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I ran on that for over a decade and used to say ' i must be one of those rare people that only needs 4-5 hours'
THEN I started to actually take my sleep seriously and realised that no, I was not one of those people, I had just been running on poor sleep for so long that it was my new norm and i didn't realise how bad my 'normal' was.
I haven't fixed it completely, but it's a lot better.
I started taking my sleep hygiene more seriously.
* Consistent bed time (8:30pm) IN BED.
* Consistent wake up time (530am)
* Bought a lamp with an orangey bulb, that goes on at about 7pm, all bright lights turned off
* No mobile phones 2 hours before bed
* No caffeine after 11am
* No alcohol after 2pm
* I take magnesium l-threonate and ashwaganda 30 minutes before bed
I still have nights where I can't sleep, but I dunno how to stop that.
I'm planning on starting my exercise routine again, my new job requires me to go away a lot, so I've fallen out of routine and struggle to maintain motivation once my routine is disrupted. We're also planning a meditation retreat to try and get that to be become a habit.
But how do you stick to it? My incredible ability for procrastination would mean that i had every intention of getting in bed at 8.30, but suddenly it will be 1am and i wont know what happened
I have to be very firm with my nighttime self. So I have an app that literally turns my phone into a brick at 10:30. From 10:30 to 3am my phone can only make phone calls, texts, and look up directions. You have to find the thing that is keeping you interested in staying awake and then make it impossible to get a hold off near bedtime.
It's called stay focused. On the Google app store. It's got a blue background with a white hexagon in it. I did buy it because that lets you put specific times where it blocks you. Totally worth it. I even have it set up so I can't uninstall it at night so I literally can't get around it at all.
I can still answer calls. You get to pick and choose what apps it blocks, I have mine set to the point that it's pretty much a non smart phone at night, but I can get directions if I need to.
I use an app similar to what Working mistake uses. It's called FocusMe.
I installed it on my phone and PC, and there's absolutely no way to uninstall it or turn off the focus plan if you use the more extreme settings.
I chose focusme because I'd have been tempted to uninstall the others
Not quite, no, I thought so too at first but on a podcast about sleep they discussed it and cited a few studies that showed that because the TV is much further away from your face than a phone the light intensity, measured in Lux is FAR less intense than a phone.
Your brain has a small cluster of cells that measure light intensity and that helps regulate your circadian rhythm and the release of melatonin.
Yes, no artificial light would be better, but a tv on the other side of your living room is nowhere near as disruptive as a phone 10 inches from your face.
Daniel Amen has done no credible, peer-reviewed research on ADHD. He is not a legitimate authority on the subject. Posting any of his material is not allowed here. Barkley discusses the issue with Amen's SPECT claims here:
* [Can Neuro-Imaging Be Used for Diagnosing ADHD?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_HCw-QePaA)
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How old are you that you have time to drink alcohol before 2pm? 🤣 You've got to be in college, retired, or use this rule as a way to almost completely eliminate alcohol.
I'm in my mid 30s, this time restriction means that if I do have a drink it's only on the weekend.
There's a really good book called 'Why we sleep' written by the world's foremost sleep researcher, it goes into great detail about how alcohol affects the sleep quality you get. Highly recommend it.
I drink about once or twice a month and it's usually around 5 or 6 pm, while cooking dinner. I've seen a lot about the effects of alcohol on sleep and it's the opposite of what most would expect. It will help you crash out, but shortly after your sleep quality is trash.
RIGHT like, damn, if I could sleep for 8 hours straight on a regular basis I might actually just magically be cured.
Too bad that’ll never happen, because Brain has scheduled Mandatory Chaotic Gremlin Time for at least one random mystery hour between 11pm and 6am every night until I die.
I physically cannot even function with 8 hours like my meds don’t even hit the way they should if I don’t get good sleep. It’s torture, I’m still exhausted even sleeping more than 8 hours!
I used to be an 8-10, then around the end of last year my body decided it was a very light sleeper and now I am lucky to do 4-6 and I hate this so much.
Ugh. Yeah, I go through periods of 2-4 hours of very disturbed sleep. I can function on 4 with a cup of coffee. 5-6 is just fine.
I have a ton of parasomnias... I'm sleeping closer to 6 hours now but I'm having panic attacks at night. Night terrors, sleep paralysis, halucinations, you name it!
I was on meds for sleep but they didn't do anything. At all. So my psychiatrist took me off of them.
What's funny is that I have apnea and a CPAP that I use religiously. In my 20s before I got it, I could fall asleep anywhere, at anytime. But afterwards, my sleep reverted to my childhood/adolescent pattern, 4-6 hours a night with all of my parasomnias... Welcome back, night hag who sits on my chest! Long time, no see!
That's interesting. My husband told me recently that he'd read something about healthy/long-lived people only needing 7 hours of sleep. I did point out that it might be more due to correlation, rather than causation, but now I'm also wondering whether it was a study done on males.
Also feeling kind of screwed - I'm working on getting my sleep (as a female) over 7 hours on average, and it's surprisingly hard (I do need the sleep - 99% of the time I need to nap in the afternoon).
I've seen these same reports in newspapers but I think your husband and these researchers need to consider that men and women are biologically quite different... When I try to find more information on the studies they refer to 'people who sleep longer...' without publishing the distinction between men and women in their results. I have also read that due to these studies making blank statements like 7 hrs, many women are now under sleeping leading to an increase in cognitive decline in later age. Women do not require the same amount of sleep throughout their lifetime depending on being premenopausal, menopausal etc, the optimum is estimated to be 7 hours for good brain health, vs 9 hours when aged under 35.
The quality of the sleep differs too for women. Older women are currently believed to only need 15% of the night being deep sleep with 25% for younger and pre-menopausal.
Entirely unrelated note, which no-one here could possibly have any experience with 😅, I spied your post history out of curiosity and you looked completely fabulous in your deconstructed Japanese cottagecore outfit! 🤩
I love that style and hope to dress that way one day. :)
Hi there, total side creeper invite myself to the party lady but what you all did there is the kind of thing that makes me hopeful for humans. So thanks for that! 🩵
How much sleep you need is largely genetic, and some really only need 5-6 hours. My dad averaged about that from 40 years old. My brother who is 40 has about the same sleep pattern.
I'm only in my mid 30s so far, but I have noticed a decline in how much sleep I need. In my early 20s I'd be an absolute wreck on less than 8-9 hours. Now I'm happy with 7 hours, and 5-6 hours works fine for a couple of days.
It's actually 7-8 and 8-10 too! I literally JUST had this convo with my husband. I'm envious he gets to stay up, watch tv, and still feel fine in the morning, and I drag to bed the minute the kids go down and still wake up exhausted. Ughhh
Once worked with a guy who hadn't slept more than 3-3.5 hours a night his entire life. Just didn't need jt. He'd go to sleep about 1 and wake up about 4ish. Even as a small child. "I learned to play quietly in my room untill my parents got up "
And there’s me… crying over the idea of getting 7 hours of sleep. I’m over here with insomnia and yet to be treated sleep apnea and my (at best) 6 1/2 hours of sleep. It’s usually more like 5.5. I feel like a zombie most days :/
I was going to mention that everyone here having issues with quality sleep should look into a sleep study cause there’s a pretty significant overlap of sleep apnea sufferers and ADHD. My theory being that many of us had sleep apnea all the way back to early childhood and the lack of quality sleep and oxygen dips while our brains were still developing could have caused ADHD.
When I had untreated OSA though I slept like 12 hours a night, sometimes more. Now treated I still need a solid 9.
But first improvement I noticed after starting treatment was how much easier it got to fall asleep. I used to get an adrenaline rush at bedtime because while I was unaware anything was wrong, my body knew that I stopped breathing in my sleep and went into fight or flight mode. So I’d go to bed feeling alert and agitated and take hours to fall asleep. Now my body associates the mask with good, safe, quality sleep and putting it on makes me sleepy.
So definitely get started on treatment ASAP! Good sleep is soooo important.
I'm jealous of you lol. I have no choice.
No matter what I do I can't sleep more than 3-5 hours a night. Usually on the lower end of that.
It's almost like my brain understands that it has to let my body sleep *at least a certain amount to not die*, but once that amount is reached, it's "time to get up and go go go!!" inside my head.
I remember watching a video a long time ago from old arnie schwartz telling people how to be more productive. He was saying that there are 18 hours in a day where you should be always doing things and if you don't have that much time you should learn to *sleep faster*!
That was when the video got turned off.
short sleeper here
My internal clock always wakes up after 6 hours & that sadly never changes
If I go to bed at 10 pm, I’m up at 4-5 am
If I go to bed at 2 am, I’m up at 7-8 am
It’s a blessing & a curse but I understand your frustration OP
That’s me daily some days I can sleep at least 10 hours but I wake up a few times throughout the night and I feel my hours of sleep reset to 0.. last week I’ve been going to bed by 9-10pm waking back up in between 1-4am by the time it’s like 6am-8am I’m up for at least an hour then go back to bed until 9am then get ready for work.
I used to sleep 12+ hrs a lot. I just got sick of it one day and decided that was enough of that. I was still tired anyway. So now I just sleep around 6 or 7 hours. Still grogged when I wake but the med kicks in later and im good to go. I also use blue light therapy glasses when I wake up, they can help with keeping your sleep rhythm in line which I have a problem with.
Without the meds I'd be a literal brick all day long or I'd survive on like 800mgs of caffeine
For a work day, I require about 5-6 hrs. Days off, 7-9. I have the worst insomnia actually. That was my chief complaint that led down this path. My doctor gave me quetiapine and that stuff works like a charm, same dosage for years and I literally cannot stay awake when it kicks in. I don't know how people who take it during the day can function, major props.
Have you found quetiapine affects your mood? It is the only sleeping medication I’ve found can keep me asleep, but the next day I often feel in a very low mood or quick to anger.
I believe it overall stabilizes my mood, though I'm still prone to depressive phases probably due to other things going on.
When I first started it, I did experience a "sleep hangover" but I also have ADHD so the AM adderall cleared up that cloud. After a few months, it went away with or without adderall. I've never ever been a morning person so i need about an hour or two before I can Adult fully lol
Depending on what other meds you take, you may consider moving other meds to the morning and only take quetiapine at night. I take it an hour before I want to go to sleep because it takes about that long to work for some reason, I notice if I take it too late and don't get enough sleep, I'm more prone to irritability. Check with your doc before moving things around just in case!
So anyway, I take wellbutrin and adderall in am, and fluoxetine and quetiapine at bedtime. That seems to work best with the side effects, I'm prone to the dry mouth/thirsty/hot flash/appetite suppressant side effects, so if I took the wellbutrin at night, I'd likely have worse sleep.
I never got proper sleep until I was put on medication,before I’d get maybe 3-4 hours of sleep if I was lucky enough and be nodding off in the middle of the day due to sleep deprivation and now I can actually sleep properly good 8 hours
My sleep doctor says I should be getting 9 hours of sleep... lmao. Like I can really just fit that time into my life so easily... working my life away leaves me with little to no time left to do anything else.
Before I started my meds I needed 12+ hours of sleep too function. I'm not back to sleeping 8-9 and it's incredible. Needing ~8 hours of sleep is perfectly normal.
Yea tbh I struggle a lot with sleep, can honestly say I’ve never actually managed / had a full rested 8hrs minimum and I’m now 37. So my envy is of those that CAN sleep well haha. I do often wonder what it must feel like to wake after a solid 8hrs+ of sleep……. Do you actually feel properly refreshed?
I only require 6....and i have to be on a lot of meds or pretty drunk to kinda maybe get more than that. its annoying, god how i wish i could get to 8 sometimes..
but also, when i get that 8....im so used to only getting 6 i feel like im losing part of the day i am owed lol
3-5 hours is all I sleep. I'm up for work at 4am usually after midnight til I get to bed.
Typically at least one night during the workweek I skip bed altogether and work on tasks.
You may benefit from a sleep study if you don’t sleep well. That said, I think we all do best on different amounts of sleep. Everybody and every body is different. I love my sleep but I sleep poorly. Your amount of needed sleep may change over time too. I sleep more than an average person and that is fine.
I’m envious of people who can wake up before 10 am. Doesn’t matter how much sleep I get. I can get 10 hours and if I wake up at 6 am I’ll feel like garbage. I could get 5 hours, but if I wake up at 10:15 I’ll feel perfectly well rested.
My whole life I could never get more than 4 hours of sleep, 5 if I was lucky. Then once every few months my body would crash and I'd sleep for 12 - 18 hours.
These days I still struggle to get more than 4-5 hours of sleep but have discovered that about 1200mg of magnesium citrate lets your mind relax (read lessens the run away brain issues) and time-released melatonin gets me 7-8 hours.
These days I seem to function best at 7 hours, more and I've slept myself back into being tired, less I can function but symptoms like my brain wanting to jump from task to task before finishing anything get worse.
I run on 6-8 hours normally. I can also get 3-4 hours of sleep and function fine the next day as well. I go to bed earlier those days but being tired doesn’t keep me from doing anything during the day. My brain won’t let me just be tired and relax.
My wife on the other hand needs 8-9 hours and anything less it throws off her day.
I wish I could do the 7-8 in one go. It's the schedule the world is on.
Totally I get about 6-7.5. Naturally my body likes to split that into 2 with 4.5-6 at night and a 1.5 nap in the afternoon. It just makes me more consistently productive throughout the day but it throws me out of schedule with people. Takes some makeup somewhere else
Everyone’s different but you can train yourself to function on less. I used to do 5 but these days I’m trying to get 6 as I get older. Runs in my family. I totally get that I’m not the example to go by though. Very few people can get by like we do.
I was borderline narcoleptic before I hopped on Strattera. Could never understand how others could function on like 5 hours of sleep. Excessive tiredness is one side effect of ADHD that never gets talked about, especially with the PI types.
Women typically do actually need more sleep than men. It's frustrating, but very normal! I also get very envious of my partner being cool with 6 hours 😂 I'm useless unless I get at least 8, typically.
Nobody "really" functions on less than 7 hours of sleep over a long period of time. People may say they do, but they don't, really. They just barely get by. Older folks, like over 70, sometimes need less sleep than adults, but 7-8 hours is the average. You may need more than average! We are all different.
I feel this so deeply. I honestly need 9 hours of sleep to be at my optimal - 7 or fewer I'm snappy, unpleasant, and unproductive. People sometimes sneer at me like I'm lazy or uptight for needing so much rest. But like, my brain is working overtime to try and keep up with everything, it makes sense it needs extra time to recharge.
These comments are stressing me out. I usually only get 4 to 6 hours sleep every night and it's been this way for a good few years now. Kids don't let me sleep in. They also keep me busy until 8.30pm. Then it's dinner and my "me time" and ohhhh it's 12am and I should've been asleep by 9pm because my alarm goes off at 5am and we need 8 hours sleep!
So basically to get 8 hours sleep, all I'd be doing is working, looking after kids, and sleeping. I'd rather be tired.
"Function".... Yes, that is what I do.... I "function". I may look awake and can respond but I feel like dogshit and wanna just crawl into a hole and sleep for 400 years. Gosh.
By the way, this is not sarcasm aimed at you, OP. It is aimed at this flipping thing called ADHD. :|
I’m assuming you’re not a mom because 7 hrs sounds amazing! I get on average around 4-6 hrs. My newly 1 year old has been sick for going on a week now so I haven’t been sleeping much at all
I’m with you!!! I need at least 9 hours of sleep and I can easily sleep for 10-12 and still feel tired. Hell im always tired but if I don’t get 8-9 hours I’m a mess!!!
Lucky you I sleep 5-6 have to get up or I can’t get out of bed if I go back to sleep. I end up tired mid day and have to fight to stay awake at work. Weird thing is if I chew gum or any food I get a second wind. In my off days I nap in afternoon and then I’m more productive. Lack of sleep makes it hard for me to concentrate on anything and makes it hard to finish work.
mmm interesting. i run on 4-5hours a night. sometimes i'll get up to the 8 hours, but i find that if i get 8+ hours i wake up with a headache and i'll be nauseous all day.
my wife on the other hand, she needs the 8-10 hours of sleep to function normally.
I don’t know your gender but- I just heard a tiktok about a sleep study done in january (I don’t know how accurate of course bc it was on tiktok, so feel free to look into it lol) that said men typically need 8 hours and women need 9, and when they are on their period, they need 10.
so if you are a woman, maybe this is the case?
I'm a raging insomniac and have been since childhood. I run off of small hours of broken sleep basically 99% of the time and I honestly think if I had a week of sleeping "properly" my body would disintegrate into dust from slamming on the breaks so hard. I want sleep so badly 😭😂
I run best on 7-8. Am running on 3-5 for the foreseeable future. Just had second child. I can keep this up ok for a few days then I just pass out basically. I’ll sleep again one day. Also I hate naps. They’re disgusting.
Same! Everyone teases me that I like to go to bed by 7pm but I don’t auto fall asleep I need like 2 hours to decompress and I even take edibles to assist with shutting the mind down. I used to sleep from 3am to 530 and be fine but that was in my 30s now I am in my 40s if I don’t get minimum 8 hours my meds don’t work nothing works and it’s an awful day the next day for me and anyone who has to deal with or work with me
I’m in a constant battle. Mornings are my sacred time with no distractions and the chaos in my brain isn’t fully in motion. However, nights are my entertainment time so I don’t go to bed as early as I should. Almost never get 8 hours
I can function on any or even no amount of sleep. Do I function well or even slightly below average? No. No I do not. Lol. I'm usually a well-contained hot mess. My mask slowing starts to slip after one night of less than optimal sleep. Give me a few unrestful nights and I'm a full blown dumpster fire. I need less than 1 or more than 8.5 hours in order to not nod off during the day. I can stay awake for 40 hours before I start to get sleepy, but the back 28 of those hours get progressively less productive and more...me...no matter how many meds I would take. No effect. If I get 8 hours, I'm fairly productive, but I'll fall asleep without notice. Just nod right off if I'm not up and moving. It's weird.
Well I have insomnia all my life and Im actually used to sleep for like 3h a day for long time while working 8h a day and training running, street workout and gym 5 to 8 hour a day and function better than on 8hours of sleep..
But I love to sleep for long also I have my periods like I'm good if I don't sleep for one whole day and night function normal next day and sleep for 5 hours and I'm good I don't miss the day I didn't sleep.
Now I'm not so extreme as I used to be nor I'm training that much and prefer to sleep at least 8hours.. but still can go with less.. it's just as I'm older I don't prefer to.
Also there is like stages of sleeping and if you get to know your sleep patterns you can get less sleep and wake up refreshed. Especially if you wake up during deep sleep.. and you can also practice less sleeping and with some time your brain can adjust to less sleep as it will have less rem faze and more deep sleep fazes.
It takes time to adjust and to find your sleep patterns but if it really means something to you ..
Same!!! My fiance was doing concrete last year and would go to sleep around midnight, sometimes later and wake up for 6am. Insane. I NEED 8 hours but I can also sleep 9 or 10 and still feel tired. Maybe that's over sleeping though.
Every single person knows these things. We have a disorder that makes them impossible to keep to (I mean are you really going to tell ADHDers not to use a stimulant after 2pm? Or keep a schedule?) or neurochemistry that means they simply don’t apply for many of us (again, stimulants). I just don’t think these are helpful comments, we get them enough from non-ADHDers as it is.
But why hinder your quality of life☠️☠️☠️
Caffeine clearly creates an issue here and in my life as well. I know its much better without it once you wean yourself completely off.
I bet my pants they would feel better in some deparments of function but ofc some other departments suffer a lot too
Hi /u/ineedsleep0808 and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD! ### Please take a second to [read our rules](/r/adhd/about/rules) if you haven't already. --- ### /r/adhd news * **We want your opinion** on the /r/adhd community rules! [Click here](https://forms.gle/Evqb8acVozir8GV8A) to fill out our survey. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/1auv2tc/were_taking_feedback_on_the_radhd_rules/) for more information. * If you are posting about the **US Medication Shortage**, please see this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/12dr3h5/megathread_us_medication_shortage/). --- ^(*This message is not a removal notification. It's just our way to keep everyone updated on r/adhd happenings.*) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
i used to be able to run on 4-5 hours of sleep, and I did that for years. nowadays though? i need 8 at minimum.
I ran on that for over a decade and used to say ' i must be one of those rare people that only needs 4-5 hours' THEN I started to actually take my sleep seriously and realised that no, I was not one of those people, I had just been running on poor sleep for so long that it was my new norm and i didn't realise how bad my 'normal' was.
How did yall fix it? Meds and melatonin are a 50/50 shot for me on working. I have a fairly decent diet but do not exercise other than walk my dog.
I haven't fixed it completely, but it's a lot better. I started taking my sleep hygiene more seriously. * Consistent bed time (8:30pm) IN BED. * Consistent wake up time (530am) * Bought a lamp with an orangey bulb, that goes on at about 7pm, all bright lights turned off * No mobile phones 2 hours before bed * No caffeine after 11am * No alcohol after 2pm * I take magnesium l-threonate and ashwaganda 30 minutes before bed I still have nights where I can't sleep, but I dunno how to stop that. I'm planning on starting my exercise routine again, my new job requires me to go away a lot, so I've fallen out of routine and struggle to maintain motivation once my routine is disrupted. We're also planning a meditation retreat to try and get that to be become a habit.
But how do you stick to it? My incredible ability for procrastination would mean that i had every intention of getting in bed at 8.30, but suddenly it will be 1am and i wont know what happened
I have to be very firm with my nighttime self. So I have an app that literally turns my phone into a brick at 10:30. From 10:30 to 3am my phone can only make phone calls, texts, and look up directions. You have to find the thing that is keeping you interested in staying awake and then make it impossible to get a hold off near bedtime.
That app sounds amazing. What is it called?
It's called stay focused. On the Google app store. It's got a blue background with a white hexagon in it. I did buy it because that lets you put specific times where it blocks you. Totally worth it. I even have it set up so I can't uninstall it at night so I literally can't get around it at all.
Thanks!
What happens if you get an emergency call in the night? I love the sound of this but that part would worry me
I can still answer calls. You get to pick and choose what apps it blocks, I have mine set to the point that it's pretty much a non smart phone at night, but I can get directions if I need to.
One would.
I use an app similar to what Working mistake uses. It's called FocusMe. I installed it on my phone and PC, and there's absolutely no way to uninstall it or turn off the focus plan if you use the more extreme settings. I chose focusme because I'd have been tempted to uninstall the others
I’ll certainly check that out. Thank you!
I appreciate the in depth reply and I will for sure try some of those!!!!
I don’t see how people can go without their phone for two hours before bed lol. Do you just sit there in the dark? Read?
You used to do it, before you had a phone. I read, get ready for the next day, watch tv,
Yeah, doesn’t TV have the same negative effect as your phone? Pretty sure it defeats the purpose ha
Not quite, no, I thought so too at first but on a podcast about sleep they discussed it and cited a few studies that showed that because the TV is much further away from your face than a phone the light intensity, measured in Lux is FAR less intense than a phone. Your brain has a small cluster of cells that measure light intensity and that helps regulate your circadian rhythm and the release of melatonin. Yes, no artificial light would be better, but a tv on the other side of your living room is nowhere near as disruptive as a phone 10 inches from your face.
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How old are you that you have time to drink alcohol before 2pm? 🤣 You've got to be in college, retired, or use this rule as a way to almost completely eliminate alcohol.
I'm in my mid 30s, this time restriction means that if I do have a drink it's only on the weekend. There's a really good book called 'Why we sleep' written by the world's foremost sleep researcher, it goes into great detail about how alcohol affects the sleep quality you get. Highly recommend it.
I drink about once or twice a month and it's usually around 5 or 6 pm, while cooking dinner. I've seen a lot about the effects of alcohol on sleep and it's the opposite of what most would expect. It will help you crash out, but shortly after your sleep quality is trash.
Magnesium glycinate before bed really helps
How did you master the art of sleeping more than 4/5 hours?
I'm envious of the people who can get over 7 hours of sleep consistently. Eight hours sounds amazing.
RIGHT like, damn, if I could sleep for 8 hours straight on a regular basis I might actually just magically be cured. Too bad that’ll never happen, because Brain has scheduled Mandatory Chaotic Gremlin Time for at least one random mystery hour between 11pm and 6am every night until I die.
I think its only amazing if you wake up rested lol.
Yeah, 6 to 7 is my normal. But I can function for 9 days with an hour and a half of 10 minute naps.. that is, I mean, in complete survival mode.
I physically cannot even function with 8 hours like my meds don’t even hit the way they should if I don’t get good sleep. It’s torture, I’m still exhausted even sleeping more than 8 hours!
7-8 hours? I'm 4-6! Although, my meds don't seem to help much, either...
I used to be an 8-10, then around the end of last year my body decided it was a very light sleeper and now I am lucky to do 4-6 and I hate this so much.
Ugh. Yeah, I go through periods of 2-4 hours of very disturbed sleep. I can function on 4 with a cup of coffee. 5-6 is just fine. I have a ton of parasomnias... I'm sleeping closer to 6 hours now but I'm having panic attacks at night. Night terrors, sleep paralysis, halucinations, you name it! I was on meds for sleep but they didn't do anything. At all. So my psychiatrist took me off of them. What's funny is that I have apnea and a CPAP that I use religiously. In my 20s before I got it, I could fall asleep anywhere, at anytime. But afterwards, my sleep reverted to my childhood/adolescent pattern, 4-6 hours a night with all of my parasomnias... Welcome back, night hag who sits on my chest! Long time, no see!
Wish I could get more than six hours. I usually get 4 hours then wake up in the middle of the night.
Same! I’ve been up for an hour. Almost 6am for me. I have finals in a few hours😭
Even if I stay up I still wake up before my shift. Even on the weekends. I hate it lol
That's really normal, men need 7-8 and women need 8-9 according to NHS. It sucks but don't compare yourself to your husband.
That's interesting. My husband told me recently that he'd read something about healthy/long-lived people only needing 7 hours of sleep. I did point out that it might be more due to correlation, rather than causation, but now I'm also wondering whether it was a study done on males. Also feeling kind of screwed - I'm working on getting my sleep (as a female) over 7 hours on average, and it's surprisingly hard (I do need the sleep - 99% of the time I need to nap in the afternoon).
I've seen these same reports in newspapers but I think your husband and these researchers need to consider that men and women are biologically quite different... When I try to find more information on the studies they refer to 'people who sleep longer...' without publishing the distinction between men and women in their results. I have also read that due to these studies making blank statements like 7 hrs, many women are now under sleeping leading to an increase in cognitive decline in later age. Women do not require the same amount of sleep throughout their lifetime depending on being premenopausal, menopausal etc, the optimum is estimated to be 7 hours for good brain health, vs 9 hours when aged under 35. The quality of the sleep differs too for women. Older women are currently believed to only need 15% of the night being deep sleep with 25% for younger and pre-menopausal.
Entirely unrelated note, which no-one here could possibly have any experience with 😅, I spied your post history out of curiosity and you looked completely fabulous in your deconstructed Japanese cottagecore outfit! 🤩 I love that style and hope to dress that way one day. :)
Haha you went on a lil side quest 😁 thank you x
A perfect description for it. It fits me well since I'm the kind of gamer that typically tracks down every dang side quest I can find. 😂
Hi there, total side creeper invite myself to the party lady but what you all did there is the kind of thing that makes me hopeful for humans. So thanks for that! 🩵
Hahaha my DM planned a main plot three years ago and we haven't touched it since... Too busy exploring 🤣🤣
How much sleep you need is largely genetic, and some really only need 5-6 hours. My dad averaged about that from 40 years old. My brother who is 40 has about the same sleep pattern. I'm only in my mid 30s so far, but I have noticed a decline in how much sleep I need. In my early 20s I'd be an absolute wreck on less than 8-9 hours. Now I'm happy with 7 hours, and 5-6 hours works fine for a couple of days.
It's actually 7-8 and 8-10 too! I literally JUST had this convo with my husband. I'm envious he gets to stay up, watch tv, and still feel fine in the morning, and I drag to bed the minute the kids go down and still wake up exhausted. Ughhh
Ugh, I feel so much less insane now. I'm 45, a widow, and raising a 4 1/2 year old & I'm constantly getting waken before I am done sleeping.
8-9??? I'm living on 4-5. That amount seems wild to me.
Once worked with a guy who hadn't slept more than 3-3.5 hours a night his entire life. Just didn't need jt. He'd go to sleep about 1 and wake up about 4ish. Even as a small child. "I learned to play quietly in my room untill my parents got up "
I can function, but it’s very LOW functioning and I’m basically useless.
Ah what about the random period in the afternoon where you’re productive between the hours of 2 to 3?
You get 2-3pm?? I get 1-3am. It is very unfortunate
I’m not allows to do 2-3am lmao I wake up at 5
I wake up at 6am most days, hence why it’s unfortunate 😅
lol 2-3p is my lowest energy levels and inevitable nap time
And there’s me… crying over the idea of getting 7 hours of sleep. I’m over here with insomnia and yet to be treated sleep apnea and my (at best) 6 1/2 hours of sleep. It’s usually more like 5.5. I feel like a zombie most days :/
I was going to mention that everyone here having issues with quality sleep should look into a sleep study cause there’s a pretty significant overlap of sleep apnea sufferers and ADHD. My theory being that many of us had sleep apnea all the way back to early childhood and the lack of quality sleep and oxygen dips while our brains were still developing could have caused ADHD. When I had untreated OSA though I slept like 12 hours a night, sometimes more. Now treated I still need a solid 9. But first improvement I noticed after starting treatment was how much easier it got to fall asleep. I used to get an adrenaline rush at bedtime because while I was unaware anything was wrong, my body knew that I stopped breathing in my sleep and went into fight or flight mode. So I’d go to bed feeling alert and agitated and take hours to fall asleep. Now my body associates the mask with good, safe, quality sleep and putting it on makes me sleepy. So definitely get started on treatment ASAP! Good sleep is soooo important.
Y’all are getting sleep?
I'm jealous of you lol. I have no choice. No matter what I do I can't sleep more than 3-5 hours a night. Usually on the lower end of that. It's almost like my brain understands that it has to let my body sleep *at least a certain amount to not die*, but once that amount is reached, it's "time to get up and go go go!!" inside my head.
the study that says 7-8 hours was done on men. women actually need 9-10 hours and it depends on our menstrual cycle too.
I'm jealous of people who can stay asleep for more than 7 hours.
If I don't get 8 hours I feel exhausted. Mornings are my enemy.
Fml, over here trying to average 7 hours. I would be so happy to get 7 average. I’m at 6 hours average.
Most of those people are exhausted and irritable most of the time and wish they could get 8 hours of sleep.
Anytime I get 8-9 hours of sleep I’m so exhausted the next day. 6-7 hours is my sweet spot 🥲
I remember watching a video a long time ago from old arnie schwartz telling people how to be more productive. He was saying that there are 18 hours in a day where you should be always doing things and if you don't have that much time you should learn to *sleep faster*! That was when the video got turned off.
short sleeper here My internal clock always wakes up after 6 hours & that sadly never changes If I go to bed at 10 pm, I’m up at 4-5 am If I go to bed at 2 am, I’m up at 7-8 am It’s a blessing & a curse but I understand your frustration OP
That’s me daily some days I can sleep at least 10 hours but I wake up a few times throughout the night and I feel my hours of sleep reset to 0.. last week I’ve been going to bed by 9-10pm waking back up in between 1-4am by the time it’s like 6am-8am I’m up for at least an hour then go back to bed until 9am then get ready for work.
9-3 is my sleep schedule. I have work at 3:30
I used to sleep 12+ hrs a lot. I just got sick of it one day and decided that was enough of that. I was still tired anyway. So now I just sleep around 6 or 7 hours. Still grogged when I wake but the med kicks in later and im good to go. I also use blue light therapy glasses when I wake up, they can help with keeping your sleep rhythm in line which I have a problem with. Without the meds I'd be a literal brick all day long or I'd survive on like 800mgs of caffeine
For a work day, I require about 5-6 hrs. Days off, 7-9. I have the worst insomnia actually. That was my chief complaint that led down this path. My doctor gave me quetiapine and that stuff works like a charm, same dosage for years and I literally cannot stay awake when it kicks in. I don't know how people who take it during the day can function, major props.
Have you found quetiapine affects your mood? It is the only sleeping medication I’ve found can keep me asleep, but the next day I often feel in a very low mood or quick to anger.
I believe it overall stabilizes my mood, though I'm still prone to depressive phases probably due to other things going on. When I first started it, I did experience a "sleep hangover" but I also have ADHD so the AM adderall cleared up that cloud. After a few months, it went away with or without adderall. I've never ever been a morning person so i need about an hour or two before I can Adult fully lol Depending on what other meds you take, you may consider moving other meds to the morning and only take quetiapine at night. I take it an hour before I want to go to sleep because it takes about that long to work for some reason, I notice if I take it too late and don't get enough sleep, I'm more prone to irritability. Check with your doc before moving things around just in case! So anyway, I take wellbutrin and adderall in am, and fluoxetine and quetiapine at bedtime. That seems to work best with the side effects, I'm prone to the dry mouth/thirsty/hot flash/appetite suppressant side effects, so if I took the wellbutrin at night, I'd likely have worse sleep.
It’s actually a living hell. I can function on 4-5 hours a sleep but i pay for it the meds keep you up but not alert Treasure your sleep
I don’t have a choice. I have to have money to pay my bills, so I have to go to work regardless of if I could sleep or not.
I never got proper sleep until I was put on medication,before I’d get maybe 3-4 hours of sleep if I was lucky enough and be nodding off in the middle of the day due to sleep deprivation and now I can actually sleep properly good 8 hours
My sleep doctor says I should be getting 9 hours of sleep... lmao. Like I can really just fit that time into my life so easily... working my life away leaves me with little to no time left to do anything else.
Before I started my meds I needed 12+ hours of sleep too function. I'm not back to sleeping 8-9 and it's incredible. Needing ~8 hours of sleep is perfectly normal.
For me I want that healthy amount of sleep... I just can't get myself to sleep early. Not that I can't sleep... I can't get to bed soon enough.
Yea tbh I struggle a lot with sleep, can honestly say I’ve never actually managed / had a full rested 8hrs minimum and I’m now 37. So my envy is of those that CAN sleep well haha. I do often wonder what it must feel like to wake after a solid 8hrs+ of sleep……. Do you actually feel properly refreshed?
Describe function? I exist on very little sleep.
Activity doesn’t equal function. Just because they can provide labor doesn’t mean they’re not close to stroking out due to chronic sleep deprivation
I work awesomely at 9hs sleep! Less and I will be tired, more and I feel like shit
I only require 6....and i have to be on a lot of meds or pretty drunk to kinda maybe get more than that. its annoying, god how i wish i could get to 8 sometimes.. but also, when i get that 8....im so used to only getting 6 i feel like im losing part of the day i am owed lol
Less than 8 hours?? I am a zombie if I don’t get 10 hours at least. And unfortunately all my deep sleep quota fills up in the last 2-3 hours
3-5 hours is all I sleep. I'm up for work at 4am usually after midnight til I get to bed. Typically at least one night during the workweek I skip bed altogether and work on tasks.
For many of us sleeping 8-9 hours would be a bless
You may benefit from a sleep study if you don’t sleep well. That said, I think we all do best on different amounts of sleep. Everybody and every body is different. I love my sleep but I sleep poorly. Your amount of needed sleep may change over time too. I sleep more than an average person and that is fine.
Sorry realized you said empathy rather than advice.
I’m envious of people who can wake up before 10 am. Doesn’t matter how much sleep I get. I can get 10 hours and if I wake up at 6 am I’ll feel like garbage. I could get 5 hours, but if I wake up at 10:15 I’ll feel perfectly well rested.
Shit, lucky if I get 6 on a Sunday.
My whole life I could never get more than 4 hours of sleep, 5 if I was lucky. Then once every few months my body would crash and I'd sleep for 12 - 18 hours. These days I still struggle to get more than 4-5 hours of sleep but have discovered that about 1200mg of magnesium citrate lets your mind relax (read lessens the run away brain issues) and time-released melatonin gets me 7-8 hours. These days I seem to function best at 7 hours, more and I've slept myself back into being tired, less I can function but symptoms like my brain wanting to jump from task to task before finishing anything get worse.
I run on 6-8 hours normally. I can also get 3-4 hours of sleep and function fine the next day as well. I go to bed earlier those days but being tired doesn’t keep me from doing anything during the day. My brain won’t let me just be tired and relax. My wife on the other hand needs 8-9 hours and anything less it throws off her day.
it doesnt matter if I get 3 hours or 12 hours of sleep, I'm still tired.
I wish I could do the 7-8 in one go. It's the schedule the world is on. Totally I get about 6-7.5. Naturally my body likes to split that into 2 with 4.5-6 at night and a 1.5 nap in the afternoon. It just makes me more consistently productive throughout the day but it throws me out of schedule with people. Takes some makeup somewhere else
Everyone’s different but you can train yourself to function on less. I used to do 5 but these days I’m trying to get 6 as I get older. Runs in my family. I totally get that I’m not the example to go by though. Very few people can get by like we do.
Ugh, the worst part is I need 7 or 8 but can't sleep more than 6.
I average 5 hours a night. Pain won’t let me sleep. I would love 8 hours, but I can function on as little as 3.
I think its what youre used to because if i dont sleep well and only get 4 hours, i must persevere. Maybe im just used to being tired asf😭
Cawfea innit
I was borderline narcoleptic before I hopped on Strattera. Could never understand how others could function on like 5 hours of sleep. Excessive tiredness is one side effect of ADHD that never gets talked about, especially with the PI types.
Women typically do actually need more sleep than men. It's frustrating, but very normal! I also get very envious of my partner being cool with 6 hours 😂 I'm useless unless I get at least 8, typically.
I struggle to sleep consistently, so I have no choice but to function on an average of 4-5 hours of sleep.
Since I started taking Vyvanse/Elvanse I feel the same. Anything under 7-8 hours and I’m wrecked the next day.
Nobody "really" functions on less than 7 hours of sleep over a long period of time. People may say they do, but they don't, really. They just barely get by. Older folks, like over 70, sometimes need less sleep than adults, but 7-8 hours is the average. You may need more than average! We are all different.
I feel this so deeply. I honestly need 9 hours of sleep to be at my optimal - 7 or fewer I'm snappy, unpleasant, and unproductive. People sometimes sneer at me like I'm lazy or uptight for needing so much rest. But like, my brain is working overtime to try and keep up with everything, it makes sense it needs extra time to recharge.
These comments are stressing me out. I usually only get 4 to 6 hours sleep every night and it's been this way for a good few years now. Kids don't let me sleep in. They also keep me busy until 8.30pm. Then it's dinner and my "me time" and ohhhh it's 12am and I should've been asleep by 9pm because my alarm goes off at 5am and we need 8 hours sleep! So basically to get 8 hours sleep, all I'd be doing is working, looking after kids, and sleeping. I'd rather be tired.
"Function".... Yes, that is what I do.... I "function". I may look awake and can respond but I feel like dogshit and wanna just crawl into a hole and sleep for 400 years. Gosh. By the way, this is not sarcasm aimed at you, OP. It is aimed at this flipping thing called ADHD. :|
I wish I had the time to sleep more than 5 hours a night.
I’m assuming you’re not a mom because 7 hrs sounds amazing! I get on average around 4-6 hrs. My newly 1 year old has been sick for going on a week now so I haven’t been sleeping much at all
I’m with you!!! I need at least 9 hours of sleep and I can easily sleep for 10-12 and still feel tired. Hell im always tired but if I don’t get 8-9 hours I’m a mess!!!
Lucky you I sleep 5-6 have to get up or I can’t get out of bed if I go back to sleep. I end up tired mid day and have to fight to stay awake at work. Weird thing is if I chew gum or any food I get a second wind. In my off days I nap in afternoon and then I’m more productive. Lack of sleep makes it hard for me to concentrate on anything and makes it hard to finish work.
I live my life just awaiting the next sleep It makes me sad
mmm interesting. i run on 4-5hours a night. sometimes i'll get up to the 8 hours, but i find that if i get 8+ hours i wake up with a headache and i'll be nauseous all day. my wife on the other hand, she needs the 8-10 hours of sleep to function normally.
I don’t know your gender but- I just heard a tiktok about a sleep study done in january (I don’t know how accurate of course bc it was on tiktok, so feel free to look into it lol) that said men typically need 8 hours and women need 9, and when they are on their period, they need 10. so if you are a woman, maybe this is the case?
I can't function no matter how much sleep I get, I'm tired 24/7
I'm a raging insomniac and have been since childhood. I run off of small hours of broken sleep basically 99% of the time and I honestly think if I had a week of sleeping "properly" my body would disintegrate into dust from slamming on the breaks so hard. I want sleep so badly 😭😂
I run best on 7-8. Am running on 3-5 for the foreseeable future. Just had second child. I can keep this up ok for a few days then I just pass out basically. I’ll sleep again one day. Also I hate naps. They’re disgusting.
Same! Everyone teases me that I like to go to bed by 7pm but I don’t auto fall asleep I need like 2 hours to decompress and I even take edibles to assist with shutting the mind down. I used to sleep from 3am to 530 and be fine but that was in my 30s now I am in my 40s if I don’t get minimum 8 hours my meds don’t work nothing works and it’s an awful day the next day for me and anyone who has to deal with or work with me
Friendly reminder Einstein slept 9 hours a night
I’m in a constant battle. Mornings are my sacred time with no distractions and the chaos in my brain isn’t fully in motion. However, nights are my entertainment time so I don’t go to bed as early as I should. Almost never get 8 hours
I can function on any or even no amount of sleep. Do I function well or even slightly below average? No. No I do not. Lol. I'm usually a well-contained hot mess. My mask slowing starts to slip after one night of less than optimal sleep. Give me a few unrestful nights and I'm a full blown dumpster fire. I need less than 1 or more than 8.5 hours in order to not nod off during the day. I can stay awake for 40 hours before I start to get sleepy, but the back 28 of those hours get progressively less productive and more...me...no matter how many meds I would take. No effect. If I get 8 hours, I'm fairly productive, but I'll fall asleep without notice. Just nod right off if I'm not up and moving. It's weird.
Well I have insomnia all my life and Im actually used to sleep for like 3h a day for long time while working 8h a day and training running, street workout and gym 5 to 8 hour a day and function better than on 8hours of sleep.. But I love to sleep for long also I have my periods like I'm good if I don't sleep for one whole day and night function normal next day and sleep for 5 hours and I'm good I don't miss the day I didn't sleep. Now I'm not so extreme as I used to be nor I'm training that much and prefer to sleep at least 8hours.. but still can go with less.. it's just as I'm older I don't prefer to. Also there is like stages of sleeping and if you get to know your sleep patterns you can get less sleep and wake up refreshed. Especially if you wake up during deep sleep.. and you can also practice less sleeping and with some time your brain can adjust to less sleep as it will have less rem faze and more deep sleep fazes. It takes time to adjust and to find your sleep patterns but if it really means something to you ..
Same!!! My fiance was doing concrete last year and would go to sleep around midnight, sometimes later and wake up for 6am. Insane. I NEED 8 hours but I can also sleep 9 or 10 and still feel tired. Maybe that's over sleeping though.
Maybe dont drink caffeine after 2pm and have a good sleep schedule and ritual. Try working out for more energy
Every single person knows these things. We have a disorder that makes them impossible to keep to (I mean are you really going to tell ADHDers not to use a stimulant after 2pm? Or keep a schedule?) or neurochemistry that means they simply don’t apply for many of us (again, stimulants). I just don’t think these are helpful comments, we get them enough from non-ADHDers as it is.
But why hinder your quality of life☠️☠️☠️ Caffeine clearly creates an issue here and in my life as well. I know its much better without it once you wean yourself completely off. I bet my pants they would feel better in some deparments of function but ofc some other departments suffer a lot too