Poll: Number of Sleep Hrs to Feel Good?

Lots of newbies who might find this interesting. This is for xPAP users who have started getting restful, refreshing sleep.

Hey there, Muse.

I still need 8-9 hours sleep to feel good. Also needs to be roughly same time each day - cannot be any old 8-9 hours.

Rather tired today, since I had a late evening call to attend, and got my 8 hours 12-8am. No good. Needs to be approximately 9.30 or 10.30 onwards. It's a curse, but works!

I am THRILLED that I can now feel good on 8 hours of sleep! Prior to CPAP, I needed at least 9 to function and 10 to feel fairly good. This is my best measure that CPAP works for me - I can't claim to feel lots more energetic but I can claim to need less sleep.

If I can get over 7 hours a night, as reported by my machine, I do very well the next day. Anything less than 7 and I start dragging before the day is over. When I get 8 or more (a few times a week for the past two months), I get through most of the ToDos on my list, and I am satisfied and my family is appreciative. My goal is to get at least 7 machine hours a night. The sleep hours must also be consistent for me to get a restful sleep. For me, that means going to bed around 11PM and getting up after 6AM. If I go to bed at midnight, I know I will be in "trouble" as my body's biorhythms, being out of sync, will have me laying in bed awake longer during the night plus I will have to get up more often for a "bathroom" break.

Feel best with 8-9 hours sleep with AHI of less than 3. OSA is not my only challenge to feeling good, so may need a little extra sleep to feel better.

elg5cats

Must be a vampire since my body only needs between 5 and 6 hours per night. With the CPAP, I only have to use it for 5 hours before waking up refreshed. Usually, I am in the gym 5am. It is good being an early riser.

I need 6 - 6 1/2 hrs to feel good. When I started it took a while to get the pressure right but felt great within a few days of getting the right pressure.

Brenda

The age of the person is also important.
The older we get the less sleep is needed.

I get along fine with 6.5 (if its GOOD sleep - no meds - plenty of dreams). When I was younger, I needed 7.5.

Also, too much sleep is unhealthy.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 20,00.html

Jay

I'm not sure yet how much I need. I am still running out of steam early in the evening but maybe I am still catching up on my sleep. I hope this is the case because I want to feel better than this, I feel better but I want more! I have a lot of problems with daylight savings time. My body just does not like to get up at 6 (which is actually 5) and it doesn't matter that the amount of sleep in hours is the same. If I could live by my body rhythms I would get up at 8am and go to bed at 11pm. So I guess 9 hours is good for me.

I found that it depends on which mask I'm wearing. Even though the data shows no noticeable difference, I have more pep with less sleep using the Optilife than with the Liberty.

Seems like I'm fine with 7. But I noticed something interesting looking at results over the past few months. On days when I take an afternoon nap, for some reason, I show more AI activity the evening after the nap. I'll need to grab my stats and post this finding in another thread

Maybe there is an optimal level for each of us after all.

GaryG wrote

On days when I take an afternoon nap, for some reason, I show more AI activity the evening after the nap.

I discovered the same cause/effect relationship during the first two months (April & May '09) of tracking my nightly results as I was continuing to take a nap (always with CPAP) every afternoon or every 2nd afternoon, the same nap schedule that I had followed pre-CPAP. In late May, I came across a post by Muffy on Good Sleep Hygiene and it finally dawned on me that afternoon naps were NOT good for me as they disrupted my sleep at night. I took my last nap on May 27th and haven't missed them (other than the first couple weeks when I got sleepy early in the evening, say 6PM).

I appreciate having the extra 60 - 75 minutes in the afternoon where I can do something other than sleep. About the end of May, I also made some other discoveries (PSA, etc.) and changes (no late night snaking, especially sugary snacks) and my AHI dropped below 1 and my restful sleep hours lengthened (started to hit the magic 7 hours/night).

I had always been a napper (likely due to my undiagnosed mild ==> moderate Sleep Apnea for over 20 years) and had adopted the view that Naps were Good. Reading Muffy's postings had convinced me that he was extremely knowledgeable on Sleep Apnea issues so when he posted his Sleep Hygiene recommendations in May, I accepted them as FACT and made them my new sleep preparation habits. Thanks Muffy.

fsmitty wrote:Must be a vampire since my body only needs between 5 and 6 hours per night. With the CPAP, I only have to use it for 5 hours before waking up refreshed. Usually, I am in the gym 5am. It is good being an early riser.

I was a bit of a vampire myself, in college in the 80's. I was doing about 3 hours a night, and used to joke about overcoming my sleep addiction. In 1988, I "lost" about a third of a year, with near complete memory loss, and ended up dropping out in 1989, totally burned out. It took years for my memory to fully recover. At the time, my doctors said they thought it may have been side effects from large doses of alpha and beta blockers for a severe blood pressure issue. Others told me I may have had a stroke. Ten years later, I was diagnosed with OSA. I think I had gotten used to not sleeping for over a decade.

5 to 6 may be enough for you, but I'm a happy hozer with an 8 hour a day habit now.

So have chosen "7" on the poll above, I will say that sleeping 10 hours and 48 minutes like I did last night did not make me feel good. For the first couple of hours up at least. And here I am only about 11 hours later and I'm still tired again.

I selected 7 hours but usually get something around 7.3 to 7.8. I feel good most days even if I do not get more than 6 hours. Interestingly, the more active I am during the day the better I feel the next day but having a desk job makes it difficult to be active during the work week so I need to use my tredmill after dinner to make up for any inactivity during the day. If I am inactive or take an unintended nap while watching TV, I usually feel poorly the next day regardless of the number of hours of sleep I get. My sense of it all is being active in the day makes for a good night's sleep and a good day following. Inactivity during the day makes for a poor night's sleep and a poor day following. I am not certain it really matters how many hours of sleep I get. However, all of my sleep is with APAP therapy (except for those troublesome unintended naps - thank goodness I'm not watching any Red Sox games until the Spring because this year those games did put me to sleep).