Do I REALLY need this much sleep?!

July 20, 2017 7:30 AM

I have a few weeks off of work and free of morning obligations, so I decided to try a sleep experiment I read about online. The results are... terrifying.

Ok, terrifying is too strong of a word. But - the premise I read was, you go to bed at the same time every night and then sleep until you naturally wake up (without an alarm). Disregard the first three nights as you're probably catching up on sleep, and then average the results of the next three nights to find your body's natural sleep requirements.

I'm averaging almost TEN HOURS a night (after 8 nights). This can't be real! I mean, I'm sure it's possible, but are there ways to decrease this? Or is it possible I'm still catching up on 11 months of sleep debt?

Relevant details:
I'm sleeping well at night, as far as I can tell. I asked this question a few years ago and we've made a lot of good changes recently - a new mattress, mostly linen bedding, a temperature-regulating mattress pad, we sleep with the thermostat at 65 degrees.
I've been going to bed at 10:30, reading for a while, and then asleep by 11 if not significantly earlier every night.
The blinds are closed, but some daylight still comes in in the morning. It doesn't seem to wake me up. I'm averaging an 8:30 wakeup time (but sunrise is closer to 6). But maybe I'd be sleeping even later in a totally dark room?
I wake up feeling fairly refreshed and with none of my normal oversleeping signs (like headache or hours of morning sleepiness). However, I definitely still feel "tired" by the afternoon and then fall asleep within 10 minutes at night so it doesn't feel like I'm just overdoing it on sleep.
One day I was awoken after 8 hours by a barking dog and I felt like trash.

So what's the problem? When I go back to work, I literally do not have time to sleep 10 hours a night. I was hoping that this experiment would help me fine-tune my sleep nights at the magnitude of say, 7 and a half vs. 7 hours and 45 min. My ideal wake up time on work days would be 5:00, so... bedtime at 7 pm? Yeah right!

Does anyone here actually need that much sleep? How do you handle it/make it happen? Is it possible I am still catching up on months/years of sleep debt and eventually I would sleep less? Is it possible I am just sleeping too long naturally, and how do I figure that out/fix that without artificially waking myself up with an alarm clock?

The only other relevant thing I can think of is that I have been exercising vigorously and spending a lot of (non-exercise) time in the sun during this week. Is it possible these things are massively increasing my sleep need?

posted by raspberrE to Health & Fitness (25 answers total)

I have been exercising vigorously and spending a lot of (non-exercise) time in the sun during this week.

Lots of sun and exercise both up my usual sleep time by nearby an hour. I go to bed and wake up when I want and keep rigorous track of my sleep habits and that's what I've found. Do you wake up in the middle of the night at all? I sleep about 8-9 hours a night and that's normal for me.

Sleep researchers don't really think there's such a thing as making up for a long sleep deficit. People usually right themselves after a few days, you don't need months of extra sleep to make up for years of not enough sleep. If you're concerned, the usual thing is "See a doctor" to make sure you're getting restorative sleep, etc. What you're saying does seem to be on the long side (and there are some studies that indicate that too much sleep may be a concern) and you'd want to rule out things like apnea, depression, etc

If you want to try tweaking it, I'd suggest raising your blinds, if possible to see how you'd adjust to having natural light around you.
posted by jessamyn at 7:39 AM on July 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Normal humans need 7-9 hours so this isn't that far off. You still have a really small sample size. In the absence of other symptoms (depression, daytime fatigue, extreme snoring, sleepwalking) I wouldn't worry about it at all. If you're due for a physical and routine blood tests, maybe mention it casually to your doctor.

How did you feel when you did have morning obligations? Did you have problems with daytime fatigue? If not, why do you think you need to change your routine?

When I worked, I'd go to bed at 10-11 and wake up at 7. Now that I'm unemployed I go to sleep at 11 and wake up at 8. I function fine either way but why not enjoy the luxury of staying in bed while I can?
posted by AFABulous at 7:39 AM on July 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Contemporary humans (especially Americans) have been indoctrinated to believe they don't really need much sleep at all. Your body knows differently, and will take every opportunity to get the rest it so desperately needs. Sounds like your body is making up for a sleep deficit. Enjoy it while you can.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:39 AM on July 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

Have you already ruled out sleep apnea or other sleep problems?
posted by amtho at 7:41 AM on July 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ten hours doesn't seem unreasonable to me? The exercise and sun probably are impacting your sleep needs but ten hours seems legit to me. When I'm working a lot I need about that much.

Have you tried those apps that measures how much you actually sleep? You might not be getting restful sleep in which a doctor visit might be in order.
posted by windykites at 7:43 AM on July 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

You might try one of the apps that watches your sleep cycles and wakes you up when you're in your lightest stage rather than jolting you out of deeper sleep, which will make you feel crappy. Normally those cycles are about 90 minutes, but you may be one of those unfortunate people who needs to wake up either slightly annoyingly early or startlingly late otherwise you get that hit-by-a-truck feeling.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:07 AM on July 20, 2017

The blinds are closed, but some daylight still comes in in the morning.

My immediate thought was: More light. Use some kind of privacy curtain or blind that doesn't dim your room significantly. Light plays a big role in a natural sleep-wake cycle; waking isn't just based on whether you've filled up your tank, so to speak.

(This is why night shift workers have so many issues from lack of quality sleep.)

I would try this before going to a sleep clinic. But I would go to a sleep clinic if this doesn't help after a while.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:23 AM on July 20, 2017

It's hard to isolate factors like exercise and sun. For example, when I hike during the summer (enough days to adjust to the new schedule), I naturally sleep for a far shorter time than say on a Friday night where I don't have anything to do Saturday morning. So from that I can gather that for me personally some possible factors include:
*exertion - physical activity for 2 hours a day compared to literally all day
*light - sleeping outside vs inside; when I hike in the winter I tend to sleep longer because, well, it's dark and cold for so many more hours
*sleep quality - I sleep in a hammock when I camp which I find 100x more comfortable than a bed. hiking has also taught me to not be "fussy" and be able to sleep comfortably anywhere and in any conditions but that doesn't mean I don't have a favorite setup.
*vague "quality of life" factors - how much socializing I do, how much fun I'm having, what I'm "looking forward to" in the morning, etc.

But there's so many things at play here I think experimentation is the only way to go. Keep trying different things until you figure out what works. Although if I had to guess, just based on my personal experience, deviations from the sun's natural pattern is probably the biggest factor. ie. staying up hours after the sun sets and waking up hours after the sun rises. Which is unfortunate because it's basically impossible to avoid that due to modern schedules.
posted by ToddBurson at 8:34 AM on July 20, 2017

Response by poster: Popping in quickly to answer AFABulous and clarify that, yes, I do feel a need to change my routine because when I am working I feel exhausted and sleep deprived 100% of the time. I felt like I had been hit by a truck pretty much every morning and had significant daytime fatigue. Part of that is that I work 50-60 hours a week and sleep probably an average of 6.5-7 hours a night. If my natural sleep need is 10 hours, I feel a little "what the hell, I may as well get 3 hours less a sleep a night if I won't be able to fully meet the need" versus if I knew I need 7.5 hours, it would be easier to motivate myself to get to bed a little earlier.
posted by raspberrE at 8:46 AM on July 20, 2017

I've been playing this tune in a few posts, but have you had your levels checked lately? Being low in iron, vitamin D, and/or B12 can all increase fatigue. And by "low" I mean "low for you", since you can be clinically within the normal range and still feel symptomatic. I've been taking iron supplements since discovering my own low iron, and I have definitely noticed that my need for 10+ hours decreased considerably once I raised my ferritin levels into the midrange. Now I feel optimal with 8 hours, but am okay with 7-8. I have noticed that even getting 7.5 hours means being tired in the afternoon, and getting 8 hours means not being tired in the afternoon. It does make a difference.

If you feel that tired over the course of a normal working day, it may well behoove you to get a physical and a blood test to see if there could be another cause. Certainly can't hurt.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:59 AM on July 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

I think my natural sleep need is probably close to 9 hours, but most nights I get around 8 and function fine. But if I get 7.5 or less, woe is me. So even if you really do "need" 10 hrs and can't fit that in to your schedule, I bet you'll still do better with 8 hrs than with 6.5-7! The idea that if you can't get the full amount you might as well get even less sleep is not a good way to think about it, IMO.
posted by misskaz at 9:05 AM on July 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

Contemporary humans (especially Americans) have been indoctrinated to believe they don't really need much sleep at all.

This doesn't help to answer the original question, because individuals vary so much, but in general that doesn't appear to be true. Studies of contemporary hunter-gatherers find that they sleep the same or less than modern Americans.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 9:16 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I remember from my college class many years ago that three weeks was about the time needed to catch up from accumulated sleep debt; after that, things level off and you can go back to 'normal'. I need a lot of sleep. I take naps.
posted by bq at 9:24 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

The barking dog waking you up at the wrong part of your sleep cycle is probably more why you felt like trash than the pure number of hours. If you're going to bed at the same time every night, if you can manage it, try waking up at a variety of times and see how you feel when your alarm goes off. I can actually wake up reasonably well between 6:15-6:30, with when I usually go to bed right now--but if I miss that window, my next good time for waking up is roughly 7:45. Trying to wake up at 7:15 just seems to be completely impossible for me without feeling like garbage, even though it's more sleep than the 6:15 alarm.
posted by Sequence at 10:14 AM on July 20, 2017

I did a similar experiment earlier this year when I was between jobs and found that I naturally tend towards 9-10 hours of sleep as well. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it is almost impossible for me to get that much sleep on a regular basis so I'm always pretty cranky in the morning. If I can get 8-9 per night I feel OK (still cranky but not like I got hit by a truck). Anything less than 8 and watch out mofos.
posted by GoldenEel at 10:35 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I wonder if it might be helpful to make this a bit less either/or. You've been getting 6.5-7 hours of sleep a night; this experiment suggests that your body would prefer 10. You feel that your current schedule makes 10 impossible. What if you try fine-tuning a bit in the direction your body prefers?

You don't have to choose between the impossible (10) and the bad for you (6.5). If your body really wants 10, 8 or 8.5 is still giving yourself more of what you need than 6.5.

You were hoping for results that showed 7.5 or 7.75 was what you really needed. So why not try a few weeks in that direction? Maybe, once you're back at work, aim for two weeks of 8 hours of sleep. Or even 8.5. See how it goes. It's not a lifetime commitment. You can always change the goal to more, or less, depending on how you feel and what's going on in your life.

signed, someone who used to prioritize work and projects over sleep, then started getting more sleep, and realized that getting more sleep makes a huge difference in quality of life
posted by kristi at 11:00 AM on July 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

I did what you did but I kept doing it and found that I didn't find my "real" sleep needs until about 13 days of 10 hour nights. And then I felt great and lost my mid-afternoon sleepiness. It was a great incentive to prioritise sleep more.

And now I have a baby - haha.
posted by kadia_a at 2:18 PM on July 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Sequence has a good point about the natural sleep cycle, which is about 90 minutes. So if you miss the 6:15 wake-up, your next good time to wake up would be ~7:45. Getting knocked out of your REM sleep (dream sleep) can lead to some really bizarre confusional arousals; getting knocked out of stage 3-4 sleep (deep sleep) just leads to feeling crappy.

Basically, you can "fine tune" your sleep habits in ~90 minute chunks, not ~15 minute chunks. If 10 hr feels natural but is too much for daily life, try 8.5 hr.
posted by basalganglia at 3:50 PM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I work 50-60 hours a week
That told me everything . This is not healthy. With that much work, and that little sleep, you are leaning hard on your endocrine system to take up the slack (Especially cortisol). In the long run, it is quite damaging to you overall health. I did this for about 2.5 years in my 40's and it it took me almost a year to recover.
Seriously. Find a way to balance work and the rest of your life. Being a slave is not worth it.
posted by dbmcd at 5:40 PM on July 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Have you tried using a sleep tracker of some sort? I started doing that when I got my fitbit, and it was telling me that I sometimes spend an hour or more per sleep session in a state of restless not-quite-sleep. So if I was sleeping 8 hours, I was really getting 7 hours of actual sleep and 1 hour of restlessness. That, plus not actually falling asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow, might account for your body "needing" 10 hours of sleep.
posted by naju at 6:16 PM on July 20, 2017

My perfect sleep is 10 hours - welcome to the club. When I do it right, I go to bed early. And yes, I've been known to go to sleep at 8pm. But it's worth it...
posted by Toddles at 7:33 PM on July 20, 2017

After noticing when I wake up in the morning or in the middle of the night (because I've gotten too hot, or too cold, or have to pee)... I'd say that the 90 minute sleep cycle actually gets a bit shorter each cycle. It's about 90 for the first one, 85 for the next, 80 for the third, etc. roughly. By the time you've had your fill of sleep but wake up and decide to roll over and sleep some more, it's only about 45 or 50 minutes before you wake up again. If you actually sleep 90 minutes more, you're really sleeping for 2 45 minute cycles.

A quick calculation for me...

$ perl6 -e 'for 90,85...0 -> $p {
  state $i = 0;
  $i += $p;
  say $i.polymod(60 xx *).reverse.map(*.fmt("%02d")).join(":");
  }'
01:30
02:55
04:15
05:30
06:40
07:45
08:45
09:40
10:30
11:15
11:55
12:30
13:00
13:25
13:45
14:00
14:10
14:15
14:15

When I go to bed around midnight and take about 30 minutes to fall asleep, yep I wake up around either 6:00 or 7:10 or 8:15.
That's actually more strikingly accurate than I thought it would be...
posted by zengargoyle at 7:40 PM on July 20, 2017

The sleep cycle thing is a real phenomenon for me. I use the Sleep Cycle app, and I feel wayyyy better in the morning when I wake up at the end of a cycle instead of in the middle. I agree that the barking dog was probably in the middle.
posted by radioamy at 9:08 AM on July 21, 2017

I'm someone who has always needed a LOT of sleep. If I had no external influence (alarms, light, noise, need to pee, etc) I'm sure I would sleep for 10 hours a night easily. EASILY. When I'm even slightly sick I easily hit 12 hours, plus naps. If I've been in the sun I usually need a solid hour (or more) long nap and still get my normal night's sleep. Weirdly, working out doesn't seem to change the amount of sleep I need.

10 hours sounds very reasonable to me.

Like others, I don't think most people get enough sleep, and I also think how much sleep each person personally needs varies tremendously. I need a LOT more sleep than my husband, and it isn't until he gets less than 5 hours sleep that his ability to get through a day starts to be affected. Me, less than 7 hours and I'm a fucking mess.
posted by PuppetMcSockerson at 9:54 AM on July 21, 2017

Even if you're only aware of being awakened some of the time by things like dogs barking, etc., it's possible that other noises are in fact disturbing your sleep more often than you remember. Have you done a test with some earplugs or white noise?

Often when I wake up and feel like I've been hit by a truck, but have the sense that I've slept through the night, my partner will mention some disturbance that I've forgotten or wasn't totally aware of, like a thunderstorm or an invasion by the cat. He is a lighter sleeper than I am, so he will wake up fully, whereas I sort of wake up by halves and don't remember it later.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:43 PM on July 21, 2017