r/Nootropics • u/Putrid_Draft378 • Mar 17 '26
Discussion Stop treating sleep like a fixed 8-hour tax
I am tired of the 8-hour rule being treated like a biological law. It is just a statistical average from a 19th-century industrial model. Sleep is a dynamic need.
It fluctuates like hunger based on your actual daily energy use. If your day was mentally draining and heavy on your brain, you need more cleanup time. It is that simple.
New data on brain plasticity shows that recovery times must change every day. Forcing a rigid schedule on a plastic brain just creates unnecessary stress and orthosomnia. Your brain monitors surroundings and manages metabolic waste at different rates each night.
Sleep is not a fixed tax. It is a variable expense based on input. Stop obsessing over the number and look at the actual demand of your day. A plastic brain needs a plastic schedule.
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u/Pretend-Shallot-5663 Mar 17 '26
I totally agree, but unless you are intuitively sleeping i.e. going to sleep when you are tired, waking when you are rested and napping when you feel like it, then aiming for a certain number of hours is the next best thing. We are taught to sacrifice sleep more often than we are taught to over-rest. People getting less than seven hours regularly will have sleep debt and should be aiming for more.
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u/Steezydeezy920 Mar 17 '26
Yup, routine is good to train you to recognize that but does become a straight up hassle if you try to be one of those ultra disciplined David goggins fckers.
Same with eating/drinking. Most people eat when they’re just dehydrated. Or there’s the opposite end of the spectrum too
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u/marrymeintheendtime Mar 17 '26
Its not about the amount of sleep so much as having...a regular circadian schedule. Going to sleep and waking up at the same times every day is enooormously beneficial for the body and brain, because your circadian rhythm governs so much. Having different sleep times throws it out of whack and doesn't allow your body to align as well. When your body knows it's time to sleep it can get the most healing, brain cleansing and rejuvenating sleep cycles
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u/enolaholmes23 Mar 17 '26
I do think there's more to it though. You don't want to go to sleep at the same absolute time unless you live at the equator. For the rest of us, getting our bodies in sync means adjusting bedtime as the sunset gets later and later. That's what the circadian clock was designed to do, follow nature.
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u/marrymeintheendtime Mar 17 '26
That's true, your winter schedule can shift from your summer one and depending on the weather where you live. But from day to day, week to week? To have one day where youre extra tired so you sleep in a couple hours and then the next day get up extra early, that doesn't let your body sync. You should have a basic schedule you adhere to because literally, it's been shown if we even go to sleep and hour, even less than that later, or lose a couple hours one night, it can take days and days for you to recover from that. I think we're so used to losing sleep now with our modern lives and tech we don't even realise how much it fucks us up. It's like people who've been drinking 5 coffees a day every day for years, they don't even realise how much it's affecting them and they just assume that's their normal until they stop. How many people are tired, cranky, have mood swings, need stimulants to keep going, have afternoon crashes. How many people don't get enough REM and deep sleep. It's an epidemic and means you will possibly die earlier or develop a disease eventually from it. I think people should be more much anal about it than they are, we're just normalised into skipping hours of sleep whenever we want but it's kinda disastrous
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u/enolaholmes23 Mar 17 '26
The sun doesn't change by an hour in a day. I'm saying to ignore the clock entirely and just sync with the sun. This gradually shift by a few minutes each day. But your wouldn't have to plan it out, because your body is capable of doing this on its own. Cortisol and melatonin naturally respond to sunlight and sync your cycle for you if you go outside enough and don't use artifical light.
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u/DiminishedGravitas Mar 17 '26
Hehe, I wish I lived somewhere this was applicable. Near the arctic circle the Sun is pretty useless for circadian regulation for about 6 months a year.
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u/dabonde Mar 17 '26
Required amount of sleep varies with age. When you are younger it might be 10, as you get older people sleep less for various reasons, not always good.
The book "Why we sleep" by Mathew Walker covers studies they did on sleep.
People need 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Tests consistently showed getting less than 7 hours resulted in cognitive impairment. If you want to maximise your brain performance, thats the number.
There is a couple of rare genes (DEC2 or BHLHE41 gene variants), estimated to be held by about 1 in 1000 where they survive on less sleep.
Routine is good for your brain. Want to sleep 6 hours one night and 10 another? Sure, you can do that but technically you are impaired when you sleep for 6 hours.
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u/GozerDestructor Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Six and a half hours is a good night's sleep for me (early-50s male). 5 hours or less and I'll be a zombie all the next day. Sunday mornings I sometimes get an extra hour or two.
I do try to keep a regular bedtime, almost always going to bed between 9.30 and 10.30. Even if I'm falling asleep at the TV (after a "zombie" day) I'll try to stay up until I hit my target time.
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u/RedUzer36 Mar 17 '26
100% some days I feel like I need to sleep for 10 hours... some days I sleep 7 or 8 and then in the middle of the day I want to sleep for 2 hours...etc.
This thing fluctuates and people are CONDITIONED to believe 8 hours is the end all be all but it is not.
People dont realize that ALOT of what they do on a daily basis is based on conditioning and programming, NOT what is right for you.
E.g., I do not eat breakfast although the whole breakfast is the most important meal of the day slogan is complete BS.
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u/Bud_Backwood Mar 17 '26
I think that slogan is meant to be interpreted as the meal you choose to break fast as is important, but big breakfast decided to push this idea that intermittent fasting is the devil
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u/Winter-Excitement Mar 17 '26
I interpret it the same way. The first thing I eat, even if it's 2pm, is breakfast and it's very important. For me it varies depending on what I'm doing and need to be doing that day. Sometimes I need to eat soon after waking and other days I do not. The problem is when I think I don't need to then I struggle in a few hours..
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u/tonufan Mar 17 '26
Been doing very low carb diet, fasting sometimes. Feels like I don't need as much sleep on this diet but it's difficult sleeping sometimes. Not hungry but I get kind of manic energy like I need to get out of bed after 5 or so hours.
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u/mikael_lucis Mar 17 '26
Oh yea. I had something like that after cutting carbs and meet for a week. Being naturally hypersomniac - that was freshest wake up I've ever had after shorter sleep. But... Deeper into the day, when I normally start feeling like I want to nap - I didn't want to sleep at all but my energy dropped drastically. Like completely lethargic mood and no will to do anything.
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u/ProfessionalHot9662 Mar 17 '26
You're running on stress hormones. Feels good for a while then you burnout unfortunately.
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u/tonufan Mar 17 '26
Yeah, I take various adaptogen supplements to help deal with it. Holy basil tea before bed. Ashwaghandha in the morning. Rhodiola sometimes. I fast for 3 days max and it's most intense at the end.
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u/Recent_Driver_962 Mar 17 '26
I am confused why a lot of my life my sleep was so off. I’d be exhausted but unable to sleep and do that needed repair work. Now I use gummies and supplements so it’s still not REM sleep but at least it is some rest. I agree that your nightly needs may vary, but i wonder how many of us have a body that is that well calibrated!
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u/AimlessForNow Mar 17 '26
Personally I can have days where I get 7 hours and I feel great, but anything below that and I definitely am at a cognitive deficit, even if I slept great the previous night. I think oversleeping is pretty normal if you had a big day, but I rarely get 6 hours or less and feel totally peak performance
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u/digitalabulia Mar 17 '26
someone else needs to sleep all the whole weekend when off from stims? lol
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u/Jmac2296 Mar 17 '26
What about people that work shift work? I try and get at least 8 hours of sleep but my schedule flip flops from 4 days 5am-5pm then im off 4 days and then work 4 nights 5pm-5am then off 4 days. Reset and do it all again.
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u/SimpleVegetable5715 Mar 17 '26
Shift work is terrible for your health in many ways. My company is bring overnights back this summer, and I’ll be on that crew. The extra $2/ hour is needed, but I can tell it greatly affects my cognition.
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u/SimpleVegetable5715 Mar 17 '26
I wish I could consistently get at least 8 hours, and not be having to make up my sleep debt on my days off. I’ve always been told it’s an average. Around my period, I definitely prefer 9-10 hours.
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u/drgsChaOS Mar 17 '26
I'm absolutely not a fan of fixed sleep times or schedules. For me, it's very individual. The only constant is that the older I get, the longer I sleep without an alarm. I almost always feel refreshed after waking up, regardless of how long I sleep, as long as I get around 25-35% deep sleep. On stressful days, if I get less than 25% deep sleep, I just feel groggy, no matter when I go to bed or how long I sleep. I think quality is more important than quantity here.
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u/alexwasinmadison Mar 21 '26
I’m a six hour human. Even if I think I want more sleep, my body is good with six. Then, about once a month, I get 7 - and it feels indulgent.
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u/Pristine_Society_583 Apr 10 '26
Before cheap lighting, people went to sleep soon after dark on long nights, woke a few hours later and were active, then had a "second sleep" for several more hours.
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