Hmm, didn't mean to make that all show up on the front page. In case you couldn't tell, this is my first MetaChat post!

I go to bed around 11.30pm or so and get up at about 5.30am - 5.45am. So, I get "not enough" sleep.

Some people need more sleep than others. I think, though, that you can "train" yourself to need less sleep.

Twice this weekend I fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon and woke up in the middle of the night on the couch, but that was probably booze.

Hi charleena.

I sleep eight hours a night. Sometimes a little less. I am usually tired in the morning and curse that I have to wake up. After the first cup of coffee, I'm fine.

In my experience feeling tired all the time could be a deconditioning problem. If you are at a desk job all day, or are sitting most of the day, then coming home to sit more, then your body is out of shape and it doesn't take much to be tired all the time. Sleeping longer and longer hours just makes things worse. Regular heart-pumping exercise can make you feel more energetic.

This is all speculation and generalization. You could be very active for all I know. It wouldn't hurt to see a doctor. It could be anything from anemia to hypothyroid to nothing.

Do you drink caffeine? If not, I would say to try a cup or two of coffee a day if your heart is healthy.

I wish I could sleep that much. Right now I'm getting about 7 1/2 hours. In bed around 2 AM, always up by 9:30 AM. If I were on a normal schedule I'd be fine mutter,grumble.

And then again, some people that sit all day have a hard time falling asleep because they don't have enough activity. Who knows.

I think the sleep books would tell you to keep a regular sleep schedule. Try to go to bed and wake at the same time every day.

Hi charleena, welcome!

I really need eight hours, and more during the winter. Twelve is more than average, in my opinion, but not crazy-out-of-control.

11.00pm to 3.30pm seems a bit odd, though. Would that happen any time you didn't set your alarm?

Go see a doctor for a check up and he or she will probably ask you things like: Are you depressed? Really stressed? Getting any exercise? Ever been screened for sleep apnea? Use drugs? Are you usually sleepy during the day? Do you usually take naps?

Hi!

I sleep a lot. I can easily, and often do, sleep 12 hours a night and take 2 hour naps as well. Luckily, I meet with the doctor tomorrow to find out the results of a hypothyroid and an anemia test.

On the one hand, I love sleep. On the other, it'd be nice to be awake for my life.

Hello charleena. Welcome.

Usually about seven hours here, though I'm not afraid to nap for 30-45 minutes after work occasionally.

LoriFLA: I have a very active job. I'm a special education teacher -- my students have severe autism, so definitely no sitting at a desk for me! I do drink coffee. Usually one cup in the morning, sometimes 2. I try to stay away from caffeine later in the day.

Specklet: I haven't gone to sleep without either setting an alarm or having my husband around to wake me up since the day I slept until 3:30. I'm pretty sure I'd sleep for a really long time if something/one didn't wake me up.

Birdie: You sound just like me. I've been tested for both hypothyroidism and anemia, but it was a few years ago, so I suppose the results could have changed. I also love sleeping, but wouldn't mind being awake once in a while too!

I. Love. Sleeping. I'm an 8 hour a nighter. Less than 7 = crabbie, not chewie.

You're not weird. I like to sleep a lot too. I only get 6 hours a night + maybe 1 hr mid day nap. but that's it. I did the exact same thing in high school. Slept from 10 pm to 2 pm the next day. My folks wanted to see how long I could sleep.

charleena, I'm not too sure what time I would wake up if I didn't set an alarm or if my kids didn't wake me up. I haven't been without one in years. Like specklet said, it could be a number of things, like medication side-effect, stress, or a love of sleep. I'm not qualified to answer. I do have phases where I go to straight to bed after my kids are tucked in, which is around 8 or 8:30. On these nights I'm getting around 10 or more hours.

Maybe you have some sense and read your tired signals better. I am tired right now. I could easily and wisely go to sleep now, but I want to stay up. :)

I hope you get it figured out. Let us know if you see a specialist. I'd be interested in what she has to say.

welcome, charleena!

I sleep from about 11p to 7:15a, and always feel like I could use another hour.. an hour that I could easily pick up at 10 pm, but somehow never do. Stupid electric lights...

I have to say - the most human I've ever felt - happiness at the lizard brain level, if you will - was during a long hiking trip, years ago. I was waking naturally at dawn and then sleeping about an 45 minutes after darkness fell. Simple and pure. It felt sooo good.

That said - sleep is non-negotiable for me. I've been fired from two jobs because I was unwilling to do additional work after an overnight pull. I will not pull a 18 hour shift to fix your servers - if they really are that important, you should be investing in technologies and processes that obviate such foolishness. If your servers can't generate revenue enough to fund a resilient implementation, then they simply are not important enought for me to loose a night's sleep over. QED, end of story, I'll pick up my check on the way out.

Quality of sleep really affects the amount required. When you sleep, do you get deep, restful sleep? I have several allergy problems and would sleep 10 hours at a stretch and wake feeling groggy and not with it. Dealing with the allergies (and the snoring they produced) let me have 8-9 hours and have me wake up before the alarm feeling rested and alert.

How's your mattress and pillows? Mattresses have an 8-10 year life and pillows should be replaced every 1-2 years as they lose their "loft" and become grotty with dustmites and skin cells. Washing will keep them clean but they'll wear out faster. Also, I have a fetish for fresh, crisp, lavender-scented linen - that seems to lull me off to sleep really well. Bizarre.

Activity (or lack thereof) influences sleep. An active day for me (either physical or mental) means that I sleep better. I also try not to drink coffee or tea after about 2pm and light, small-ish dinners will help.

Failing that, booze always gets me away to the Land of Nod. YMMV.

About 3-5 hours per night during the week.
10-12 hours per night on the weekend.

I get about 7-8 hours during the week and 8-9 on the weekends. What ninazer0 says about sleep quality does indeed make a difference. Have you had a sleep study to see if you're waking up a lot without realizing it?

Oh, and whoops. Forgot the most important part.

Welcome to you!

No, no sleep study yet. I'm planning to go to the doctor eventually to ask about it, but I wanted to find out just where on the scale of weird I am. ;) I hate going to the doctor with amorphous complaints such as "I'm tired and sleep a lot", so I've been kind of putting it off.

Thanks for all the welcomes!

Ask your husband if you snore. IF you do, and loudly, go get that sleep study sooner rather than later.

Actually, you probably should go anyway. The only time I slept that much is when I was in the throes of a rather serious bout of clinical depression.

You'll be hearing from my lawyers.

Eideteker: Haha, I should have credited you! Your post is actually what made me think of asking this. Reading all of the answers to your question made me feel like a total freak for never being able to drag myself out of bed in the morning. I thought I'd ask to see if there was anyone else like me out there!

Twenty dollars, same as in town!

richat wins.

Hi charleena. I sleep about 5 hours per night so I can't help you.

I get about 7 hours if I'm sleeping well, and seem to function best on that.

For the last few days I've had about 5 hours though. That happens quite a lot.

We really need some kind of exchange system. If anyone's having trouble getting up on time, feel free to drop me an hour or two...

Lately 6 hours has been the norm for me. I used to sleep a lot more. The longest I've ever slept was 14 hours or so, but that was catch-up sleep after a few days with none.

Last night I went to bed around 1, woke up at 5, went back to sleep around 7, got up again around 9. You can pretty much count on me for strange sleeping, but however I put it together, I'd say I end up sleeping between 6 and 8 hours per day. Hangover days can have me in bed, mostly sleeping, for much, much longer, though - like up to 12 hours. Or if I'm sick, or coming on sick, give me a book and a bed and I'll sleep as much as I can.

You have quite a demanding job, though - not the sort of thing that you can call in, so basically, when you're working, you're always 100% "on", I imagine, and I bet you need a lot of sleep recovery time. The eight or nine hours you limit yourself to may simply not be enough. At any rate, I would take too much sleep over insomnia (if it's the kind of insomnia where you really want to sleep, and just can't) any old time.

But a good check-up can't hurt at all, and if you get one and everything is okeedokee, sleep as much as you need to, and don't concern yourself about it.

And welcome!

If I had my way, I'd sleep between 8-10 hours a night (granted, that's all due to various dosages of diphenhydramine). If I try to sleep without the trusty meds, I will usually toss and turn for about 2 hours, sleep for something like 3-5, wake up, hate my life, toss and turn for another 2 hours, and then fall asleep 30 minutes before my alarm goes off.

My sleeping schedule is constantly dicked though, mostly because the internet distracts me. And because my dad can't settle on a sleep schedule to save his life, my mom wakes up in the middle of the night and tries to sneak in to my room to make sure I haven't skipped out, etc etc etc.

Sleep. Holy Christ, I miss sleep.
I go to sleep around 10:30 or 11:00, and then am woken up by:
a. A croupy child at 2:00AM
b. Anxiety/stress that wakes up me (or Mrs. Plinth first and then me) around 3:00AM
c. The world's happiest alarm clock, my daughter ("HI DADDY HI! UP!") at 5:30AM
Most days, the usual alarm clock setting goes off later.

This week is going to be especially challenging as I'm playing in a pit orchestra for West Side Story, so that means that after working a full day, I'll be going to play the show 7:15, returning around 10:30 or 11:00 and then be up for an additional two hours because of post show energy.

Yeah. Sleep is for the weak.

*waves*

I get anywhere from 9-12 hours per day, but that usually includes a 2 hour nap. I don't know how much of that is normal or due to the prescription meds I take.

Bunnyfire is right, a major symptom of depression is sleeping a lot. My grandmother had depression in the 1940s when there were no meds for it, and my mother's chief memory is of her sleeping all day, and my mother at 13 having to learn how to cook and take care of the house.

You could also be an alien like me and have a screwed up circadian rhythm.

charleena: Here are some speculations, founded on my own experiences with sleep deprivation, insomnia, and over-sleeping.

1) It could be an unusual circadian rhythm - you could, in effect, actually need to sleep 12 hours a day. There are ways to tune your circadian rhythm to a time more suited to you - namely, bright, natural light (which can be a problem in some regions during the winter months). In the summer, when the sun rises at 6:30am, I can easily wake up refreshed at ready to go, but in the winter months it's a struggle for me to wake up that early. Light therapy might help? I've never tried it.

2) I find that seasonal allergies make me very, very tired, so you may be allergic to something in your home?

3) bunnyfire brought up a good point about snoring or sleep apnea. It's possible that you're not really sleeping through the night (but that you're too tired to remember waking up). Or you could be a light sleeper that is awakened by slight noises (again, you're too tired to really recognize that you've woken up), and only really need some earplugs and a sleeping mask to get a good, refreshing night's sleep.

Sorry this is so long! But I've really struggled with getting and maintaining a sleep rhythm that lets me sleep (I love sleep) and yet wake up and not feel so tired all the time. Also, MuddDude struggles with insomnia, so sleep modification is something I've researched a lot. It's not really about what's "normal", but about your own feelings. If you feel that being tired so much is negatively affecting your life, then your doctor should respect that and work with you to alleviate it.

Back on topic: On weeknights, I get about 6.5-7 hours of sleep, which is just a smidge on the low side (ie, I'm wiped before I go to bed and I'm sleepy in the mornings). On the weekends, I often won't set an alarm, and I'll get around 8-9 hours of sleep.

I hope you're still reading this thread. I only had time for a jokey response earlier, which does a disservice to the community because sleep is actually the one thing I know anything about (including humor) and you're supposed to share your gifts/talents/abilities (so why do I keep making jokes?).

There are a lot of reasons why you feel a pressure to oversleep. The amount of sleep we need is, like many things, a normal curve. Some folks at the extreme end can feel refreshed after 3-4 hours of sleep. Others can sleep forever. If you're getting less sleep each night than your body needs, then sleep pressure can accumulate. If you've never been off the alarm clock (not even on weekends?) your body is running at a constant sleep deficit. Therefore, when you finally go without an alarm clock, your body "rebounds" and tries to catch up.

Your body might be very slow to produce orexin. I have no clue if you've had any narcoleptic episodes (and you might not, either). But you might not have that severe a problem with orexin production; narcoleptics have erratic orexin levels. You might just be slower to build it up (a smooth curve, rather than a jagged one).

It could also have to do with your energy level. How's your exercise regime? As others have said, it could also be the quality of sleep. Having the right amount of noise, the right mattress, etc. can affect how restful your sleep is.

Light is very important for sleep. You may need to check your melatonin levels. But first, pay attention to how you use light mornings and nights. Try to gradually lower light levels at night, and make your mornings very bright. Melatonin production is stimulated by darkness. It codes for sleep in humans, but it codes for wakefulness in nocturnal animals like rats. Your body can be "trained" to respond to melatonin like a rat's; if you have a nocturnal schedule, it will stimulate wakefulness. The problem here occurs if you have completely decoupled your sleep schedule from your lighting schedule. If you keep all the blinds closed and avoid bright lights in the morning, you can retard wakefulness.

These are the very basic-est things I can remember from my studies. I wish you the best and welcome any follow-ups. And yes, the e-mail address in my profile is for real.

If anyone is still reading, thanks for all the responses! I'll report back when I finally get around to having a sleep study done.