Something's wrong.

[LMNO]

I think cainads got it right. It's "uninterrupted" sleep that gives benefits.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hey, does anybody have any insights on this?

If I sleep about 7 hours straight through, I'm good. If I sleep a few hours, get fully awakened for some reason, go back to sleep after that and sleep the remaining hours, I still feel like I had a four hour night the next day. My brain doesn't work right. I start to say things and forget the fucking point I was trying to make, even if I slept 7 or even 8 hours total.

What the fuck is that?

It's because if you were awakened out of the wrong part of sleep, it essentially interrupted a 3-hour sleep rhythm, so that you functionally lose far more than the amount of sleep you missed.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.sleepdex.org/stages.htm

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I think cainads got it right. It's "uninterrupted" sleep that gives benefits.

Nope. It's the phase of sleep that you are disturbed or awakened at.

You can get sufficient uninterrupted sleep but wake up in the deepest phase of sleep and feel groggy all day.

You can also get disturbed in the middle of the night during a light sleep cycle and also wake up in the lightest phase of sleep and feel fucking fantastic.

I've developed a fairly reliable formula for myself: I set my alarm based on a total sleep time that is perfectly divisible by 90 minutes. So if I have to get up at 10am and it's 3am now, I divide that 7 hours or 420 minute span by 90 minutes which is 4.666666. I lop off the decimals and sleep for 4 combined increments of 90 minutes which is 360 minutes or 6 hours.

While it seems counter-intuitive to sleep 6 hours rather than 7, I'm fairly confident that my sleep cycles are close to 90 minutes because after 6 or 7.5 hours of sleep I feel superb. But if I wake up in between those 90 minute intervals I tend to feel sluggish all day. Even if I'm not going to get remotely enough sleep, if I stick to my 90 minute plan I wake up feeling outstanding. I'll still run out of gas later in the day, of course, but at least the first part of the day goes great. And if I hit the 7.5 hour mark exactly, the day is mine.

Edit: basic fucking grammar and adjective variety

[P3nT4gR4m]

Holy fuck, you've really given this a lot of thought haven't you? 

I wish I was that organised. I just crash out whenever and wake up when the alarm goes and sometimes I feel like shit and sometimes I feel okay. Of course sometimes I'm drunk...

[navkat]

Without reading the rest of the thread, just the OP, I think ALLLL of this goes away when you check off #4.

Please adopt somebody. Please. I know it's heartwrenching that you can't make your own progeny right now. Okay. Getting past that, you *can* change the world more profoundly than you know. All your ideas, all your brilliance, your musical soul, your youness, all of these can be shared and imparted on a child not of your own blood in a way no less profound than a beloved educator touches, changes and influences his protege. More so.

I don't know you in-person yet but the you I do know through your writing, perspective, music...there are volumes in you. What a waste, what a damned waste if you don't leave that with somebody. What a waste if that doesn't exist anymore in the world my own son inherits.

I mean it; even if you can't do it in Boston so you have to move out-of-state and find new jobs and take a paycut and things are hard for awhile. Find a kid who needs you two and give him these things. Build him up. Make him a thinker and a lover and a dancer like you.

<3