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

[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.

 

[Lokithrsourcerer]

I aim to get about 5 hours unless I'm drunk.

studies have shown that more than 7 hours shortens your life span

 

[Kingshadow6]

I get roughly 3-4 hours of sleep a night on weekdays, but I hibernate on weekends. I'm talking ~11 hours a day.

 

[DasDestroyer]

I could function on 2-3 hours, but only 1-2 days in a row, after which I'd need a few days of sleeping in to recover.

 

[Yopaz]

Hi there,
that depends on the application of sleeping style,
you could get through the day(24h) with about 90 Min of sleep, Power sleeping,
15 Min every 4 h, but it is bad for your health(not really good in longer-term)
normal you should get between 4-8 h of sleep a day preferably 6h but not more then 10, because its proven that the longer you sleep, the faster you die.
speaking as a Biologist
Kouryuu

The irony is it is that if you don't sleep much (about 6 hours is recommended) you also get longer days or more time to live in, and you live longer. It's a win win.

I usually get somewhere between 5-7, I can function with it, though some days I just go with 0 and function with that too. Been up for 40 hours straight and figured I had to sleep though I wasn't actually sleepy...

 

[Perfice]

Hi there,
that depends on the application of sleeping style,
you could get through the day(24h) with about 90 Min of sleep, Power sleeping,
15 Min every 4 h, but it is bad for your health(not really good in longer-term)
normal you should get between 4-8 h of sleep a day preferably 6h but not more then 10, because its proven that the longer you sleep, the faster you die.
speaking as a Biologist
Kouryuu

Ah, I heard that you can get the same amount of sleep from 12 hours with 30 minutes every 4 hours. I never heard about 15 minutes, that probably is bad for you since you REM sleep last atleast 30 minutes.

it's basicly taking away the sleepeenes without actually sleeping.

the way to get trough some rough times( Final Exams ), but dangerous in long term

Marter, found this on Wiki, there are some basic explanation,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
but you can always go on PubMed and read something more Science specific

Yes, but it says that he slept for 30 minutes every six hours. You can get just as much rest from two hours a day of sleep as in eight hours. The theory is that because in a normal eight hours you get two hours of REM sleep a night, which is the most important. If you start a schedule of sleep 30 minutes every 6 hours you can get as much sleep as 8 hours. It will take about two weeks to get used to it but it works.

I told someone about this one time and they got so mad at me and accused me of lying. I told them not to trust me, trust themself and look it up. They were so ignorant and just screamed at me that they didn't need to look it up because everything they knew about logic told them that was false. Looks like his logic isn't very good... Lol.

 

[Blackdoom]

I live on about 2 hours worth of sleep, which I do not recommend ever attempting.

 

[Lyri]

Yes, but it says that he slept for 30 minutes every six hours. You can get just as much rest from two hours a day of sleep as in eight hours. The theory is that because in a normal eight hours you get two hours of REM sleep a night, which is the most important. If you start a schedule of sleep 30 minutes every 6 hours you can get as much sleep as 8 hours. It will take about two weeks to get used to it but it works.

I told someone about this one time and they got so mad at me and accused me of lying. I told them not to trust me, trust themself and look it up. They were so ignorant and just screamed at me that they didn't need to look it up because everything they knew about logic told them that was false. Looks like his logic isn't very good... Lol.

I know someone who used to do this "micro sleep" (I think that's what he called it) for when he played MMO's and took regular naps so he didn't have to sleep for 8 hours.
It worked pretty well for him by all accounts, I still prefer the tried and tested method of just going to bed though.

I can go without sleep as long as I have something important to do, I could go to bed late and get up for work after little sleep if needed.
If I just want to get up early chances are I'll most likely wake up and them fall straight back to sleep.

 

[Slangeveld]

I didn't so well today. About 4 hours I think.

I'll be very tired in the evening, but till at least afternoon I will be able to function very well. I have several issues related to sleeping though.

 

[Perfice]

Yes, but it says that he slept for 30 minutes every six hours. You can get just as much rest from two hours a day of sleep as in eight hours. The theory is that because in a normal eight hours you get two hours of REM sleep a night, which is the most important. If you start a schedule of sleep 30 minutes every 6 hours you can get as much sleep as 8 hours. It will take about two weeks to get used to it but it works.

I told someone about this one time and they got so mad at me and accused me of lying. I told them not to trust me, trust themself and look it up. They were so ignorant and just screamed at me that they didn't need to look it up because everything they knew about logic told them that was false. Looks like his logic isn't very good... Lol.

I know someone who used to do this "micro sleep" (I think that's what he called it) for when he played MMO's and took regular naps so he didn't have to sleep for 8 hours.
It worked pretty well for him by all accounts, I still prefer the tried and tested method of just going to bed though.

I can go without sleep as long as I have something important to do, I could go to bed late and get up for work after little sleep if needed.
If I just want to get up early chances are I'll most likely wake up and them fall straight back to sleep.

Ah, he should have talked to my guy because I met him in WoW.

Anyways, I think most people can stay up as long as they have something to do. Snipers would stay awake for 3 days to a week just waiting sometimes in WWII. That and they would pee their pants instead of going to the bathroom...

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

I slept from about 5 to 8 last night. That's all in the AM, by the way. I then slept from about 5:30 to 9:30 pm, but that's still only 7 hours, and...Well, I'm up now, aren't I? (At 1am?)

 

[Irriduccibilli]

I usually only sleep around 6 hours a night, and I work pretty well. Except in the weekends I usually get around 10-11 hours of sleep. Gotta catch up with the amount of lost hours from the other days.

 

[Mistermixmaster]

Normally the human body requires 6 hours of sleep to function as it best can, however, if you're able to, the human body can work normally if you sleep 30 minutes for every 2 hours you're awake. (Meaning you'd be awake two hours, sleep 30 min, be awake 2 hours, sleep 30 min constantly.) However, with the way our society is, I doubt you'll be able to get away with sleeping at work or school or something.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just a med-school student.

 

[GrimTuesday]

I'm one of those freaks of nature who require little sleep at night to function well, I've always been this way. I average 4 hours of sleep on the weekdays and 8 hours on the weekends. I wake up in the mornings around 7 and go to bed around 3 in the morning, although daylights saving has kind of messed with my sleep schedule (whoever came up with it should be flogged with a comically oversized squirrel).

Oddly enough I have sleep apnea but didn't exhibit any of the normal symptoms besides snoring (and stopping breathing) and that didn't get noticed until I went on vacation with my family and had to share a room with all my brothers who complained about it.

 

[Hader]

What's sleep?