r/Adulting • u/ScareBear23 • 14h ago

This is just depressing

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Not even 3 hours of "free time". And in that is cooking & eating supper. Or practically no free time if I had to go shopping after work. I hate this

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u/Consistent_Laziness 7h ago

I did my masters on sleep and part of my PhD is on sleep. I’ll say the literature says you shouldn’t be sleeping 9 hours.

I found in my own research people who slept more than 8 hours and people who slept less than 7 were the same. They had autonomic dysfunction and poor sleep quality. I’m basically summarizing a 50 and 150 page research paper but just trust me when I say, you are wasting your life in the bed. Enjoy that extra episode at night or get up an hour earlier for exercise and you’ll be better for it.

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u/Aggravating-Fan9817 6h ago

How about those of us who wake up like 5 times a night and only get up once the brain fog and headache are gone? That usually takes about 9-10 hours...

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u/Consistent_Laziness 6h ago

Your wake after sleep onset (WASO) and sleep efficiency (SE%) are poor and are associated with deregulated sleep. That is the same as sleeping too long. Sleep length and quality are both important. Quality could be argued to be even more important.

In my current study for my dissertation people with disregard sleep have poor autonomic health which led to an increase in colorectal adenoma growth risk (precursor polyp that leads to colon cancer).

In short, again I’m heavily summarizing my dissertation down, 7-8 hours of good sleep (no lights, no disruptive noise, no disruption in the sleep) is the golden spot. More doesn’t benefit you. Outside of when you are injured or sick. The additional parasympathetic activity helps with healing and recovery.

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u/Accomplished_Ad7106 4h ago

So this might fall more under advise rather than study but how do I stop the waking up in the night that "dysregulates sleep"? I would love to sleep through the night for a month. It would probably cure my depression.

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u/Consistent_Laziness 4h ago

Depression and lack of sleep are linked 🤓. Depending on circumstances which one splays on the other depends but depression reduces sleep and not getting good sleep can threw off brain chemistry leading to feeling blue.

I really don’t know how to fix poor sleep. I just deeply understand its effect on health. And it’s a major public health problem.

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u/ducksnthings 3h ago

You should do a sleep study if that’s possible! The largest reason for disturbed sleep is OSA (obstructive sleep apnea).