How many hours of sleep do you need in a night?

I think 8 hours is about right for me. 6 isn’t enough and 10 is a bit much (though last week when I got 11 it felt awesome). 8 is perfect. Though I’m not sure I’ll be getting that tonight since I have a Geology final in the morning and I have to get up at 7:30…

I only get about 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. It’s not enough, but I can’t make myself go to bed any earlier than midnight and I have to get up at 5:30.

Between age 13–20 i used to sleep about 3–5 hours everyday. 20 onwards its been about 10–12 hours a day. But sometimes I can still go 24–48 hours with no sleep at all. My patterns are pretty random. Like right now I am sleeping during the day and awake all night. Always had problems with sleep. :)

Between 7 and 7.5 hours and that’s been pretty steady for me since childhood.

I get 8 a night and that seems to be great for me, but I can easily slide into sleeping for 9. I feel about the same on 8 or 9 hours, but have an easier time getting my arse out of bed after 9. Honestly even on 6 or 7 I feel fine till about 10pm, but I really hate getting out of bed when I’ve had that little sleep… After 9 hours I wake up automatically and have a very hard time getting back to sleep, so I don’t know what I’d be like on more than 9 hours of sleep!

Back in high school I used to regularly get 5 or 6 hours and then sleep for about 12 on the weekends. I’d have huge trouble with that kind of a schedule now, yet it felt so normal at the time!

I’ll usually get about 5–6 hours a night on the weekdays (a little less if the g/f stays over) and then once on the weekend, usually a saturday I’ll play catch up and sleep for 10–12 hours.

No fair! I always need like 9 hours. It’s a huge waste of time but if I don’t sleep that much I feel exhausted all day. Once I worked two jobs and got around 4–6 hours of sleep some nights. I was like a zombie- I needed coffee all the time to keep me going, and then I would start to fall asleep if it got slow at either job. Once I was changing trains to get to the first job, and I sat down on a bench on the platform and fell asleep for half an hour, so I was late for work.

I get about 4–5 hours of sleep during the week, if you include my afternoon nap before work. On the weekends I get 7, maybe 8 hours of sleep a night, and I still need naps in the afternoon on the weekends. I got over ten hours of sleep on the weekend once a month or two ago, and it felt great.

8, for some reason, isn’t enough for me. 9 is much better. Fortunately, my hypersomnia is calming down again—I think it has to do with the weather cooling off, but that could just be my crazy brain making crazy excuses again. :P

When my hypersomnia is working full blast, I can and do sleep for 12–15 hours at a stretch and am never well-rested.

I can survive on less (4–5 hours, for instance), but I am very quiet and zombie-like the next day.

7½ hours of sleep are essential, but I can easily sleep longer with no ill effects. I just don’t get to very often.

I need a good 7 hours. Anything less and I’m no good to anyone the next day.

not nearly enough some times 3 some times 5 hours a night i would be called an insomniac but it isnt by choice or for medical reasons

I sleep as much as I’m allowed. :) 8 hours is what I generally get when I’m not super busy and grabbing a couple of hours where I can.

I sleep about 6 hours a day on week days, and I recharge during the weekends with a 11–12 hour sleep. It helps a lot.

I used to sleep in on the weekends, but then I had children.

27 hours—I have tremendous sleep deficit.

Nine hours feels right to me.

The older I get the less I need. I usually go to bed around 10 and up at 5 or so, but I only seem to sleep in 2 or 3 hour increments. It is a bit annoying but I feel fine during the day, not tired or worn out so I guess it satisfies my body’s needs.

I feel better on 5 hours than 8. If I get much more than 5 hours I feel dragged out, tired and groggy. If I get about 5 I feel well rested and pretty good.

This is a question of desired vs. reality. In a perfect world, my nightly tally would be 7–8.
The truth is however that my nightly tally average is 5–6 total. Sometimes that means 4 hours now and 2 or 3 later on. Not good. I’ve been doing this for a year and a half now. Sometimes I’m exhausted, but mostly I’ve learned to carry on. It also means that on my days off I sleep more than most people. Oh, and I have mastered the art of the power nap!!

It is actually very possible to sleep 4–5 hours every 8 hours or so and feel OK. After several days of this though, your nerves tend to get raw, and your short term memory starts slipping.

Ideally. 8 hours.

But, would luv a coma.

GA @ChazMaz , but I would like at least ten, if I could.

I always change. Right now I’m going towards 4 hours of sleep (13 years old). 2 years ago I needed like 10 at least. It all depends on what your diet is, how much stress you have, how active you are, what type of environment you are in, etc. You can only do whats right for you.

8 is the ideal, but I usually get only 6 or 7 at most.

Varies per person, and in particular, how active you are and how much rest your heart needs. Sleep is NOT just for your brain, it is for your entire body, and especially your heart.

Thus the number of hours YOU need depends on your size, weight, health, and activity levels.

You can help your heart rest by slightly elevating your feet in sleep.

Note that astronauts in zero gravity in space find they only need 6 hours of sleep – the heart and body have to work less hard in zero gravity, thus the body needs less rest.