectly fine. Monophasic seems to be how I best function.

(glances at clock) Looks like I'll be getting about four and a half hours tonight. Oh well, at least I don't have Intro to Creative Writing on Thursday, so I can sleep in then. Yay.

 

[Lieju]

It depends on a person. Some people can function with 6 hours of sleep regularly, and few hours for a short amount of time.

I'll need 8 hours regularly, and can maybe sleep 6 hours for one night, but I can't function properly. I'll start hallucinating pretty quickly without sleep.

 

[Shadowtek]

i get 2-6 hours a night. After training your body and mind to cope with less sleep its pretty easy.

 

[Saelune]

I can be fine after not sleeping at all that night...but then I just sleep during the day. If you mean just without sleep regardless of whether its day or night, I actually need alot of sleep. I often sleep for 10 hours, with a couple of hours of being half-awake, before I can get up and be good.