Meditators: How many hours a night do you sleep?

A place to discuss casual topics amongst spiritual friends.
Post Reply

What is your AVERAGE number of hours of sleep per night?

4.5 hours or less
0
No votes
5.0 hours
0
No votes
5.5 hours
1
6%
6.0 hours
4
25%
6.5 hours
3
19%
7.0 hours
3
19%
7.5 hours
0
No votes
8.0 hours
3
19%
8.5 hours
1
6%
9 hours or more
1
6%
 
Total votes: 16

User avatar
Tex
Posts: 703
Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:46 pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Meditators: How many hours a night do you sleep?

Post by Tex »

I've heard that a serious meditation practice can reduce the number of hours of sleep that one requires to function well. I'm curious what the average amount of sleep is for our members.

Please vote and feel free to post your personal stats for hours of sleep, how long you've been meditating, and so on.

I've been sitting regularly for about a year-and-a-half and I sleep around 6.5 hours on average (about 6 during the week and closer to 7.5 on Sat and Sun).
"To reach beyond fear and danger we must sharpen and widen our vision. We have to pierce through the deceptions that lull us into a comfortable complacency, to take a straight look down into the depths of our existence, without turning away uneasily or running after distractions." -- Bhikkhu Bodhi

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." -- Heraclitus
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22441
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: Meditators: How many hours a night do you sleep?

Post by Ceisiwr »

I voted 6.5

I used to need more but its less now


I will admit though i am partial to some extra sleep on weekends, but this is extra i dont need it

I have been practicing meditation for about year and half roughly



Metta
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
User avatar
AdvaitaJ
Posts: 234
Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2009 1:17 am
Location: Michigan, USA

Re: Meditators: How many hours a night do you sleep?

Post by AdvaitaJ »

I'm a "7" kinda guy. Weekdays I get in about 40 minutes meditating on the way to work plus another 30 walking over lunch time. However, the seven hours of "sleep" includes a period of being awake in the middle of the night that can last anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour depending. I only just realized today that I'm "problem solving" when I'm awake in the night.

Regards: AdvaitaJ
The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.
Li Bai
User avatar
zavk
Posts: 1161
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:04 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Meditators: How many hours a night do you sleep?

Post by zavk »

Oh man.... I love to sleep! :) :zzz:

8 hours on the average for me. Sitting regularly for coming to 4 years has not made me sleep less... :embarassed:
With metta,
zavk
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Meditators: How many hours a night do you sleep?

Post by Ben »

Hi all

At the moment its around 5.5 hours per night during the week. Sometimes during the weekend it can be a little more.
When I'm more physically active I require more sleep.
I sit for anywhere between 90min and 3 hours per day.
I first began meditating in 1985.
Metta

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27848
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Meditators: How many hours a night do you sleep?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

10:30pm to 7:00am for me.

Interestingly though, I might sleep a bit less when on holidays. Being away from work seems to have more bearing on how much sleep I need than meditation.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
Cittasanto
Posts: 6646
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:31 pm
Location: Ellan Vannin
Contact:

Re: Meditators: How many hours a night do you sleep?

Post by Cittasanto »

It varies, the least amount was about 5hrs while I was on retreat, but it depends normally I will get 6 but that varies with the amount of phisical work I am doing
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
Post Reply