Why do I require so much sleep (10+ hours)? Tips for reducing amount needed?

It's what your body is used to and the means define the end result in terms of hours slept. You'd be fine with less sleep after an initial adjustment period.

If I'm working long weeks (80-90 hpw), I sleep considerably less and do just fine.

When I had 3 kids under 5 I may have slept 4-5 hours a night tops, while also working a ton in a stressful job assignment. It sucked for a few weeks and then my body adjusted and kept right up.

The human body is amazing when it comes to dealing with what we throw at it.

Maybe you have seasonal affective disorder. Do you live in the north?

Are you getting enough of your essential nutrients, water, protein each day?

I wish I could sleep that long

I can definitely relate to this. I also find I need 9.5-10+ hours of sleep a night. It's really starting to piss my non-runner girlfriend off that I want to go to bed at 8:30 every night. Interested to hear more answers. I think the body can adjust to less sleep but I also think that sleeping more will help your running. You just have to prioritize. I try to think of sleep as a part of training.

I needed 10 hours when I was running in college. I’d sleep 11-9 and still be half asleep for my morning run. I wasn’t really a high mileage guy so I was beat at the end of every day. I also wasn’t eating enough, some food for thought there (pun intended).

Fast forward to a few years after college when I was running similar intensity, slightly less mileage (75/80mpw), I had a SO and a tough job with a long commute. I slept 6 hours a night during the week with 60-90 minutes of napping (in 2 naps) during my train commute. My morning runs were at lunch and kept me awake until maybe 4pm. I’d get back on the train and sleep and run again around 7.

I had 1 really good race during this 2 year period and 2 really embarrassing blow ups. Workouts generally were great, I just never had the energy to race well. No PRs were had despite some great training blocks.

Some people need lots of sleep for lots of running. Many runners tout their 10 hours, or 9 hours and naps. The short sleepers (4-6 hours) are lucky- that’s not practiced/trained.

I am in highschool, and find I generally need 9 hours to feel good throughout the day, 10 is optimal and 8 is hardly sufficient. I go to bed around 7:30 and wake up anywhere between 5:00 and 6:00 depending on whether I am going to double or not.

Are you sleeping at the same time every night? I have found that sleep consistency is extremely important when training hard. I had similar struggles to yours during college. I slept 9-10 hours a night and still felt tired. My problems stemmed from the fact that I would sleep from 8-6 some nights and midnight to 9 or 10 on others. I find that I am more rested now sleeping 7 hours per night than I was then sleeping for 9 or 10. I always sleep from 10-5 with rare exceptions for social events on weekends.

SAD_ wrote:

Maybe you have seasonal affective disorder. Do you live in the north?

This. Might want to check D & B vitamin levels, plus ferritin serum.

Don’t be ashamed to sleep. You are a living organism born through natural selection with a million years of evolution behind you. Prior to the advent of alarms, every human would sleep for as long as they needed.

If you don’t believe me, trust google:

https://youtu.be/c1yGw_hfEfk

You can try to improve the quality of your sleep. Then you might need less.

- sleep in a dark, cool room

- avoid screens in the couple hours before you sleep

- keep a consistent (sleep) schedule

- avoid alcohol and caffeine

Clearly, some of those things are particularly difficult for an undergrad. But do what you can.

Ca$hclay wrote:

It's what your body is used to and the means define the end result in terms of hours slept. You'd be fine with less sleep after an initial adjustment period.

If I'm working long weeks (80-90 hpw), I sleep considerably less and do just fine.

When I had 3 kids under 5 I may have slept 4-5 hours a night tops, while also working a ton in a stressful job assignment. It sucked for a few weeks and then my body adjusted and kept right up.

The human body is amazing when it comes to dealing with what we throw at it.

Yeah that's cool if you want cardiovascular disease

I would strongly advise you to listen to your body. If you think there's some trick you can pull on your brain to sleep less, you're delusional.

Your body needs what it needs. There are freaks out there that literally don't need more than 6 a night. They are rare...it definitely isn't typical. Your body for whatever reason is on the long side....don't fight that. Accept it and adapt. Work with the cards you are dealt. Fighting against that is a losing battle.

Do you have mono?

pregnant?

Honestly it is what it is. My undergrad was like yours, strong academic school with a solid team. I worked my mileage from ~50 to about 90 by senior year, and every increase in mileage led to an increase in sleep. 9-10 hours on weekdays and 11-12 on weekends if I didn't have morning practice/ race.

Everything would be better the more sleep I got. Running performance, mood , outlook. My advice would be try to do as much as you can training wise and academically but prioritize sleep. Get at least 9 hrs a night. Sleep is your foundation so if you cut that everything else will suffer

The people saying they can adapt to less sleep... Sure, some people can, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily healthy, even for them. Though granted, as someone else said, beyond that, there may be a few freaks of nature who can get by on 6 hours or whatever and still be high-energy most of the time, but those are rare ducks.

Once past early adolescence I always needed 8.75 hours per night minimum as my baseline, and that has held true my entire life (now in my 60s). That was at a minimum baseline level of running at 40 miles/week in my prime, the least I ever ran per week then. The higher the mileage went, the more sleep I needed. When I was running 70-80 miles/week, I needed 10 hours, and some days with longer than average miles, I might need 10.5 or 11 if the workout was tough. After an easy running day or during tapers, I could get by with my baseline 8.75.

Your body needs what it needs, and people vary. It's one thing if no matter how much you get it's never enough, you're still tired, etc. In that case, there may well be a health issue you need to figure out. But if you feel better the more sleep you get — more rested, better moods, higher energy, better sex drive, mentally sharper, etc. — then get whatever your body tells you that you need.

These "healthy adult" averages you see in mainstream media are geared for the average American, but the average American is a sedentary slug. Such slugs by default become the "norm" or "control group" for research purposes, but they aren't really normal when you are talking what averages should apply to active people expending far more energy on a daily basis.

If you’re running 60 mpw in college you probably don’t actually go to a college with a “really solid team”

kerouac, there are a lot of things you can do to decrease your sleep quota.

diet plays a huge role. both what you eat and when you eat it.