Minimum amount of sleep you need to feel alert?

[Beachwaves127]

Hello! Just wondered what everyone’s minimum amount of sleep they need is out of interest to feel alert and well? 😀

I had five hours sleep (straight) last night and feel amazing!! I’m 31.

I think the last year I’ve been having broken sleep as Dc (1yo) has been a regular waker - every 2 hours.

I think even before Dc I did well on 5-6 hours max. It’s the broken sleep it seems that is a killer!?

It’s deep sleep, for me.

I barely get any.

In an 8 hour sleep I can get 25 minutes deep. Never feel rested.

My ex would get 2.5hrs deep during same sleep.

My sister averages 5 hours of sleep a night, which would kill me dead, but gets 3x more deep in that time than I would in my night.

So I carry on going to bed before 9pm and feeling like a zombie.

That’s interesting how do you measure deep sleep or do you have a watch tracker or you can tell by how you feel / know you were in a light sleep?

wonder why some people fall into a deep sleep more easily than others!

7 hours though I can cope on 6.5. Used to be 8.

It can be as little as four hours for me.

I've noticed that my sleep habits/patterns/needs have changed quite considerably over the last couple of years - I'm late 30s. I don't need nearly as much sleep as I used to.

On a one-day/one-night cycle, I can be perfectly alert on four hours sleep. But I can't cope with too many nights of just four hours. By day four or five I'm flagging and would then need a decent seven or eight hours.

@Beachwaves127 it’s bloody Fitbit.

I used to be able to get away with 4 hours as long as I had a long lie in every now and then.
Then I had glandular fever and anything less than 7hours and I'm not good at all. I really need 8 hours, although my real natural sleep would have about 3 hours sleep from about 3-6pm and then bed at midnight to 7 would be my ideal.

6 hours

But on night five I'd need 12

I can easily cope on just 2 hours a night but I've always been an awful sleeper so think my body just adapted to little sleep 😔

5 is fine, 6 is amazing. Bloody menopause

Just to add to this, there are some nights when I get as little as a couple of hours sleep because of the dog. This happens about twice a month on average.

The following morning I always feel amazing - it's really strange, I feel like I'm high. I always get loads of work done and its always really good work as well - I'm efficient, I think straight, I work fast. Then about lunchtime, I start to flag but with a greasy lunch and a post-lunch energy drink, I get back to feeling wired again. I can then easily do another few hours good quality work. It's really bizarre, like a really strange feeling because I feel like I should be knackered so I keep expecting to get tired and sleepy or irritable or whatever but it just never comes.

Thanks everyone interesting replies

Maybe 8? God I wish I could function on less! My husband thinks I'm like a little old lady with the amount of sleep i need! Too little and I'm just hideous to be around.

If I have a bad night I will get through work and then not be able to string a sentence together and then go to bed so early it's actually pathetic

8 minimum. I need my sleep!

Having a child who didn't sleep through the night until she was 5 made me realise that's not about how much sleep I get, but when I get it. In an ideal world my core sleep hours would be 4/5am until about 8/9am. I used to work in a nightclub and wouldn't get in until 5am, would be up by 10am fresh as a daisy! Sadly am up 6.30am these days so always feel tired no matter how much sleep I've got!

6 hrs 30 with 40 minutes deep sleep is a refreshing sleep for me

Ideally 7 hours but at a bare minimum I need 5. The tiredness doesn't hit till about 4pm the next day when I've not had a good night's sleep.

At least six in order to function although I’m menopausal and hardly ever get that amount in one block. Usually its four and two hours or three and four (if I’m lucky). Often awake in the night reading or having a 4am breakfast 🫤Used to be a sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow person but the menopause put paid to that. Grateful to be self employed.

I could cope on just a few hours sleep for a couple of days but it wouldn’t sustainable. If left to my own devices where I have no need to set an alarm I can happily have 9-10 hours a night but usually I get 6-7 and maybe 8 on a weekend.

I usually get between 6 and 7 hours each night and never wake up tired. I've done a couple of all nighters in the last few months and feel OK. I'm in my 40s.

Annoyingly about 9 hours. I need a LOT of sleep. Would love to be one of those people that only needs 6:7 hours and feels fine. But my sleep is in reality terrible and I sleep between 0 and 14 hours! I literally had 0 hours last night so hopefully tonight will be a mega sleep. Definitely not feeling "alert" today!

I can cope with 6 but I don't feel great. I need 7 to feel fine. 9 to feel amazing!

6-7 and I feel fine. Any less I start to flag mid morning.

In the summer I got two hours sleep on Scout camp. Surprisingly I could still function!

Usually, I sleep 5-7 hours but rarely feel refreshed. I struggle to get up, I used to be an early bird, but since I hit 50 + it's becoming an issue. I struggle to wake up. By early afternoon, I'm tired, rally a bit, and then tired again by 9! Bloody menopause!

5, but I don't often get that. I retired from 30 years of night Nursing. Sleep pattern is rubbish. The trackers are very inaccurate,most rely on movement, not actually tracking the different sleep stages.