3 ms·

I've had a similar experience, since I hit my teenage years I rarely sleep more than just a few hours a night. At that time I would typically sleep 3-4 hours a

I've had a similar experience, since I hit my teenage years I rarely sleep more than just a few hours a night. At that time I would typically sleep 3-4 hours a night, and then really crash on the weekends. But as I got older I needed less and less weekend sleep. Whenever I try to go to bed earlier or sleep in to get close to 8 hours (even for extended periods of time) I find that I'm just as tired, if not more so than if I had gotten less sleep. The only thing that I've found does make a difference is a short nap in the middle of the day, I find 1/2 hour in the day can easily make up for several hours at night. But that's where the cultural problem is, I've had office jobs where I could get away with taking a nap, but it would still be frowned upon, which is always a bit sad since it make it clear that many offices cultures would prefer the illusion of busy-ness over actual increased production.

jasongullickson 16y ago
Absolutely, if I can go "lights out" for 30 minutes during the day (between 1:00pm and 2:00pm works best for me) I can eliminate the need for the "catch-up" sleep.
- jules 16y ago
  I've tried this but I am unable to fall asleep unless I'm extremely tired (and I do mean very tired, one night without sleep is not enough). How do you fall asleep within half an hour?
  - jasongullickson 16y ago
    I remove myself from my "work" situation (when I worked a rigidly scheduled job, I'd take a drive to a nearby park) and just lay back and relax. If the weather is cooperative having the car windows down and some nature sounds to listen to seem to help but I imagine listening to anything that you don't have direct control over (as opposed to music, other forms of entertainment, etc.) would work. Also a large lunch at a Mexican restaurant never hurts...
  - CamperBob 16y ago
    You may not actually need to sleep. I find that just lying down for 30-60 minutes in a dark, quiet room provides ~80% of the 'recovery' value of a real nap.

jasongullickson 16y ago

Absolutely, if I can go "lights out" for 30 minutes during the day (between 1:00pm and 2:00pm works best for me) I can eliminate the need for the "catch-up" sleep.

jules 16y ago
I've tried this but I am unable to fall asleep unless I'm extremely tired (and I do mean very tired, one night without sleep is not enough). How do you fall asleep within half an hour?
- jasongullickson 16y ago
  I remove myself from my "work" situation (when I worked a rigidly scheduled job, I'd take a drive to a nearby park) and just lay back and relax. If the weather is cooperative having the car windows down and some nature sounds to listen to seem to help but I imagine listening to anything that you don't have direct control over (as opposed to music, other forms of entertainment, etc.) would work. Also a large lunch at a Mexican restaurant never hurts...
- CamperBob 16y ago
  You may not actually need to sleep. I find that just lying down for 30-60 minutes in a dark, quiet room provides ~80% of the 'recovery' value of a real nap.