Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Have you got enough sleep?


I sleep a lot, terribly too much.

I sleep 7 hours everyday on weekdays, and slightly more on weekend. I know there are many people who sleep just 5 hours everyday. I must be wasting a lot of time, and I feel very guilty about it.

I don’t always sleep so much, though. A few years ago, when I was a contract engineer for Ericsson in California, I worked nights for many months. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a person who could sleep well during the days, and found it hard to re-adjust to ‘normal life’ on the weekend. I nodded off many times when I was driving back to my hotel after 6 am, and overshot the freeway exit once.

We (the engineers) usually worked from Monday to Friday, but occasionally the clients asked us to work from Sunday to Thursday so that they could be off on Friday evening. We worked at night in order to minimize the impact of possible disruption to cellular networks.

In December that year, Ericsson and one of its clients wanted to close accounts, and the engineers were told to complete as many projects as possible. We worked days and nights, and were soon very exhausted. (Less risky tasks were done during the day.) Then, something went wrong. There was a network outage. Ericsson and the client hold a teleconference to discuss this incident. There were lots of hoo-hah and finger-pointing. Finally, an enlightened manager from the client side said something which I still remember after so many years, “Do not overwork. If you are tired, you make mistake.”

Tell us how many hours you sleep everyday. Do you think you are sleep-deprived?

15 comments:

  1. i am definitely lack of sleep !! =.="
    i slept abt 6 hours every night
    and i think i need at least 8
    i read some where that as ppl aged the hours of rest they need will reduce accordingly... i wonder how true that is, as i still need 8 hours' sleep few years back and now i still need as much ~

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  2. 迷迭香
    You have 7 hours more time than me every week. I am 'jealous' of you!

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  3. I sleep around 8 hours on weekday and more than that on weekends. There is nothing wrong to sleep more hours than others cos 休息是为了要走更长远的路.

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  4. My sleeping hours vary drastically, ranging from 4-8 hours. LOL.

    Sometimes after a period of time suffering from lack of sleep and you suddenly sleep too much to "replace" it, you end up even more tired. Don't you think so?

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  5. About 7 hours for me. Even on weekends, I find it hard to wake up late because the body clock has adjusted to the weekday sleep cycle.

    My wife sleeps 10 hours on weekends but still think she's sleep deprived.

    o.0

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  6. jam
    I feel better after reading you comment :)

    day-dreamer
    You are correct. Sleep is difficult to 'replace'.

    shingo
    I also wake up early on weekends, but may take a nap in the afternoon.

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  7. max: 10 hours...at least ned sleep more than 8 hours...if not ill like 死尸,no energy.

    我是名副其实‘睡虫+懒虫’一只!

    p.s:recently not enough sleep seriously...so tis week 闭关at home!

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  8. i sleep 7-8hours/day, normally from 11pm till 7am on weekday and weekend. Adequate sleeping is very important for me, so that i have energy to settle lots of tasks in the next day!

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  9. christine
    睡得是福 :)

    玲别依依
    I also need to sleep a lot. Otherwise no energy.

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  10. Yeah, 8 hours for me: )
    seem most of ur friends sleep a lot, that means u r normal. haha...no more guilty: )

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  11. I switched my life from working to student... do i have enough sleep? What do you think?... i would say too much sleep for me. hahaha...

    I missed my working life which have lots of night and early morning meeting caused need to work with US During that period, I only sleep for 4-5 hrs. .. Now average i sleep for about 8 hrs :-p

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  12. sinji
    I hope so. No more guilty :)

    tz
    You worked really hard - when you were a working adult. 4-5 hours (-_-")

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  13. i'm so sleep deprived! hahhah

    7hrs?? enough meh?

    but i guess there's a difference..between a good sleep and a bad one

    i wake up at least at least twice everynight, and it's kinda disturbing, and in the morning, i end up zombified. i think i need a better bed! =P

    and i think it's important to get more sleep..i mean..with more rest = u r more rejuvenated = more productive! heheh

    oh btw the camera..hmm..but for entry level..i think d80 is too advanced..n oso..i no moneyy >.< heheh is canon 400d better?

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  14. unfortunately i still can meet my daily requirement!! >.<"

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  15. huei
    My problem is I can't have a good sleep during the day.

    Regarding the camera...
    I am using Canon 350D so I think 400D is fine. Canon also has a 50mm lens cost just RM300 and I like it very much. You can e-mail me for more info...

    迷迭香
    Then you sleep 5 hours a day la :P

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