Does not-enough-sleep negatively-impact your mental health during the week?
 

That time between Friday evening and late Sunday afternoon (unless you work weekends/have other commitments that hold you up) is there for you to do whatever you want when it comes to sleep hygiene (whether that’s going from one high rave to the next with Red Bull and a Saturday pick-me-up Nandos as a sleep equivalent or lying in your dream-den for 20 or 40 hours) and it’s probably okay once or twice a week (kind of - no-one really cares either way) but how do you find your mental health to be impacted (for good and/or bad) when you don’t get a good 7 or 8 hours during the working/study week? Can you still plough on for 8/12 hours with nothing more than a morning Joe and feel alright or do you feel drained and anxious?

I have between 4 and 5 interrupted hours each weekday night ... I’ve always been like this and it’s no problem

I do sleep better Friday / Sat and even have a lie-in and afternoon snoozes at the weekend .

There is a theory that too much ( 8 hours)
is not good for you ..


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9 times out of 10 I get 8 hours, I hate not being able to get to sleep so I make sure I am tired, if I nap during the day I always feel worse after and it always impacts how much I sleep at night so I don't do that generally unless I am ill

Exercise, good diet, sleep are all key to good mental health

Have never heard that 8 hours can be bad for you :suspect:

I always try and get that, I can manage on just a few hours but I don't feel great for it especially once it gets to late afternoon. I'm not feeling too with it today because the heat made for a pretty interrupted sleep last night compared to my usual blissful slumber

How is 8 hours (the gold standard) bad for you?

What kinda Steve Harvey-inspired nonsense is that one?

I've always since being at school slept for 6 hours every night, give or take a few minutes either way.

It's never affected my schooling, work or social life at all.

If however due to maybe emergency issues where I haven't been able to sleep at usual time.
That can affect me for a day or two afterwards.

"negatively-impact your mental health"

do mean feel tired?

Generally speaking I'll get 8/8 and a half hours sleep on weeknights but If I don't for some reason I can't function properly at all. I need a proper sleep, 4-5 hours would not cut it for me

I love a sneaky nap :fan: I could sleep for an hour during the day and still have no problems sleeping all night too. I love sleep :lovedup:

Sleep deprivation affects a lot more than just energy levels.

So no. I don’t just mean “tired.”

I hear that. I think ample sleep is one of those things (not too unlike vitamin D, for example) that we all need very decent amounts of but don’t always get as much as we need of, knowingly or not.

Personally I’ve always been a night owl (still am to this day) and in some ways I wouldn’t have it any other way (I think it makes me more creative for one thing) but if I’ve got to be up particularly early in the morning I still don’t drift off until 2/3 a.m. on average (and that’s quite early for me). I can make the most of that pattern on Friday and Saturday nights obviously because then I can enjoy what those ambient hours have to offer without getting irritated by noise (I don’t mind it that much but I think better when the environment around me’s serene and quiet) and not have to bear the consequences the next morning as such (unless I’ve actually got to be somewhere early on a Saturday morning but even then the vibe’s more chilled so I don’t feel as drained at any point during the weekend).

In practice I do kind of get by with 3/4 hours of sleep when I have to (it’s not that uncommon for me) but it doesn’t feel that good. With it without coffee I can power through but I’m always thinking about when next I can hop into bed and I just feel less equipped to deal with daily stressors (especially first thing on a Monday morning) on days like that compared to when I get at least 6-and-a-half hours.

How much did you say you slept in on Friday/Saturday nights again, Niamh? I actually can’t remember but I do kind of know you’re about as fond of staying up and sleeping in some as I am in some way.

And we have a dissertation for a post on a Tuesday morning. Ouch.

Kudos to you if you get through all that, Niamh.

Does not-enough-sleep negatively-impact your mental health during the week?
 

This was the first search result but there’s hundreds more online ..

Who’s to say that 8 is the magic number .. we are told to eat 5 a day fruit / veg yet many other countries recommend 7 or more

https://amp.dw.com/en/think-8-hours-...ain/a-61661946


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Mhm. The good thing with the way my sleep’s set up these days is that I don’t get any of that weird phenomena (nightmares/funny dreams - that I can remember the next day anyway, sleep paralysis) that used to hit me back in the day so when I’m sleeping I know I can just zen out and genuinely not have a conscious care in the world (at least that I’ll actually remember) for as long as I need to. I love how sleep just gives you that opportunity to unwind in the fullest sense of the term and not be bothered by anything or anyone for a solid couple of hours.

Is 6 hours the way you like it on weekends as well?

At the weekend I'll stay up till maybe 1:30am/2ish and I probably won't get up till 10:30/11ish. I'll often have a nap during the day at some point too especially if I've had a few drinks the night before

‘In other words, getting four hours of sleep ahead of a big meeting cannot be "made up" by sleeping 10 hours the next night.’

Maybe not but it sure as hell feels good. There doesn’t always have to be some sort of empirically-backed motivation for doing things (and no disrespect to that article but as far as empirical research goes it wasn’t that representative in any more than a preliminary sense as far as I can see). Sometimes things just are what they are for different people. Whether they end up being the healthiest for the average person (according to whatever measures they use to ascertain who that might even be) is up for debate, I suppose, but if you have a catalogue of missing sleep hours that have accumulated throughout the week because of deadlines, day-to-day weekday worries or work, being able to sleep for 9 or 10 hours (not that I per se could sleep for that long without breaking it up some) imaginably does feel pretty good. And it’s probably no unhealthier than treating yourself to takeaways and a bit of drink (or whatever your vices are) for a day and a half at the end of the week. I feel like it’ll just depend on how much sleep the individual person needs and wants at the end.

Yeah, Saturday naps are awesome. And the thing with Saturdays is even if I happen to wake up on the earlier side of the AM I’m still not going to leave my bed if I don’t have to until near enough noon (unless I need to pop to the shops or something). I’m partial to starting early on Saturdays if it’s a long day out I want but without some sort of tangible reason like that I’d never just jump out of bed first thing on a Saturday morning. There’s enough of that going on during the week.

if you work regular hours then i think its important that the rest of your day follows a regular routine. The exact amount of sleep necessary is an individual thing. If people feel tired, they will sleep more

For people who dont work regular hours then they can just set their day out as they see fit, it will balance out in the end

then you need to state what you mean by affecting your mental health as its way too vague a term

you may as well say if you dont get enough sleep do you feel tired?

yes

That’s not the only thing I’m trying to say though. You can interpret it that way if that’s the way you want it but some people might have pre-existing conditions that sleep deprivation makes worse. And in any case you may or may not feel especially tired after a rough night (or shift equivalent/whatever it is) but still have difficulties with concentration and mood either way. All that stuff falls under the banner of mental health when it’s connected with sleep deprivation.

Sleep is for wimps

Cool.

If have "mental health" issues then its probably not a good idea to:

"whether that’s going from one high rave to the next with Red Bull and a Saturday pick-me-up Nandos as a sleep equivalent or lying in your dream-den for 20 or 40 hours"

what ever that actually means

one imagines