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I need way less sleep now. Is this normal?

Discussion in 'Self Improvement' started by alfred42, Jun 26, 2017.

  1. alfred42

    alfred42 Fapstronaut

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    I wasn't sure where to put this, but since it's not strictly about nofap I thought this was as good a place as any.

    I have not had an orgasm from masturbation since January and have abstained from porn for longer, although during this time I've been dating someone and had sex relatively frequently.

    However, I we split up in the beginning of May (1.5 months ago), and I've been orgasm free since.

    At the beginning I of course felt confident, aggressive (in a good way), and focused/determined. However, more recently I've combined the nofap practices with various meditative breathing and eating techniques, and now I feel like I've leveled up somehow.

    I've been sleeping on the floor to discipline myself, and in the past few days I happened to start sleeping ~6 hours a day. I would need to get up early, but I found myself not getting tired before bed. During the day as well, except for some afternoons, I felt I had boundless energy.

    This is not typical for me. I used to get 9 hours of sleep and that wasn't enough; I'd feel tired and lazy during the day. But now I'm able to work for a straight 18 hours, fall asleep as soon as I hit the ground, and wake up with energy.

    I see a lot of discussion on here about getting enough sleep, and I'm wondering what you guys have observed with your sleep patterns. After a long enough reboot, are you able to survive (or thrive) on less then the recommended 8 hours?

    I saw this study that found indigenous tribesmen sleep for ~6.5 hours a night. So it might not be true that we actually needed the 8 hours to begin with. Thoughts?
     
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  2. Red Eagle

    Red Eagle Fapstronaut

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    I can attest to this. When I was on a long streak I felt I needed less sleep. I rarely need to sleep more than 8 hours. But it also may have to do with the summer time. From my experience I sleep more during winter and less during summer time which makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary perspective.
     
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  3. Be careful, realise that how you feel is NOT a good indicator of how well you slept. If you're exercising, eating healthy, avoiding PMO and other negative habits, then you should feel pretty good on as little as 5 hours or so of sleep a night, assuming you're relatively healthy. That doesn't mean that 5 hours of sleep a night is enough though.

    How much sleep you actually need depends on a few factors. If for example you're relatively sedentary and not super physically active - then you'll actually feel worse on lower amounts of sleep than someone who exercises/works out a lot - but the person who exercises/works out a lot is actually the one who needs more sleep than you.

    7 hours is in my opinion (and in that of the vast majority of sleep studies out now) the real number for how much sleep everyone should get. The old 8 hours idea is more than most people need (although if you work out etc, it's probably better to get 8-9 hours since you need additional recovery time), but 6 hours is also less than you really need.

    Personally I feel good on anything more than 5 hours 30 minutes of sleep, best on anything over 7 hours - but I try to sleep for around 8~ since I work out and feel it allows me to recover better.

    It's okay to occasionally get 5-6 hours of sleep, but I wouldn't make a regular habit of anything less than 7 - for one, if you're a male, getting 6 hours of sleep vs getting 7 hours of sleep makes a VERY big difference to your testosterone levels. Once you drop down to 4 hours of sleep, your T levels are 60% lower than someone who sleeps 8 hours.

    [​IMG]
     
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  4. alfred42

    alfred42 Fapstronaut

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    Thanks for the reply. If the way I feel is not an accurate indicator of whether I get adequate sleep, short of consistent blood tests to check T levels, is there any other way of determining if I'm not sleeping enough?
     
  5. The best way to tell short of such tests is to quit using alarms. Assuming you are waking up after say 7 hours every morning naturally without an alarm (and assuming noises/light outside weren't what woke you - it's a good idea to wear a sleeping mask and keep windows etc closed to ensure this) //and// feeling on top of your game, then you can be reasonably confident that you're sleeping enough.

    On the other hand if you wake up after 7 hours using an alarm and feel equally well rested - you could still not be getting enough sleep. The fact that your alarm woke you up before you would have naturally woke up, is usually a good sign that you're on the lower end sleep wise, and probably could have done with an hour or two more.
     
    BismaBRJ likes this.
  6. alfred42

    alfred42 Fapstronaut

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    Funny you mention this, because I actually started doing this recently. I noticed that every day I usually get up to go to the bathroom between 6:30 and 8:00.

    I decided to just stay up whenever that happens, and have been waking up like this without an alarm for about a week.

    Does this fall under the umbrella of "waking up naturally," since it is invariably caused by an urge to go to the bathroom.
     
    BismaBRJ likes this.
  7. Robecse

    Robecse New Fapstronaut

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    May I ask you which meditative breathing and eating techniques did you use?
     
  8. ThePeakWae

    ThePeakWae Fapstronaut

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    Since you arent fapping you are wasting less energy so you probably need less sleep, fapping tires your brain and your body, I used to have sugary cravings after one fap, so I can see why you´d sleep less during NoFap.

    However remember stop eating sugary stuff, alcohol and other bad stuff (including caffeine), if you arent doing this, you could pay it in the sleep time, so you gotta keep what you eat in check as well.
     

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