Sleep and how much do we need?

[Dod101]

I see our nanny state is about to publish official guidance on how much sleep we need fro a healthy life. Personally I like to be in bed before 10.30 pm and I will sleep until about 6 am. Like many I can exist on much less but between 7 and 8 hours seems to be what I need in my mid 70s.

I do not like being any later and find I do not sleep so well if I am later than 10.30pm

Dod

[AleisterCrowley]

I am suffering from insomnia at the moment
I need (at age 53) about 8 hours, and seen to be getting 5 or 6.
It is making me grumpy and depressed - so no change there then...

[johnhemming]

I think it is good that the state is recognising that sleep is important as there might be a greater willingness to make it easier for in patients in hospital to sleep.

My own personal health priority over the last few years has been to improve my sleep (I am 59). I have had quite a bit of middle insomnia where I wake in the middle of the night and cannot get back to sleep and previously had insomnia at times where I could not get to sleep.

I have made quite a bit of progress in dealing with this taking at times various different supplements/medicines etc. What I don't want to take is the normal sort of sleeping pills as they don't get that good sleep.

I can bore for England about how to improve sleep patterns. What I do, however, is use a fitbit in an attempt to measure the actual time asleep discounting time awake during the night. I am generally quite happy if I get 6 hours plus on the fitbit, which is probably more like 7 hours from going to sleep in bed and finally waking in the morning. If I get it right I can be solidly productive all day. If it goes wrong I tend to start by having tiredness in the early afternoon and can feel quite bad for most of the day if I am only getting 3-4 hours fitbit sleep.

Fitbit is not perfect in its measurement of sleep, but gives a good baseline to work on.