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I wanted to take an informal pool on this. I know most of you out there juggle family work, Tri, etc. I was wondering how much do you mange to squeeze in for sleep? Also, is there a 'sleep threshhold' where if you don't get a certain amount of sleep over a period of time that you find your performance and attitude deteriorating?
Me personally, I try (sometimes not very hard) for at least 7 every night. I can get by with 3-4 hours every once in awhile. However, I find that if I get consistantly less than 6 over 3 days or more I find I don't recover from my workouts very well and my productivity at work also suffers. Mild paranoia and depression soon follow.
How about you?
I try to get to bed by 10, but it usually ends up being 11, and I am up at 5:20 (maybe a snooze or two) for my morning workout. I end up crashing on the weekends sometimes. After my long bike or run, I'll take a long nap, seems to help, but not a good substitute for good consistant sleep during the week.
Great question! I try to get 7.5-8 hrs. a night, but the occasional short night won't kill me. However, if I stray below 6 hrs. for several nights in a row, I really start to wear down and get sick.
Weekdays 7 hours, weekends 8 hours plus naps
Wow, I wish I could get 8 hours of sleep. I could probably do it on the weekends, except that my friends/training partners always say they have to play parent and therefore have to start our long rides/runs early even on weekends. :-(
My sleep patterns are bizarre. During one consecutive 48 hour period last week I worked 32 hours. That leaves little time for food or sleep, and none for luxuries like changing clothes and showers. Recently I have been able to get more sleep, often times at least 8 hours, which is really great. My body responds very well to sleep and seems to do a great job repairing itself when given adequate sleep. I often wonder what kind of athlete I mght be if I actually trained, slept and ate decent. Probably about the same :)
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
I seem to be fine on 5.5-6 hours a night. I manage to get a couple more at the weekend by grabbing a nap during the day. I'm 27 - do you 'more mature' types find that you need more or less or the same amount of sleep as you age? Don't think my sleep patterns have changed much, apart from when I was at uni an averaged about 15-20 hours a day.
"Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parents of it, the mind. No glass so mirrors a man's form or likeness so true as his speech." - Ben Jonson, Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter.
Seven to eight hours everynight with very short naps thrown in occasionally, This sleep is often broken up by my daughter, thats when the naps come in.
I do best on 9 hours a night. I usually get 8. If I get 7 or less for a few days, I end up having to skip a workout or two because I have no energy. Maybe I need more coffee and cherry turnovers.
I have a 3 1/2 month old, so I'm lucky to get 6 a night. The first month was tough but my body seems to be adapting pretty well
I thank my wife for disciplining our sleep habits. We go to bed at 8:30 nearly every weeknight, giving us a solid 8 hours of sleep since we have to be up at 5:00. I don't watch much TV so I'm not missing much there. I haven't seen Monday Night Football in years, not that I'm missing much there, either.
I am just finishing my evening workouts at 8:30!
Wow! Even when I used to stay up to 11:00 or so, if I was working out that late (8:30), I wouldn't be calmed down enough to sleep till well into the AM. 1900 is my hard ceiling for training. If I can't get it done by then, it costs me more than it benefits my training.
My problem is waking up. No matter how many hours I sleep here lately I have the toughest time getting out of bed. I wake up about 5am but don't have the energy to get out of bed. It takes an hour or so before I can make it to the breakfast table. I have had to rearrange my training schedule due to my lack of energy in the morning.
T. Paul
My sister was thinking about posting, but hasn't, so I will post for her.
She can get stuck at work until 8:30, and then ends up on the Computrainer or out on the road running well after dark. It tends to put a dent in her morning workouts, which means she has to try to squeeze in her workouts at night, which means she's up late and then can't get up in the morning... You get the picture. She's lucky to get 5 - 6 hours a night.
The same happens to my wife and myself but we just go to bed early.Kids are raised
7 to 8 hours work well for me. However, if I get less than 6 for several days in a row, I usually end up hibernating for 12 hours...
My wife and I shut off the TV at 9 and have lights off by 10.
I get up at 5 or 5:50 for a workout so that's 7 or so a night. Which
is plenty unless her cats meow in the night. Which really pisses me off.
Back a few years in my college days I would work the night shift at the food wharehouse. Most of the time I would do 5-6 mile runs at 11:00 pm and some times as late as 1:00 am. I would get home drenched in sweat and be in bed about 15 minutes later with no shower or stretching and be asleep soon after that.
Those were the days!
During the last couple of years I have been amazed at the time you find for sleep and other things if you turn the TV off or better yet never turn it on. The less I watch and the more I have thought about it the more useless and wasteful TV time seems.
8 hours is my staple, sometimes I have the chance to sleep more and I still end up waking up after 8 hours or so. I can live on 7 but less than that and things start going south.
I need a solid 8.5+ hours a night to stay "fresh". Rarely do I get that much however, but I take whatever I can get. I often skip morning workouts to try to get extra rest in. It's frustrating to skip a workout, but sleep always seems to pay off. I feel like I need a lot more sleep than most people, I always have. When work gets nuts (even before I get into the all-nighter phases) I find I fall asleep anywhere. I've fallen asleep getting my hair cut more than once, and I'm also known to sleep for 17 hours straight when I go too deep into rest debt. I love to sleep, but I hope that as I get older I'll need less. We'll see.
The Big EE shoots for 7 1/2 hours a night. Unless the Little EE decides to start crying and Mrs. Big EE is too tired to get up. In that case, the Big EE has midnight baby duty and gets more like 6 hours. Sometimes, the Big EE's big dog starts to hog the bed, and then the Big EE gets more like 5 hours. Quite often, the Big EE gets up to run at 5 a.m., in which case he's closer to 4 hours.
Basically, the Big EE should say the hell with it and never go to bed.
-- Big EE
I try to be in bed by 10 pm every night and get up at 4:40 to run on the treadmill or ride on the computrainer by 5 AM for about an hour before breakfast. Some mornings I sleep in 'til 6:00 if I'm pretty wasted from a hard PM workout the day before. Afternoon naps for about an hour are a big help to catch up.
I work 12hr shifts (7pm-7am) on the days i work i get 4 hrs sleep than get up exercise and try to lay back down for 1-2 hrs. on the days i don't work my rest is no better my body is use to being awake during the hours that is now time to sleep. i ave about 5-6 hours sleep per day.
Minimun of 5 hrs. if I want try and function at a reasonable level. Can get by on 6-7 hrs. for a few days.... However, at some point I need at least one 8-9 hrs. of sleep time if my work load/stress loads is heavy.
Basicly if I'm tired and feeling sleepy, I will take a nap and avoid working out. It not uncommon I get more benefit from sleep than training at certain points during the training cycle process.
FWIW Joe Moya