Amount of sleep needed

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Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 77
Gender: Male
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Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines

29 Jun 2019, 2:06 pm

I'm a bit bi-polar, so sometimes I have to make up for staying up to create stuff. I'm also a night-owl. Therefore, I am often jet-lagged if I have to do mornings. I'll struggle through a day, and then get my "second wind" when I should get an early nap. It is sometimes necessary to struggle to stay awake, and that is damaging. It can then lead to not being able to fall asleep normally, so I can only pass out from exhaustion, and that can continue for days. Being woken unexpectedly at just the wrong time once scrambled my brain for two weeks, and changed my whole life.

AprilR
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29 Jun 2019, 5:49 pm

I definitely need more sleep than the people around me. At least 10-11 hours.

dyadiccounterpoint
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29 Jun 2019, 6:44 pm

About 9 hours is ideal.

Regardless of how early or late I went to bed, I inevitably wake up around 6:30-7:00 a.m. It's highly internalized and sometimes unfortunate when I want to sleep in.

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Mona Pereth
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29 Jun 2019, 8:34 pm

I need an average of about nine hours of sleep each night.

When I was younger I often had difficulty getting to sleep in the first place, so I needed at least ten hours of bed rest in order to get eight to nine hours of sleep.

Luckily, my difficulty getting to sleep went away, for the most part, when I was around forty years old. But I still need an average of nine hours of sleep.

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Claradoon
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30 Jun 2019, 9:08 pm

plokijuh wrote:

shortfatbalduglyman wrote:

Yes , I need more sleep than most people claim to need

It's harder to sleep than other people

For example, I could not sleep on the bus

Some people can

Small noises wake me up

Yes this sounds about right. I need to be very calm at bedtime to actually go to sleep. So time in bed is not really sleep.

Claradoon wrote:

There's something I have to share with you about sleep and that is a weighted blanket.

Yes, I want to buy one. I'm really glad you've found it helpful. They're just so expensive! I got a cheap one for my daughter which isn't heavy enough for me but is enough to show me that one would help. Just need to save up $AU200-400! I'm hoping I'll be approved for disability support soon and this will help pay for some costs.

I got mine from Walmart for $100 CAD. Have you looked at Amazon or do you have a Walmart?

Claradoon
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30 Jun 2019, 9:15 pm

Mountain Goat wrote:

plokijuh wrote:

shortfatbalduglyman wrote:

Yes , I need more sleep than most people claim to need

It's harder to sleep than other people

For example, I could not sleep on the bus

Some people can

Small noises wake me up

Yes this sounds about right. I need to be very calm at bedtime to actually go to sleep. So time in bed is not really sleep.

Claradoon wrote:

There's something I have to share with you about sleep and that is a weighted blanket.

Is it cheaper to get an old blanket and sew some heavy items onto it? Metal washers?

Possibly. But practical? You couldn't wash that. The weighty filling for the blanket is often polyester pellets or glass. I got the glass this time because I'm avoiding plastic. Also I bought twin size because I only need to cover me. I got 15 lbs.

Another option might be a very heavy coat, like they used to make before the invention of polyester. When I was a kid, I was so cold that I slept in my (heavy) winter coat and it was wonderful! But Mom wouldn't let me have a wrinkled coat.

The thing is that a weighted blanket does not provide warmth, so you can use it in hot weather.

Claradoon
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30 Jun 2019, 9:20 pm

Mountain Goat wrote:

Claradoon wrote:

There's something I have to share with you about sleep and that is a weighted blanket. I don't know how to tell you how very much it helps. Somebody said it feels like a hug. It's hard to explain. But it's wonderful the instant I get that weighted blanket over me. I sleep like a log. My blood pressure has come down! I'm calmer when awake. I don't thrash in my sleep any more. It used to be I'd wake to find everything all over the floor around my bed. But with the weighted blanket, everything's where it should be.

The topic is amount of sleep needed. I don't know. I've had odd hours all my life. But this sleep is a superior quality of sleep. Just had to tell you.

p.s. re size to buy - I got twin. The bed is bigger but I only need to cover me. Blanket does not provide warmth.

What are they made from?

2 big pieces of cotton (or some kind of improvement, see label) sewn in squares or other shapes to hold weights evenly. Weights are polyester pellets or glass (I got glass, assuming small marbles of it).
Try Walmart? It's not a rare item any more.

plokijuh
Toucan
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01 Jul 2019, 6:43 am

Claradoon wrote:

plokijuh wrote:

shortfatbalduglyman wrote:

Yes , I need more sleep than most people claim to need

It's harder to sleep than other people

For example, I could not sleep on the bus

Some people can

Small noises wake me up

Yes this sounds about right. I need to be very calm at bedtime to actually go to sleep. So time in bed is not really sleep.

Claradoon wrote:

There's something I have to share with you about sleep and that is a weighted blanket.

I got mine from Walmart for $100 CAD. Have you looked at Amazon or do you have a Walmart?

I'm in Australia, so no Walmart and Amazon is pretty poor down here. Our Walmart equivalents don't have anything like that unfortunately. I might check Ebay though.

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Claradoon
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01 Jul 2019, 12:03 pm

I found weighted blankets in Australia here, if you want to have a look

https://www.google.ca/search?source=hp& ... n6F-uqzp-o

armandreyes
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Joined: 12 Feb 2016
Age: 40
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01 Jul 2019, 12:26 pm

Yeah me too, several pills and 10 hours sleep and half the time it is not enough

Alterity
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01 Jul 2019, 10:36 pm

It depends a little.

When I'm really happy I am fine with the usual recommended amount or a bit less.

But most of the time I require a little more. Maybe around 11hrs

I need even more if I've had an emotional upheaval or have been exposed to a more than usual amount of stimulus. It can take a couple sleep cycles to regulate back to a normal.

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