Can people get by on four hours' sleep?

Better question, does being awake 20 as opposed to 16 hours per day result in getting 25% more accomplished?<p>I tend to put proud claims of little sleep in the same category as those of "working" long hours. We've all met people who are at work for long hours, but whether they are actually working, much less producing is another story.

"There's no correct amount of sleep, says Prof Kevin Morgan, of Loughborough University's sleep research centre. The only rule is to sleep long enough to feel refreshed when you wake up."<p>^That answers the question quite well I believe. Yes, people CAN, but it is uncommon. And anything that is uncommon usually takes a considerable amount of practice. Ms. Thatcher most likely made it a concerted goal to train her self to be fully functional on just 4 hours of sleep over the weekdays. It is stated that she most likely slept longer on weekends, indicating that she was aware of her sleep schedule on weekdays vs. weekends.<p>Things like sleep are studied so much that it is a subject overly-saturated with studies, and that too, conflicting ones. This, more than anything, shows that one's need for sleep can be controlled by him/her. I had a friend in college, he was a junior when I was a freshman. He slept through most of his morning classes and would always tweet that he was napping in the evening. He had amazing grades, though, and good enough interview skills to land him a job as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and he would be working in their most demanding team. In fact, his boss to-be even emailed him saying something like "Make sleep an option, not a requirement". Mike (my friend) took it literally.<p>From the day he got that email in March, he chose to sleep 7 minutes less every 3 days with no naps. By the end of April, he was sleeping about 5.5 hours a night. For the next month, he got even crazier and took off minutes from his sleep on a daily basis. He succeeded and by the time he was at GS, he needed 2hrs 52minutes of sleep per night and was productive the rest. How do I know he was productive? Because after his internship, he was given a personalized offer letter...from the CEO. He had worked on more deals than not only all interns across the world, but more than 98% of current employees.<p>Training our body is something we can do and just like anything, if you work hard at it, you'll more than likely be successful at some point.

Yes, as they said, roughly 1% of the population has this "gift". Although they failed to mention that it's most likely genetic: <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135450214/eight-is-too-much-for-short-sleepers" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135450214/eight-is-too-much-fo...</a>

There was a time a few years ago when I was playing online poker or working on personal projects every evening until about midnight or a little later, then waking up before 5 am to work. Both the work and the poker were fascinating. I had no problems staying awake while doing them, and I did well at both. I didn't even feel tired most of the time.<p>There were some bad effects though. If my immediate task wasn't engaging (a boring task or speech for example), I had to work really hard to stay awake. My typical daily cycle of alert and productive in the morning, and dull and sleepy in the afternoon became much deeper. I felt more creative and congenial during the high points and much more lethargic during the valleys.<p>After a few months, I began to realize another downside. Although I was able to function well tactically on moment-by-moment tasks that required constant attention, my ability to make good strategic decisions really began to suffer. It was as though the effort to deeply think things through long-term went totally down the drain. This began to scare me after a while.<p>Everything changed when I took a new job in a distant city and simultaneously decided to stop playing poker for a while. I lived by myself in a tiny room in the suburbs and rode my bike to work seven miles each way. The new environment, exercise and huge lessening of daily commitments caused me to take things a lot slower. I began reading a lot, reflecting about things, and started sleeping around seven hours a night.<p>I became less manic, definitely healthier, and more peaceful and introspective. I didn't instantly fall asleep when I was bored, but slept very soundly at night. Of course a lot of that could be the result of a simpler, more active life. But I think the increased sleep had a major influence too.<p>I started playing poker again, and I found that I was consistently doing better than before. I started reacquainting myself with math, and could think much more deeply about it.<p>I wonder how this applies to Thatcher? She obviously had a very engaging job, and she seemed able to keep up with the details of her work. But if she had slept more, would she had been less radical, perhaps more conciliatory? Would that have dulled her edge and reduced her achievements or helped her bring more people on board and be less polarizing? Would she had made better long-term decisions? Did the extra hours of wakefulness really help her get more done or was she just trading weekday hours awake for weekend hours asleep?<p>In my own life, I've decided to keep to a longer sleep schedule for now. I'm always tempted to go back to the exciting mania the previous schedule, but for me, the benefits are uncertain and the costs are pretty scary.

I have a hard time believing that anyone can sleep for just 4 hours a night and be completely attentive for the whole day.<p>These days I almost regularly sleep only 4-5 hours a night and I "can take it" but sometimes during the day I practically almost pass out from the tiredness - that passes shortly though and just closing my eyes for a bit helps a lot. And I yawn a lot but then again I do that even if I sleep for 10 hours or what have you.

I <i>wish</i> I could get by on four hours of sleep a night. But my body just doesn't cooperate. If I get less than ~7 hours of sleep over a period of a couple of days, I start to feel absolutely miserable and can't sustain it. I seem to function best on 8 hours, but I can survive on 7. I can do less than 7 for a couple of days in a row, but not consistently for long periods of time.<p>It's depressing, because I would love to use those hours for something more productive than sleep, but what can ya do? I think I should just start taking a nootropic of some sort to make up for it...<p>Good thing there's no PED test for entrepreneurs...

Related blog post: "How I went through burnout because I lacked sleep."

I was living on 4-6 hrs sleep a day for many years, and felt fine, until finally a couple of years ago, it caught up to me. I literally couldn't think straight, I had terrible headaches, I couldn't learn anything new. At one point, I couldn't remember what I did that afternoon, my mind was a blank. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I couldn't remember which toothbrush was mine. I went to the doctor, and she suspected I had a brain tumor, but thankfully the MRI was negative.<p>I decided maybe I should sleep more, and in the middle of the work day, I left at 2pm, and went home and slept 17 hrs straight. Now, I can't stay up later than 1030pm, and if I get less than 7 hrs sleep I feel horrible.

Before we admire Thatcher's sleep minimalism too much, let's not forget the onset of dementia in her 70s (<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7579352.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7579352.stm</a>).

I think this is trade-off. Sleep less every day, you borrow your future time to use it now, you might end up live a shorter life.

I try to put myself in the position to sleep as long as my body needs and I find that I am still groggy after 10 hours (and 7, 8 and 9). Using the Sleep Cycle app I regularly record 10 hours in bed but even getting a 90%+ "sleep quality" score has no impact on how groggy I feel each morning. I doubt my body "needs" more than 10 hours a day and even if I do it isn't feasible for me, or most people. Leads me to suspect that the issue is rather more complex than just the number of hours slept.

I wish I didn't have to sleep, sometimes I feel like it, but most of the time I have to stop doing what I want to do because my brain switches off...

Is there any research (or even opinion pieces) on the difference between spreading sleep evenly over days or catching-up at certain times?<p>I normally aim for a couple of nights a week of full sleep (no alarm clock), and the past week and a half I pushed this - 3-4 hours a night for 9 nights (with an exception of 7 hours once in the middle), which left me needing two really long nights the last couple of days.<p>But is it any better or worse this way? For example the difference between 6 hours a night over the whole week (42 hours total) or 4 hours a night for five days then 11 hours a night for the other two?

You can "get by" with a variety behaviors that have negative health impacts.<p>In the case of sleep, attentiveness isn't the only measure. Sleep deprivation weakens your immune system, lowers testosterone production, and so on.<p>I don't see how being a "functional insomniac" is any more admirable than being a functional alcoholic?

"The only rule is to sleep long enough to feel refreshed when you wake up." Totally agree with this. I guess for me it's 6.

You can <i>get by</i> on four hours, sure. Be as productive as you would be with eight? Probably not.

I currently sleep at 12 PM(Sometimes 1AM) and wake-up at 5AM, and as long as I get my morning breakfast I don't feel any fatigue; thou, on the weekends I need about 12 Hours of sleep, i'ts not that I'm tired but more that I enjoy sleeping ^_^.

Anyone who's been through military boot camp will tell you that you can "get by" on 4 hours of sleep. But there is a reason that Drill Instructors exert baby-sitter like control over their recruits.

This is something new I recently learnt about myself. The body tends to fit to whatever conditions you force it into. Of course there is limit and it can shut itself down, but I think sleeping less won't do it.<p>I too thought I need more sleep, or 7 hours at least. Then I had couple late nights when my sleep was in 5 hours bracket and it felt weird how good I feel, how wired I am during the day. So, I suggest you at least try sleep less (6 or 5) and see how you feel daily. Do it for one week at least to make sure you give your body space to get used to it and adjust.