How much sleep do you need?

If you plan on playing at least 8 straight hours with only bathroom breaks, how much sleep would you like/need to play comfortably with minimal risk of making mistakes?

For me, I think 6 hours minimum would be ideal.

If this poll has been asked before I apologize.

Quote: cmlotito

If you plan on playing at least 8 straight hours with only bathroom breaks, how much sleep would you like/need to play comfortably with minimal risk of making mistakes?

For me, I think 6 hours minimum would be ideal.

If this poll has been asked before I apologize.

8 hours would be ideal, but realistically I would say about 5 hours.

From many years, until recently I functioned best on 4-5 hours a night and a 20-30 minute nap. These days I'm sleeping 10 hours a day most days.
I can play BJ for days on end but I've never gotten past a couple hours playing video poker. Much more than 2,000 hands and my concentration wanders.

Thursday night I slept from 10pm till 2am, poker from 3am till 7am, worked 730 till 4pm. Went to bed Friday at 11pm. Woke up at 230 am to play poker. Got home at 10am and crashed. Sat on couch and was a sleep in 5 min. Didnt mean too but I crashed. Slept 3 hours. Went to bed last night at 11pm and it is currently 4am and just sat down at poker table.

So in 3 nights I have had 15 hours total and feel perfectly fine. May crash again but this damn promotion is decent enough to do so.

I've always had sleep issues. If you saw children's film, The Avengers, there's a scene where The Hulk Man reveals his secret: "I'm always angry."

I'm always tired. I'm just used to it. So, 1 hour is OK for me and 2 is fine. At times, I won't be very happy, but I can function fine. Sometimes it will barely bother me at all. Recently flew to denver at like 7:00, had an 8 hour layover there where I walked several miles around town and ate and stuff, then flew to Detroit and spent the evening doing a bunch of stuff with family, all on 1 hour sleep and I actually felt pretty good the whole time.

There is a very big difference between 1 or 2 hours and zero hours for me, though.

It's scientifically proven that the body needs 8 hours and ive tested it myself just to make sure the media,, doctors, and big pharma weren't lying once again and for once they were actually right. I find I always wake up exactly 8 hours from when I went to sleep, it's like the body just knows when to wake up at exactly that time. Sometimes it might be 6 hours, but if that happens im not fully satisfied and still tired. 8 is the magic number.

For those with sleep issues, I suggest you practice some serious fasting throughout each day ending with 1 big meal at night. While first starting out, it's ok to graze on something low glycemic like any piece of fruit or nuts/almonds, low fat yogurt, etc, but eventually you want to eat nothing at all and just drink water throughout the day. With this type of lifestyle change in your eating habits, your insomnia will cease to exist. Once you eat that big meal at night, you will pass out like a baby.

I've played casino games throughout the night until sunup after waking up at 4:30 the previous morning. So I guess zero hours for me.

Usually completely fine going one or two nights with very little, followed by a few nights with a lot more. Without heavy caffeine use I'm going to be dragging no matter how much I sleep. And with enough caffeine, I'll be fine to play all night without any sleep. Adderall is even better. Modafinil would be awesome to use all the time if not for the cost

Quote: TomG

Adderall is even better. Modafinil would be awesome to use all the time if not for the cost

How would you compare the two?

Pretty similar. Adderall feels like I had the strongest Rockstar except instead of crashing in 90 minutes like I would from caffeine it can last all night. And I get red faced and can go outside in the winter with just a t-shirt. Modafinil is more like I just woke up from a great night of sleep and had my morning coffee. It's the type of buzz where I forgot I even took anything, except I'm wide away and alert even when I've barely slept at all the past two nights. I only use them a few times per year. I also have the rare combination of being very sensitive to stimulants and really liking them a lot.

I'm a big advocate of getting enough sleep. Alarm clocks are a very bad thing. However, easy for me to say, working from home whenever I feel like it.

Personally, I suffer from insomnia and have discussed this in various threads over the years. Should you fight it, perhaps exchanging a short-term fix, for a worse long-term problem? Whatever I take for it I seem to grow an immunity to and then I'm even worse off. Lately I've been going natural and just suffering not being able to sleep more than about four hours. Any advice out there? I think I've tried most of the common drugs to fight it.

Quote: Wizard

I'm a big advocate of getting enough sleep. Alarm clocks are a very bad thing. However, easy for me to say, working from home whenever I feel like it.

Personally, I suffer from insomnia and have discussed this in various threads over the years. Should you fight it, perhaps exchanging a short-term fix, for a worse long-term problem? Whatever I take for it I seem to grow an immunity to and then I'm even worse off. Lately I've been going natural and just suffering not being able to sleep more than about four hours. Any advice out there? I think I've tried most of the common drugs to fight it.

Assuming you want to start sleeping by 10pm.

Get up no later than 7am.
Do not do any exercise after 4pm. The earlier the better.
Do not eat after 6pm.
Do not do any computing, tv watching, or smart phone stuff after 8pm. (You can talk on the phone.)
Do not go to bed angry. Fix whatever it is. If there's something hanging over your head, do something productive about it, no matter how small.

When you go to bed, imagine a perfect black circle that runs from the top of your head to your jaw, a couple inches behind your eyes (you can put the circumference centered on your ears for about the right distance). Your only job is to keep that circle perfectly round and perfectly black. No other thought can intrude. If something creeps in, banish it. Your only job is to keep that circle perfectly round, perfectly black....zzzz

To sleep, instead of taking any sleep medication, try taking over the counter analgesic like Tylenol, motrin before sleeping. (make sure it doesn't have caffeine, and avoid the Benadryl as well)

Most people don't realize their sleep can be disturbed by aches and pain so minor they don't even notice during the day.

Apparently sleeping four hours then getting up is actually normal, 8 hours of sleep is a recent invention of "normal". Source: Adam Ruins Everything, episode Adam Ruins sleep.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Do not go to bed angry. Fix whatever it is. If there's something hanging over your head, do something productive about it, no matter how small.

People always say this, but for me at least I don’t agree.

I can go to bed pissed off and 99% of the time I am completely over it in the morning.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

Apparently sleeping four hours then getting up is actually normal, 8 hours of sleep is a recent invention of "normal". Source: Adam Ruins Everything, episode Adam Ruins sleep.

Quite true, and long forgotten as well but people used to have "first sleep" and "second sleep".

Google for "sleep in victorian age" and you'll find a lot of pages that describe it, along with pages that suggest it may be a cure for insomnia.

Try this page too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphasic_and_polyphasic_sleep

Quote: Hullabaloo

Quite true, and long forgotten as well but people used to have "first sleep" and "second sleep".

Google for "sleep in victorian age" and you'll find a lot of pages that describe it, along with pages that suggest it may be a cure for insomnia.

Try this page too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphasic_and_polyphasic_sleep

Really interesting link. Thank you for posting. This bit swayed me:

Quote:

In his 1992 study "In short photoperiods, human sleep is biphasic", Thomas Wehr had eight healthy men confined to a room for fourteen hours of darkness daily for a month. At first the participants slept for about eleven hours, presumably making up for their sleep debt. After this the subjects began to sleep much as people in pre-industrial times were claimed to have done. They would sleep for about four hours, wake up for two to three hours, then go back to bed for another four hours. They also took about two hours to fall asleep.[17]

Quote: Wizard

I'm a big advocate of getting enough sleep. Alarm clocks are a very bad thing. However, easy for me to say, working from home whenever I feel like it.

Personally, I suffer from insomnia and have discussed this in various threads over the years. Should you fight it, perhaps exchanging a short-term fix, for a worse long-term problem? Whatever I take for it I seem to grow an immunity to and then I'm even worse off. Lately I've been going natural and just suffering not being able to sleep more than about four hours. Any advice out there? I think I've tried most of the common drugs to fight it.

I'm not some sleep-expert scientist or whatever....but if you can only sleep for 4 hours, have you tried just getting out of bed and starting your day then? Idk, at least it makes sense in my head -- if you start your day then, the day will be longer and that night you should be more tired and easier to get to sleep and stay asleep. Perhaps you're just not tired 'enough' to go to sleep (for 6-8 hours) some nights?

Then again, I'm probably not the best person to be giving sleep advice since I'm going to be going to bed pretty soon. Ooof!

Are any of you experiencing bradycardia?

If you want a powerful sleep, sleep with your head slightly lower than your shoulders and the rest of your body. You will fall asleep so fast that you'll feel as though you're falling. Of course vertigo can be more than a bit annoying, if you're prone to it. You'll get more oxygen to your brain, and you may need less sleep than you'd normally require.

Regarding the caffeine. My experience has been that it doesn't give you energy, it just preserves what you have. The correct way that I've found to use it is to drink it, and then get moving. The act of moving creates the feeling of energy and then the caffeine locks in and extends that feeling. In order to truly get a quick jolt of energy I've found asthma inhalers to be more effective because they will more effectively increase heart rate. Allegra D (with pseudoephedrine) is also more effective than caffeine.

Quote: Keyser

Are any of you experiencing bradycardia?

If you want a powerful sleep, sleep with your head slightly lower than your shoulders and the rest of your body. You will fall asleep so fast that you'll feel as though you're falling. Of course vertigo can be more than a bit annoying, if you're prone to it. You'll get more oxygen to your brain, and you may need less sleep than you'd normally require.

Might want to try this, Wiz.

No hard science to add, but I am bradycardic and though I start with a pillow, it's always gone by the time I wake. And I sleep very well.

My brady's a side effect from training. With all your cardio, you might be in the same boat.

Quote: Face

Might want to try this, Wiz.

No hard science to add, but I am bradycardic and though I start with a pillow, it's always gone by the time I wake. And I sleep very well.

My brady's a side effect from training. With all your cardio, you might be in the same boat.

Face,

How low is your HR dropping at night?

Never cared enough to check. I've never had any sort of heart diagnosis or anything even close, I just get comments whenever seeing the sawbones because my HR is always <50. Few seem to care, and the one who I remember caring stopped her questioning after I mentioned athletic participation. She said something like it's just the body's reaction to prevent tachycardia and waved it off, so I don't concern myself with it.

I used to take pride in my low HR until my resting HR was dropping into the mid 20s. It turns out that too much cardio can be a bad thing according to my cardiologist. He said that as we age we are in general, as group more, likely to need a pacemaker because of the excessive cardio training. I literally just got my pacemaker over the weekend as a result. I suspect it's because as a group we may be producing less of the needed protein HCN4 ...based on articles that I've read.

Always has been a long sleeper since childhood to this day and seems to get worse. Nowadays I can literally sleep for days with short breakups. If I have to I can go to an 8-7 hours a day sleep and lots of work/movement regime pretty comfortably, but if there is no push for it I seem to transform back into a literal sloth. Hate it to be honest.

I have taken about 10mg of Ambien (Zolpidem Tartrate) daily for the past 15 years. I sleep a good 6 hours and wake up rested.

Ambien is terribly hard on memory.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Do not do any computing, tv watching, or smart phone stuff after 8pm. (You can talk on the phone.)

Thank you for your comments. What else is there to do after 8PM? It's after 8PM now and looking what I'm doing.

Quote:

When you go to bed, imagine a perfect black circle that runs from the top of your head to your jaw, a couple inches behind your eyes (you can put the circumference centered on your ears for about the right distance). Your only job is to keep that circle perfectly round and perfectly black. No other thought can intrude. If something creeps in, banish it. Your only job is to keep that circle perfectly round, perfectly black....zzzz

Thanks, I'll try that, but it sounds like another version of counting sheep, which never worked for me. I kept losing count. No wonder I never made it far as a blackjack player.

Quote: DRich

I have taken about 10mg of Ambien (Zolpidem Tartrate) daily for the past 15 years. I sleep a good 6 hours and wake up rested.

Ambien was good, for about six months. It gradually become less and less effective. If I take it now it hardly does anything.

Quote: Keyser

Ambien is terribly hard on memory.

I keep forgetting that.

Quote: Wizard

Thank you for your comments. What else is there to do after 8PM? It's after 8PM now and looking what I'm doing.




Thanks, I'll try that, but it sounds like another version of counting sheep, which never worked for me. I kept losing count. No wonder I never made it far as a blackjack player.

Damn. I’m just waking up!

Quote: Wizard

I'm a big advocate of getting enough sleep. Alarm clocks are a very bad thing. However, easy for me to say, working from home whenever I feel like it.

Personally, I suffer from insomnia and have discussed this in various threads over the years. Should you fight it, perhaps exchanging a short-term fix, for a worse long-term problem? Whatever I take for it I seem to grow an immunity to and then I'm even worse off. Lately I've been going natural and just suffering not being able to sleep more than about four hours. Any advice out there? I think I've tried most of the common drugs to fight it.

Simply make a lifestyle change to fasting and only drink water throughout the day. You'll realize each day that you'll have energy all day, alert, and motivated to do more instead of being groggy all day like 99% of society because they're always eating because what EVERYONE says to do. Finally when it's night time, have one BIG MEAL. Yes ONE BIG MEAL. Yes, this is contrary to what people say and them claiming it's bad for you to eat a lot at night and then go to sleep, but that's false. You will be full and satisfied after the meal and you will also realize how much more you appreciate food and it will allow you to really savor and enjoy it. You will then pass out instantly with the best sleep you ever had after a long day and a big meal.

Our bodies are instinctively and biologically designed to operate this way. Think back to the cavemen days. Do you think these cavemen woke up and had pancakes and cereal or even a bagel and coffee, then 3 hours later have a sandwich for lunch and then 5 hours later a meal at dinner? That makes absolutely no sense. They woke up on an empty stomach and started their day to hunt for aninmals while grazing on something low glycemic such as an apple from a tree throughout the day. You think they would have any energy whatsoever if they chowed down a huge breakfast as soon as they wake up? They would fall right back to sleep. That's why everyone is passed out on their desks at work at lunch time. Is that a way to go through your day? It makes absolutely no sense in every sense of the word. People have no knowledge regarding physiology and biology and so they're basically victims to whatever big pharma and doctors tell them. Fasting would end big pharma today as we know it and no one would be on medication ever again. This isn't just an eating regimen, it's a full blown lifestyle change that affects everything in your body from mood to weight to cognitive health, prolonged life expectancy, adrenaline, being less prone to disease and just pure optimal health.

There's a reason why it's stated in the Bible about the power of fasting and how Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. This also isn't just some opinion of mine. There has been loads of research done on fasting, some of which will absolutely stun your mind of how much it benefits you. I suggest you take a look at it and research it for yourself. Dr. Mercola is a good start. There are a lot of myths such as 'starvation mode' etc that are exactly that, a MYTH and misinformation spread throughout society that if you skip a meal or 2 throughout the day, you will harm yourself. All of that is hogwash.

It's also important to note, if you have any high blood pressure or high blood sugar problems, you need to stabilize your blood pressure and blood glucose before trying to fast as that could be problematic. As long as you're a healthy adult, you will be fine. If you do decide to fast, you must first ease into it, because your blood sugar even if at stable levels won't be used to it as you have been eating your whole life 3-6 meals a day, but after a week or so your body will begin to adjust itself. Working out fasted has also been shown to outperform anyone who works out with food in their stomach, but again dont go work out right away on a fast, or you will pass out due to your blood sugar not being accustomed to it. Steadily get into it and you'll thank me down the road.

Good luck and I promise you, if you start practicing fasting and just drinking water all day or an occasional apple or something low glycemic throughout the day to not boost insulin levels and then chow down on a big meal at night, you will see how easily you fall asleep not to mention vivid dreams and waking up completely refreshed. Lots of advice in this thread was from good intentions, but so off base.

Zen,

I like some of what you preach. But whenever people mention the diets of cavemen I must snicker. To start, what evolutionary stage of 'caveman'? Cavemen often ate whatever they could find and whenever they could they find it. Sometimes they would even engage in pica and even consume dirt when starving. They also didn't live long as a result of their diets. Some likely died of heart problems, cancer, malnutrition and even poisoning. So we shouldn't necessarily try and model their diet any more than we should someone from the middle ages.

I'm glad that you've found something that works well for you. I've also read supporting evidence for the fasting lifestyle that you preach.

Quote: Keyser

Zen,

I like some of what you preach. But whenever people mention the diets of cavemen I must snicker. To start, what evolutionary stage of 'caveman'? Cavemen often ate whatever they could find and whenever they could they find it. Sometimes they would even engage in pica and even consume dirt when starving. They also didn't live long as a result of their diets. Some likely died of heart problems, cancer, malnutrition and even poisoning. So we shouldn't necessarily try and model their diet any more than we should someone from the middle ages.

I just love when people try to bring life expectancy of past centuries to discredit fasting. You do realize the averages are extremely misleading due to all of the deaths of children and infants? Also, who was even keeping track of life expectancy results back in those days? Lastly, if they were dying at a young age, do you actually think it was because of their diet or because they couldn't FIND FOOD FOR DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS? To falsely assume that cavemen or people from centuries ago lived much less than we do now(which cant be proven anyway) just because they skipped breakfast or lunch or had something to do with their diet is so comical and beyond ignorant. They didn't exactly have emergency care on speed dial either or being able to treat open wounds prone to infections.

Critical thinking is a lost art these days. We take everything these 'experts' say as gospel and never question anything. That's why everyone is obese, overweight, sick, and with their kitchen cabinets full of 10 different types of medication by the time they're 40-50. Keep at it everyone, whatever these 'experts' are preaching is clearly working.

4 days of bed at 10pm, awake at 2am to play poker until 6am, work until 4pm. Last night I crashed at 7pm and woke up at 5am this morning with out an alarm. I feel amazing. Going to do it again starting tomorrow morning.

Quote: Wizard

Thank you for your comments. What else is there to do after 8PM? It's after 8PM now and looking what I'm doing.