How much sleep do you get?

I must be very lucky, as I never have to get up in the night for the loo.
However, I rarely fall asleep before midnight as I like to read and listen to LBC radio,
Then I always wake up at same time between 5 and 6am.
I might be able to doze of again if I’m lucky.
Consequently, I get very tired the next day and have little energy.
Even if I’m tired, I cannot get to sleep before midnight,
I would love to sleep for 7 to 8hours a night. Bliss!,

It usually takes me ages to fall asleep, always been the same even when I was a child. Once I am asleep I am a very deep sleeper so am rarely woken during the night except when I need to visit the lavatory. I am usually in bed by 10.15 and read for at least 45 minutes. Probably get between 7 - 8 hrs but always feel I could do with a wee while more. I never nap during the day no matter how tired I feel - have never managed to sleep unless I am tucked up in bed and envy those who can catnap. Suffer from frequent migraines which leave me feeling very tired and washed out (possibly due in part to the medication) so right now I could happily go to bed but it is just after 7pm so I will hang on for a couple of hours.

Glad I’m not alone with sleeping issues- so dull. I go to bed about 10.30 - read for half an hour - wake up once for loo and finally get back to sleep only to be woken at some point by partner’s snoring. Eventually get back to sleep only to be woken by bloody pigeons on roof at sunrise (5.30) and then commercial planes coming over from 6am. I have to keep all windows closed even in summer.

According to my watch between 7 and 9 hours of which around two hours is restful sleep (whatever that means)
I do like to read and according to DH when I'm done with reading I fall straight asleep whereas he lays awake for ages before nodding off - which annoys him!!

In bed about 12.45 am try to read my kindle with all lights out as this usually makes me fall asleep ( kindle generally falls on my face to let me know I'm almost asleep). Then it's wake about 4 am, not for toilet or anything. Read kindle again, fall asleep wake again around 6.30. Sometimes I just get up, sometimes I just hunker down and try to sleep until about 8 am depending on what I have on that day or just read.

I have been very fortunate all my life in being able to sleep soundly for at least 8 hours a night; longer if allowed; in a bed, in a chair, on the floor or on the ground with some padding/insulation. I never read in bed, and have generally fallen off the sleep precipice within a couple of minutes of my head hitting the pillow. For many years, my work involved extensive foreign travel, and I found that my sleep pattern adapted seamlessly to wherever in the world I landed. Now well into my 70's, I do sometimes have to get up to go to the lavatory, or to shake off the dreaded leg cramps, but I still manage to drop off again as soon as I return to bed. Long may this happy state continue; I cannot imagine how awful it must be to be an insomniac, and I fear I will not cope well with not sleeping.

Far more since my hip replacement as I’m no longer woken by pain at regular intervals. I’m rarely asleep before midnight, generally wake for between one and three hours about 3am, and then back to sleep for another three to five hours. So somewhere between 6 and 9 hours, I guess, but it’s not the same amount every night. I am very rarely tired during the day, so assume it’s enough.

My Fitbit tells me I don’t get enough deep sleep but I hear that’s common as we age and sometimes we don’t get any at all. Lots of REM though - that explains my crazy dreams!

Took a sleeping pill last night at 10, slept, but wide awake again at midnight.

Between 6 and 9 hours. I go to bed late around 1am then read until I'm tired, around 2am. Get up between 8.30 and 10.30. It's my normal sleep pattern and I sleep soundly every night. If I try to change it for an earlier bedtime I'm awake several times in the night.

An interesting thread.

It’s easy to diagnose those of us who sleep little or need little sleep as insomniacs - but I think insomnia is only a problem if it affects one’s day to day living? It would seem that some shouldn’t be driving, or operating machinery if their brains and bodies are so tired?
However, for those of us who function perfectly well on 4 or 5 hours a night (like Churchill and Thatcher, I believe) that’s just us and we accept things as they are. I have never referred to myself as an insomniac, merely someone who needs little sleep.

Seven half hours go to bed at 10.30 up around 6.30/7 I could sleep standing up lol I’m 67

Have you tried listening to a podcast? When I can't sleep I put my ipods in and listen to Joe Marler 'things people do'. It's so interesting but some of the language can be a bit much for some people - after all he is a rugby player! I find I close my eyes when listening, relax and nod off.

I used to do between 4 and 5 hours a night plus a little nap after lunch, but after a trip to the doctor it was decided that perhaps some of my health issues and anxiety were due to lack of sleep so he gave me sleeping pills. With the pills I get around 8 hours but I am not thrilled to be taking them every night.

I'm just coming out of an insomniac stage with hardly ever more than 2 a 3 hrs a night. Since the dr prescribed me hrt patches (first time ever and I'm 76) my sleep has vastly improved. However cple of things...windows always open, earplugs and mask. And i dont go to bed if not sleepy. If i find myself awake anytime f longer than 15mins i get up make a cup of tea and read in the lounge till i feel sleepy again. It doesnt work if i take my mug into the bedroom, it's usually too cold in there anyway to drink my tea sitting up even with jumpers on.
Read when going to bed betw 10 and 10.30, nowadays not longer than 10 mins needed, how good is that! Then sleep for 2hrs, loo break, asleep usually quickly, awake , repeat every 2 hrs and awake and up betw 4.30 and 5.30.
I do go back to bed with my kindle and mug of tea and watch the day break...then up and be grateful after so many years of feeling like a zombie.

If I drink non decaff tea it keeps me awake in much the same way as non decaff coffee does. I have to avoid both.

All my life I have slept somewhere around six hours during the night, as whatever time I go to bed, or need to get up, I waken three or four times during the night.

Since this time last year, when DH was diagnosed with cancer my night's sleep has gone heywire. To start off with, because he rapidly started sleeping downstairs, as he could not manage the stairs, and needed help during the night, so I slept with one ear open. After his death, I spent three months sleeping when I felt tired, or rather exhausted. Now at last I am slowly getting back to my normal six hours.

I have always felt that sleep - how much we need, and when we need it, is highly individual, and that the insistance when we were children that everyone needed the same amount of sleep has done a lot of harm. I never needed the 12 hours children up to the age of twelve or so were deemed to need in the 1950s, nor the 8 hours recommended for adults from the seventies, when I was a young woman until now.

merlotgran

May I politely ask what those of you early risers actually do when you are awake at 4am? Doesn’t it make the day really long in winter?

I often peek at the Good Morning thread and the early birds post about what they will be doing from about 9am onwards but what about the four or five hours before that?

It’s the middle of the night for me. 😂

I’m a Night Owl and always have been, even when working and occasionally having had to get up at 6am. Now 78 with chronic kidney disease and other ills . But tho the disease is stable so far now, I seem to be permanently tired. I get to bed at around midnight or later… but even if I get to bed much earlier, I rarely sleep before 3/4 am! And I have tried! Then I’m usually fine and most nights sleep well but that means I don’t wake til mid or late morning… there are occasions I can’t get to sleep til 7/8 in the morning …so …then I sleep a lot of the day! I have tried and tried to beak this cycle, but oddly it seems to suit me…very antisocial, and I am semi retired from self employment, but it does mean that I can function well once awake and work my own flexi hours. On the days I HAVE ago get up for an appointment or similar it’s worse as I worry about getting up! So I have learned to take a Nytol early on then and sometimes it works but leaves me with after effects, so I don’t take it on a regular basis! Other times I take it but my subconscious mind fights it, and I end up falling asleep with exhaustion just before the alarm goes off! I have learned to live with all this happily enough, and am in the process of training family and friends to accept the way I am! 😎

In common with several other posters, I get maybe 6 hours of sleep per night (if I’m lucky).
At 76 (soon to be 77) I am disturbed at least twice and often three times during the night for bathroom breaks. When that isn’t the cause, I will often be woken by pain in my hands, feet or knees (I have arthritis in most of my joints!) Generally, I wake ever couple of hours. I go to bed around 10.00pm, and will wake up around 12 midnight, then 2.00am and 4.00am. After 4.00, sometimes I can’t get back to sleep at all. I get up at 6.00am regardless of the day or season!

suelld. I’m like that. It doesn’t help that my dog has taken to wanting to have her breakfast very early. I share her with my partner who is an early riser so he feeds her at the crack of dawn.I eventually seem to drift back into a deep sleep at @ 9 but I’m just losing half the day. I used to work mornings only so I got into the habit of having an afternoon nap so my sleep pattern has always been weird. I used to catch up with things late at night but now I’m old I don’t have any energy at night now. It only matters when I have to look after my grandchildren in the school holidays but that isn’t very often.

No problem sleeping. More a problem of staying awake since I reached my 80s. I've always been a night owl, read and put my light out about midnight. Usually fall asleep straightaway. On rare ocasions when I can't get to sleep I play word games in my head, choosing a word and making the last letter of that word the first letter of my next word and so on. Breathing exercises/nasal breathing also work well. I get up once or twice in the night for a wee, then straight back to sleep. If not woken by DH or alarm clock I can easily sleep until around 9.30 am. I also regularly fall asleep during the day and/or evening. Happily I still have sufficient energy to maintain my usual activities of walking, Pilates, housework... Hope others find a solution to sleepless nights.

I listen to the radio if I wake very early. World service bbc there is usually something interesting to listen to,

Six hours sleep only - normally 12 - 6am and feel fit as a fiddle on it. I agree with Georgesgran - the only other light sleeper that I can see. I’ve been like this all my life and I believe we make too much of a thing about it. Also fewer hours of deep sleep is probably better than more ‘light sleep’ hours.
Btw I never wash my hair either and I get loads of complements about it!!

If I'm REALLY lucky, approx 6 hours per week, but I'd say my normal pattern is approx 3.5-4 hours per week.
This is (very occasionally) around 2 hours on 3 days (if I'm lucky), but never consecutive days, but more likely, I'll have one day of about 2.5 hours, then it'll be 3 or 4 days before I'll get about an hour.
I never sleep at night, my body just doesn't let me, so if I'm going to get any sleep on any given day, I'll usually nod off sometime between 9 and 10 am, but I can pretty much guarantee I'll be awake again within the hour, or if it's going to be one of those extremely rare days, I'll be awake by around midday.
My sleep has been like this for almost 3 decades. I've tried allsorts of things to get more sleep but nothing works.
The only times I've had more sleep have been when I've been in hospital on the operating table, but that's a different type of sleep, so it doesn't really count.

I forgot to add that I'm only 56, so I've had this issue with sleep for a large percentage of my life than I had with reasonable amounts of sleep.