Einstein used to sleep like three total hours a year.
Einstein used to sleep like three total hours a year.
Well I'm convinced
Mustang Sally wrote:
Einstein used to sleep like three total hours a year.
No, he slept about 12 hours a night.
Try to go to bed earlier and don't stress over it. In high school and college, going to bed was the most stressful time of day...because I was so worried about not getting enough sleep for workouts. I'd lay in bed for hours sometimes, just trying to get my mind to blank out. I ran Div I cross country/track and did about 40 mpw in high school and 60-90 in college. So, plenty of running to be tired.
Just saying to not become unduly focused on it. Good luck.
Sounds pretty normal to me. How are you feeling? Always tired and dragging or ok? Don't dwell on it, sleep when you're tired and don't when you're not.
If tired during the day, grab 10-20 mins if you can. Finish your test with 15 to spare? Have 20 left at the end of free, quiet time in class? Take advantage and knock-out. Other than the drool on your desk, you will wake up feeling great and ready to roll. Some of us are simply not programmed to sleep in str8 hour blocks at night.
One other thing for you and anyone else who struggles sleeping (as I have on and off for many years now): least sleep I ever got was when we had our 3rd kid with 2 others under 5. Up all the time tending to at least 1 of the kids or giving Mom a break. Never on my schedule. Got down to 3-5 hours of actual sleep a night and never more than in 2-3 hour blocks for a good 9-12 month stretch. Although brutal at 1st, my body adjusted and I was amazed at how little sleep I needed to live the same, intellectually challenging and active lifestyle I do now. The body is amazing if you get it on a routine and don't borrow too much.
I was in your situation in high school and I always got 7-8 hours per night and then 9-10 on the weekends. Lately I've been getting more than 8 every single day and I can tell there's a noticeable difference. I just feel overall better throughout the day.
luv2run wrote:
You need as much sleep as you can get.
If you need an alarm clock to wake up, you are not getting enough sleep.
Tell that to an insomniac
Hopefully you have a bluetooth installed in your head tied to the smoke detectors in your home since you won't hear them with your wax ear plugs in.....
I certainly need 8 hours -- get sick and drowsy if I don't sleep a lot. You might be fine.
As to what's a "natural" circadian rhythm for teenagers, artificial light is such a confound that we don't really know. OP, if you took a long break from artificial light, like hiking the AT or something, you'd have a better sense of your natural inclinations.
Jesus, dude. Brush up on your written English. You sound borderline simple. No offence.
Ca$hclay wrote:
... my body adjusted and I was amazed at how little sleep I needed to live the same, intellectually challenging and active lifestyle I do now. The body is amazing if you get it on a routine and don't borrow too much.
That's what they all say. Sleep deficit is similar to over-training in this way: you think you are fine but you are not. Also, it doesn't help that just about everybody around you is also sleep deprived, so you don't know what normal looks like.
no way huh wrote:
Taking benadryl is the stupidest thing I've read on this forum today.
Stop playing video games and watching tv and read about or something around 8 and get in bed by nine.
It's not that you can't fall asleep, it's that you won't let yourself fall asleep. Fix it.
And yes, 7 hours for a high schooler is not enough. You're just hurting yourself in the long run.
I'm totally with your point. Taking benadril can stop your career forever. What's the reason to ruin your life? And yes, 7 hours it's not enough, as for me, I need 8 hours at least of sleep. But I can't fight with my love to video games, last time I played a very simple game on
http://iogames.center/for 3 hours! When I start playing I can't stop until I finish the game.
easy weeks wrote:
Try going to bed early and taking half a benadryl (total 25mg) for the first few nights to help you get used to your new schedule. Benadryl is a safe, non-habit forming, old-school simple antihistamine that is sold over the counter. The standard dose for antihistamine purposes is 50-100mg. The side-effect (and why it's not used much anymore) is that it makes the user quite drowsy, even at small doses.
I get into phases where I can't get to sleep at night and end up napping during the day. So I start going to bed early and do the above, instead of getting restless and lying there awake which you described happening to you. It knocks me out pretty quickly.
j/o helps too, use a nice lube to avoid chafing.
Dewey_Runner wrote:
If you can't fall asleep before 11-11:30 then you're definitely not undersleeping for the amount of training that you're doing.
I strongly disagree. Some people just have trouble falling asleep, even when they are somewhat sleep deprived. For example, even if I am just getting 7 or even 6 hours of sleep (which is not nearly enough for me, I need about 9), I still often have trouble falling asleep. That's true even if I go to bed late, even if I avoid screens, etc.
7.5 hours probably isn't enough sleep for a high school student doing a significant amount of running. Even most non-running high school students would ideally get 8.5 - 9.25 hours of sleep, depending on their individual requirements. (You need less sleep as you get older, 7 hours for grandpa is like 9 hours for an adolescent.) Running ups it a bit more from there.
Steve Prefontaine once said that there are three equally important pillars of good running performance - training, eating well, and sleep. Whenever I hear pros talking about their sleep, they say they get 10 hours. And I definitely notice how important it is in my own training.
Also, the person who said our culture doesn't value sleep enough is right on. People humble-brag about how little sleep they get all the time - "oh you get 8.5 hours, wow I'm so jealous, I'm lucky if I can find time for 7". It's often intended to signal how busy and important they are. But lack of sleep makes you less efficient and less productive, so ultimately they're bragging about making inefficient, short-term decisions based on poor time management skills.
Mustang Sally wrote:
Einstein used to sleep like three total hours a year.
no wrote:
No, he slept about 12 hours a night.
She was probably thinking of Thomas Edison, but his story of short sleep has been debunked.
I don't see how it's even possible to sleep for 8+ hours. I'm able to wake up naturally without an alarm clock, and I wake up after 7 hours no matter how hard my workout is. I don't think I recover that well but you can't force your body to do something it doesn't want to do
Each person is different, it is just that simple.
I spent a couple of summers right at the end and after college running a pool at a camp out in the Hamptons. There was nothing to really do in the evenings, so I would go to my room, read for a while, and usually be asleep a little before midnight. I struggled to make it up by my first swim lessons at 10:00 am. Did that all summer and felt fantastic.
Fast forward 20 years and I am chronically sleep deprived. I tend to fall asleep some time between 10:30 and 11:30 pm (although some nights I can lay there unable to fall asleep until much, much later) and am up before my alarm goes off at 6:45 most mornings (purely out of conditioning, not because I am refreshed). Add to that the fact that I wake up a few times per night and I would guess I rarely get much more than 7, 7.5 hours of sleep. Occasional nights with a few drinks just exacerbates the problem.
Mustang Sally wrote:
Einstein used to sleep like three total hours a year.
He never exercised and probably shortened his life because of his lack of sleep. You need at least 6 hours a day if you are sedentary and more if you are active.
Pro athletes typically need more than most—it's recommended that they get 8-10 hours every night. But for the average adult, aim for seven to nine hours of sleep a night to avoid the effects of chronic sleep deprivation. Just as athletes need more calories than most people when they're in training, they need more sleep, too. Here is a good article about it - https://dailysleep.org/stages-of-sleep-and-sleep-cycles/
Alan Bennet wrote:
Agree, more like 9 hours. The problem is the USA culture disrespects sleep. So you have a difficult choice to make: respect your body, or conform to the culture. Probably the best you can do is to get enough sleep but never ever talk about it. Most adults, including me, also do not get enough sleep. It's a constant struggle.
If going to bed earlier means you just lie there awake, that's actually still better than not going to bed. You can train yourself eventually to fall asleep sooner, but not if you don't go to bed. Read up on sleep, there are other steps you can take to improve both quality and quantity.
I'm definitely in this camp. I know there are a very small percentage of people that actually seem to do okay on lower hours of sleep, but it's a very small percentage.
Certainly for myself, I feel dramatically better when I can get 8+ hours a night, or in college when it was 7-7.5 hours a night, plus a good solid 1hr30min nap.
Keep in mind, this sleep need calculation of 8 hours is actually sleep time. Most people take at least 10-15' to fall asleep, many more than that, so you really need 9-9.5 hours in bed for most. The average American is massively sleep deprived. Some good studies that say we are really, really bad at noticing the effects of modest sleep deprivation.
And yea, I agree with you it's harder to conform with the culture, and you do feel a definitely price trying to spend 9 hours in bed versus 7 to 7.5, especially if you are a typical person working 40-60 hours a week. You notice going to bed at 9 to 10 and waking up at 6 to 7.
I don't know if I've ever gotten odd reactions from talking about sleeping 8-9 hours, except if you say you're not going to go to some function because you have a 930 bedtime or similar. Just mentioning during the day I try to sleep 8+ hours hasn't elicited me odd reactions.