Sleep, Who needs it ?

Inmykombi (Geoff) · #1 16-04-2009, 10:37 PM

Hi all,
I am just wondering how much sleep many of you need out there.
Whether the late nights are due to work or play? I am hoping there are others out there like me, that survive with only about 5 hrs sleep most nights.
On the weekend I can sleep in for about 7 hrs sometimes.....sometimes....
And after an all nighter around the New Moon with a clear sky, I would only get about 3 hrs sleep the next day.

I can never seem to catch up on lost sleep. Its impossible.

Geoffro

marki · #2 16-04-2009, 10:43 PM

G'day Geoff

Pretty much the same as you. I usually only sleep 4 -5 hrs a night, anymore and I am really flat the next day. As far back as I can remember I have always been that way. Work etc has very little effect on my sleeping patterns although I once did 8 months of night shift straight and would go to bed at 6am and be up and ready to go by 9am.

Mark

erick (Eric) · #3 16-04-2009, 10:47 PM

I need 6 or 7 hours a night and really benefit for one solid 8 hr sleep each week. However, in reality I regularly go for days on 5 hr or less and that 8 hr luxury is uncommon. Groan!

Inmykombi (Geoff) · #4 16-04-2009, 10:48 PM

I agree Mark, sometimes too much can be as bad as not enough.

After an all nighter I really feel as though I am in a dream, kinda like jet lag I guess.

marki · #5 16-04-2009, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inmykombie

After an all nighter I really feel as though I am in a dream, kinda like jet lag I guess.

It's exactly like jet lag. You mess up the bodies ebbs and flows and the hormones run riot. I used to do a few all nighters when I was at Uni and certainly paid for it afterwards.

Mark

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #6 16-04-2009, 11:19 PM

I'm a night owl.
Always have been.
I can get by on 3 or 4 hours sleep a night, but I do need a nana nap the next afternoon to recharge before doing it all over again.

astroron (Ron) · #7 16-04-2009, 11:32 PM

You only have to look at this site at all hours of the night to see who is on, and they are on line again even during the day.
I can only manage at the best seven hours, but most times it is about five or less, but a day time nap sometimes makes up for the lost sleep.

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #8 16-04-2009, 11:37 PM

[QUOTE=astroron;434534]You only have to look at this site at all hours of the night to see who is on, and they are on line again even during the day.
QUOTE]

Can't get enough of the IIS crowd.

spacezebra (Petra) · #9 16-04-2009, 11:46 PM

Time for bed ZZZzzzzzzzz

Cheers Petra d.

Rokketboy (Jared) · #10 17-04-2009, 05:46 AM

I'm hopeless if I don't get 7 hours or more. I can manage on 6 but it ain't pretty. I used to need more sleep but since the kids have come along I have slowly reduced the amount of sleep I need.
An afternoon nana nap does wonders - 20 - 30 mins is best. Any longer and you feel worse than before

Maybe astronomy isnt for me. Sleep is too precious

iceman (Mike) · #11 17-04-2009, 06:14 AM

I've learnt to get by on little sleep, though it's starting to catch up with me as I get older.

If it's clear for several nights in a row and i'm up early imaging Jupiter then it wouldn't be uncommon to only get 3-4 hours sleep a night until it gets cloudy again

Sometimes I wake up hoping it's cloudy so I can go back to bed

multiweb (Marc) · #12 17-04-2009, 08:10 AM

I need my 8h sleep

If I image and do an all nighter I can sleep 4h in the morning and do that for 2-3 days max. Although the third day is usually unproductive as I "bump" into things and usually have no idea what I'm doing

gmbfilter (Geoff) · #13 17-04-2009, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inmykombie

I agree Mark, sometimes too much can be as bad as not enough.

After an all nighter I really feel as though I am in a dream, kinda like jet lag I guess.

"More self medication....of a random nature."
Less coffee ....more wild turkey

Barrykgerdes · #14 17-04-2009, 08:34 AM

Sleep is a habit we learnt when we were very young. If you you can unlearn yourself you won't need to sleep. I know people that don't sleep and otherwise live a perfectly normal life.

The more you practise sleeping the better you get at it. I can now sleep up to 18 hours a day (that of course is done by lots of naps). However if I am working on a computer program I can go twenty four hours without food or sleep.

Barry

multiweb (Marc) · #15 17-04-2009, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes

However if I am working on a computer program I can go twenty four hours without food or sleep.Barry

oohh!... I did that once.

When I reviewed the code the following day I though: "wtf?

did I write this?"

I now sleep on it and work it out in a flash the following morning. I actually work out a lot of stuff with a good night sleep. Funny how the brain works.

lacad01 (Adam) · #16 17-04-2009, 09:46 AM

Without sleep I'd miss enjoying way out wacky dreams

Quark (Trevor) · #17 17-04-2009, 10:15 AM

Astronomy and sleep are more or less diametrically opposed concepts.

When I am observing my variable star list I have no problems going right through the night but it catches up with me the next day. When I am imaging storms on Saturn, depending on the time of year, if the target region of longitudes is only available to me in the early hours of the morning, I just do it. The possibility of being the first to image a new structure or to image a change in morphology of an existing storm is stimulation enough to not sleep. Also the contribution to science that an amateur, any amateur, can make doing this stuff makes it all worthwhile.

When I was observing with the Keck's in Hawaii I had three consecutive all night sessions, two on Keck II and one on Keck I. At the time I found it just so stimulating that sleep or any state of tiredness was not an issue, however I have absolutely no memory of the flight back from Honolulu to Sydney, I woke up when the tyres hit the tarmac.

I think if you are totally engrossed in what you are doing then it is possible to cheat sleep for some considerable time, but in my case, eventually it catches up and I sleep, more or less for a couple of days to restore my equilibrium.

Regards
Trevor

rogerg (Roger) · #18 17-04-2009, 10:28 AM

Unfortunately I need about 7 hours, I wish I could live on less, sleep feels like such a waste of time. What makes it harder though is that my fiance needs 8+ and we're both light sleepers, so for the last few years it has been hard to find the nights to do astronomy beyond 10pm

Terry B · #19 17-04-2009, 11:39 AM

I need my sleep so usually finish by midnight so I'm functional at work the next day. With work I often get called out overnight and still have to work the next day. The result is a headache and poor concentration for the day. This is not good when sometimes lives can depend on me doing my job competently.
we all need adequate sleep.
A study was reported a few years ago of junior doctors in the UK. After 16 hours of straight work their decision making skills were the same as when they had a blood aclohol of 0.05. Not great and one of the reasons that long shifts are now discouraged in the health industry.

TrevorW · #20 17-04-2009, 12:44 PM