The sleep factor

I get as much sleep from Mon-Thurs as I do on Friday night to Sunday morning.

Working nights can be a killer on the body.
My morning routine is about the same as your's and I get up about the same time
in the afternoon. My evening nap though is a bit later and then it's work
time.


Todd

http://www.backyardastronomy.com
http://www.skynewsmagazine.com
http://www.simpleastrophotography.com

Starstuffed wrote:

I get perhaps 5 hours of sleep a day. It seems to be enough. Long ago,
when I was young, that never would have been sufficient.

I also seem to need less sleep than when I was younger. OTOH, I'm less
inclined to try to get by when I haven't gotten enough sleep. I'll lie
down at any time (when I'm quick enough) and fall asleep at any time!

Mike Simmons

Jax wrote:

I get perhaps 5 hours of sleep a day. It seems to be enough.

Fitting stargazing into my life used to cause extreme fatigue... until I
started sleeping with earplugs. I use the foam plugs found at hardware
stores, but there are a lot of choices. Being sound insolated allows
undisturbed deeper sleep, so I require less of it.

I never try to sleep during the day without ear plugs anymore. And
often at night, too. I also find that I often sleep deeper and better
-- and therefore shorter -- when wearing ear plugs. I "discovered" this
years ago when napping in the afternoon in preparation for a night of
observing. They're great! Also good for airplanes and anywhere else
unfamiliar.

Mike Simmons

I was rised on coffee, my old man was a trucker for many years until a back
injury made him stop driving. So my system is at lest 75% coffee and a hot cup
of coffee relaxs me. Now if I had to stay awake, I'd mix up the Devils own brew
to do that ...

1/2 cup of Cokecola, 1/2 cup of hot coffee , mix good, and drink fast.


--
"In this universe the night was falling,the shadows were lengthening
towards an east that would not know another dawn.
But elsewhere the stars were still young and the light of morning
lingered: and along the path he once had followed, man would one day go
again."

Arthur C. Clarke, The City & The Stars

SIAR
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"Esmail Bonakdarian" wrote in message
...
drink coffee and the go off to sleep? Wow .. that would never work for
me .. I try to depend on the brew to keep my up :-)

Esmail
---
Esmail Bonakdarian - esmailATmyrealboxDOTcom - http://www.cs.mercer.edu/bonak
32N 83W


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On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 18:08:33 GMT, Starstuffed wrote:

I get perhaps 5 hours of sleep a day. It seems to be enough. Long ago,
when I was young, that never would have been sufficient.

I go to bed around 10:00 a.m. on an average morning and it generally will
take me an hour to fall asleep. 3:30 p.m. will find me up and roaming the
house.

6:30 p.m. reveals me turning in for a two hour nap. Really though, I
probably am only asleep for an hour during this period.

Then it's time to go to work if I must or to stay home, if I can, and get
out the telescope. When 2:30 a.m. rolls along, I could have slept more but
the established routine seems to be wired into my system.

Age, work, and amateur astronomy have all led me to functioning on less
sleep than I would really "like" to have.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Not to me. I don't have any regular sleep hours. I'll frequently be
awake from 24 to 48 hours, then sleep 8-16 hours.

There's no regular time of day I can expect to be waking up. Quite often
I'll roll over and not know whether it's 6 am or 6 pm, until I lean closer
to read the label next to the red dot on the alarm clock (myopia).

Since I'm only 28, I can't draw conclusions about increasing age
decreasing the need for sleep, but that seems to be the conclusion of all
the sleep studies I've read about. Another factor is the nature of one's
waking activities. Mental exertion causes a person to require more sleep
than physical exertion. So, someone who is more or less a physical
laborer doesn't need as much sleep as an engineer.

I'm a computer programmer (work at home, which is how I can keep my own
hours), and I definitely notice the additional sleep required after
wrestling with the implementation of new functionality for 8 to 16 hours.

Only on those occasions where I need to be somewhere at a certain time do
I find myself griping about not enough sleep. More often than not, I'll
just stay up longer rather than get only a couple hours of sleep.


--
- Mike

Remove 'spambegone.net' and reverse to send e-mail.

"Starstuffed" wrote in message
ink.net...
I get perhaps 5 hours of sleep a day. It seems to be enough. Long ago,
when I was young, that never would have been sufficient.

At 44, I can get by comfortably for an entire day on 5 hours. Something I
couldn't do when I was 38, before I had my second to last child. Having
young ones around meant interrupted sleep on a nightly basis, which trained
me to survive on less sleep.


I go to bed around 10:00 a.m. on an average morning and it generally will
take me an hour to fall asleep. 3:30 p.m. will find me up and roaming the
house.

6:30 p.m. reveals me turning in for a two hour nap. Really though, I
probably am only asleep for an hour during this period.

On the weekends, I nap when I can, but no matter what time I go to bed, I
can't sleep more than 6 and 1/2 hours. After which I can easily follow your
pattern given the opportunity. For instance going to bed at 9PM, finds me
up at 3:30AM, which is far too early for work, so I might go back to sleep
at 5:30 and try to stay down until 8:00AM (flex start 8:00 - 9:00).

In general though I go down at 1AM and rise at 8:00, slogging my way through
the day on the standard 6 and 1/2 hours. That's why I'm not a big fan of DST
and summer observing hours.

Age, work, and amateur astronomy have all led me to functioning on less
sleep than I would really "like" to have.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Absolutely. I say things like, "I would love to get ten hours of
uninterrupted sleep for two nights in a row". But, then I look at my wife
and realize that to push the comment further would be suicidal. She gets
interrupted by the kids at night, and then has to spend the day with them.
On top of it, she suffers from mild to moderate insomnia. From her
perspective I at least get to escape to a quiet office. (Fact is, I love to
spend the day with my kids; screaming, yelling, hooting and hollering,
disciplining and loving them all the while. Too bad _she's_ not the
engineer).

-Stephen