How much sleep do you need?

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Really depends. Average? 3-5.

Sometimes I go for days w/o, then sleep for 8-10.

I often wish I could sleep more. As it is I go go go until I'm exhausted.

I'm jealous of you sleepers!

edit- although when I'm really depressed I'll sleep 5 hrs on, 5 off, 5 on, 5 off etc.

I need about four hours more sleep than I currantly get (about 5 to 6).

i should be sleeping now... don't suppose i'll get any sleep at the moment I just sleep whenever it comes (not enough!) and don't bother counting the hours.

strangely I sleep fine when I'm stressed, stress makes me sleepy. but at the moment my life is just plain bloody depressing hence no sleep.

I was sleeping about 4 hours a night up until recently, I've had recurring insomnia for about four years. I stopped taking my medication and for some reason I'm sleeping about 6-7 hours a night. I still feel tired, but it's better in terms of actual length. Though, I'm having mega-surreal dreams and nightmares.

I've been concerned about my sleep for about 3 years now. I'm 24. I've been steadily losing energy, the ability to concentrate, been getting ill more often, and gaining weight. Sometimes while at work I've been exhausted, even though I've had 6+ hours of sleep.

And because I have AS and a fair dose of Autism it's been very difficult for me to break out of this rut. I know that NTs have difficulty with this also, but you guys should appreciate how hard and traumatic it can sometimes be to break routines.

Anyway with a great deal of willpower I've been able to suddenly 'click' into healthy-eating mode. I'm only eating meat, salads and vegetables etc and it's given me a massive boost to energy. I've cut bread out of my diet completely, and most diary products, though with Xmas this has been difficult =)

I sleep a little better. Not a massive change, but I wasn't expecting one at all. I've never cared about my health before, and with youth on my side, I could get away with it. But now I'm definately regretting eating crap for so long (I now count bread as uber-crap food that I wrongly believed was good for you).

It hasn't helped my AS though. With the changes I've made I feel more nervous than ever, eye contact right now is impossible. But I'm hoping this will improve as my general health improves.

My daughter takes 3mg of melatonin at night about 20mins before bed. It seems to help regulate her sleep cycle without leaving her groggy in the morning and still allows REM sleep (many sleeping pills don't).

For those already using melatonin, it looks to me like Aspies' problem is that we generate too much Seratonin, which is what causes you to wake up in response to increased ambient light. This means that if its not dark when you take the melatonin, your body can easily overide it.

When I lived in Minnesota, I found that during the longest and shortest days the only way I could stay on sleep schedule was to ensure a large change from light to dark at bedtime. What we would do was to turn on every light in the house on at about 3:00 pm. Then about 5:00pm, close the blinds, turn off all but a couple of lights, and start winding down for bed. I could never get the room dark enough to keep from waking up about 4am in the summer, and during the winter it was a little hard to get out of bed although I never tried using a timer to get some light going. Anyway, when the oil companies started working in Alaska they paid for a lot of research to be done on sleep cycles and found that light changes were a strong controlling factor.

8 hours. It was less when I was younger (I'm 61), but still 7 hours.

And, once again, I say that if you have trouble sleeping, try Desyrel (Trazodone). "Trazodone is primarily used for the treatment of depression; however, it is sometimes prescribed as a sedative" - from http://www.medicinenet.com/trazodone/article.htm

I do best on 7-8 hours of sleep.

Too much sleep makes me feel like crap the whole next day.
Too little sleep makes me feel crappy, until I get going. But I start getting worn out much earlier in the day than usual.

I need 7-9 Hours of sleep. It depends on how my life is going. I need more, when I'm Depressed, and less, when things are going well.

I've been experimenting with my sleep lately...I rarely sleep well (waking up a lot during the night and tossing and turning like mad) so it's hard to say how much sleep I actually GET, but I have noticed that if I allow myself about 6 hours to sleep I seem to be more alert and able to get more done the next day. If I go to bed early and sleep 8 hours I find that I'm REALLY tired the next day and have trouble focusing on anything. If I let my sleep extend into the 10-12 hour range (as I often do on weekends, because, well, I don't care much for life) I start having REALLY weird and often disturbing dreams.

What's *really* odd is that regardless of when I went to bed or how much I slept my brain simply does not prefer to rev up to full speed until late afternoon or early evening. I am simply not a morning person at all...in fact I swear I'm nocturnal. I tend to get very little work done at work and then sit up working at home until 3 or 4 in the morning and I get a lot more done then. Part of it is probably because at home, at night, there are far fewer interruptions and I can control my environment better wrt ambient noise and such....but there is definitely something nocturnal about my body's natural schedule.

10-12 if i can get it. i have sleep apnea and i thought that when i got my machine i wouldn't need as much sleep, but i do, i'm just not as tired when i wake up like i used to be.
april

8-11 hours is optimal. 6-7 hours I can be really goofy, 11-13 hours I can be really, really groggy. If given a choice, I'd go with about nine hours per night, except when I have nothing to do during the day- then I go more on the 11 hour side.

I usually go for about 8 - 10 weeks on 3 - 4 hours of sleep, then sleep about 12 - 15 hours and start the cycle over. Unless I'm depressed or have a migraine, then I can sleep for literally days at a time, only rising to go to the bathroom.