I think in general, people who play games obsessively tend to have pretty rubbish sleep patterns. Especially if you happen to be into some sort of shooter like Titanfall or any online experience for that matter that involved competition like League of Legends or Dota. So let’s talk about sleep.
How many hours do you sleep a night? Do you have to wake up early? Have a job that allows for sleep ins? Anyone on polyphasic sleep?
Do you nap? Do you fall asleep easily? Let us know in the comments below.
My sleep patterns are a bit disturbed since I have a 15 month old that doesn’t like to sleep through the night. I usually go to bed pretty early since I have to wake up 5.45am, but Dark Souls II has changed that for the worse!
Naps? I hate them, I hate the feeling of waking up from a nap, but I have found myself taking them at the weekend. The other day I went to bed at 6.30pm and slept right through. Oh man. That was sort of awesome.
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52 responses to “Off Topic: Sleeping Patterns”
Yeah – Titanfall certainly kept me up a bit later last night than was sensible.
Depends who im gaming with and what were playing… Titanfall usually has us heading to bed by about 11:30pm, whereas games DayZ keep us up past 12:30am…
Im out of bed by 7:30am, but Im never asleep before 1-1:30am… even when i head to bed at 11:30, im usually up watching TV Shows.
I’ve been playing by myself (which is getting less and less viable), but I’ve found Titanfall has a real ‘one more game’ problem because the rounds are so short.
join us! add me on origin!
Done. I warn you though, I am truly terrible.
this is me playing… i bring new meaning to the word terrible. Dictionaries will start printing the definition with my picture right next to the word in future editions.
just accepted your invite! most likely jumping on tonight at around 8:30pm AEST (melbourne)
also if you havent got it, get TeamSpeak…
I’m a light sleeper who can’t sleep easily. Takes over an hour to fall asleep. I can’t sleep in a bed that’s not my own. I can’t sleep in strange surrounds. I can’t sleep during the day. I can’t nap. Sleeping is the worst. 🙁
10 till 6 for me or a grumpy man I will be. (This will have to change when i have kids)
Nah it’s perfect. I have 3 kids and they’re all down by 8, they wake around 6. So if you’re going to be at 10, you get 2hrs of ‘adult time’, go to bed and wake up at just the right time.
So you’re all good.
5-6 hours a night for me and I still manage to go to the gym 4-5 times a week. I find that the fitter I become, the less sleep I need 😀
That’s awesome, good on you.
I’m exactly the same, except without the gym or any fitness whatsoever :P. In my heart I expect that if I could just do more exercise I wouldn’t feel like rubbish all day, but it’s just too low on the priority list.
It used to be low on my priority list too but trust me, it’s worth it 🙂 I used to be 23kg’s heavier and losing that weight has made me feel so much better. 30 mins a day is all you need 😀
I go to the gym twice a week and karate training twice a week (occasionally more).
Despite the fact I’m usually exhausted afterwards, I tend to sleep worse then than I do on nights when I’ve done nothing 😛
Haha, good luck! I’ve been a PT for 10 years and most of the recovery from exercise is down whilst sleeping, so most would recommend at least 7hrs (more like 8) for good results.
So keep it going man, but if you start to plateau or burn out, that would be one of the first things I’d look at.
I’m usually 12am-7am weekdays and 2/3am-10/11am on weekends. Never nap, mainly due to wearing contact lenses most of the time and is a hassle to take them out.
Usually go to bed around midnight and wake up at 7. Sometimes I fall asleep quickly but usually I fall asleep around 1.
I blame gaming. I used to sit up til 3 or 4 gaming when I didn’t have a job. Though that was 13 years ago but I still haven’t been able to adjust my internal clock.
Get about 5/6 hours normally – go to bed about 11/11:30 alarms start going off at 5:30.
Tis normal for me tho, don’t sleep. at all if I try for more.
I suffer from (insert self diagnosis here:) some form of circadian rhythm problem which means that over time I fall asleep / get tired later and later each night. Unfortunately I have to get up at 6:30 M-F for work which means that I get less and less sleep each night.
On a good / normal night I’ll get between 7.5 and 6 hours sleep and I’m perfectly able to function on that. Over time I’ll get down to around 3 hours of sleep which is when I’m really suffering. It usually culminates in me sleeping for around 18 hours at which point we can restart the whole shebang and it’ll loop around. Don’t want sleeping pills, have used melatonin supplements with limited success.
Was recently saying to a colleague (after a night of 2 hours sleep) that I don’t really remember the last time I wasn’t tired. I’m just so used to it by this point. And of course every time it gets so bad that I think “Yep, this is the time I’m going to actually see a doctor about it” I end up getting myself back on track (like I am currently) and I forget about it until the next episode.
I’ve been getting to bed at about 1am for the last year due to work, sleeping in till 6.30am. When you work for yourself, your boss is an asshole. I have to find a better balance.
I’m now trying to readjust my sleep schedule to get to bed before 11pm, try to wake up at 5.30am so I can get a walk in the morning, but that hasn’t been successful. There alway seems to be a child related interruption at night too, something involving crying to wake me up at 3am until all the kids are back to sleep and happy. Yesterday I tried to sleep in till 7.30am – but my daughter would have none of that – jumping on me and poking me in the ribs until I got up.
I think I’m going to just go to sleep when the kids do at 8.30pm for a few days, just to see how it feels.
Haha, this has been an issue for me lately. Well, moreso than usual. I went through a massive sleep deprivation thing a couple of weeks ago working on a project, which has kinda screwed me up a bit. Yesterday I slept for less than three and a half hours for no reason, while usually I’ll oversleep for nine or ten. When school or work is a thing it tends to be more like 5-7 depending on how good I am at going to bed when I need to. And when I do, how good I am at falling asleep, which usually isn’t very.
Probably 6 or 7 hours, I have a 3 year old who wakes at 6:15 on the dot -.- I have 4 precious gaming hours after she goes to bed before I do.
I try not to play games after a certain time because I don’t want them to keep me awake, but I still have a terrible sleeping pattern. Laying in bed for hours being unable to sleep and finally dropping off at 3 – 4 in the morning is pretty usual for me. Then I end up sleeping through to 1 or something the next day. Even back when I had to get up at quarter to 7 for TAFE I still wasn’t dropping off till about 3 in the morning.
About a month ago I finally got a good sleeping pattern going. Asleep by 9.30 – 10 and then up by 6.30 – 7. That lasted for about a week before I ended up getting a cold that made getting to sleep difficult and waking up and getting out of bed even more difficult, and I ended up back on my old terrible sleeping pattern.
I find it’s better to get up and get out of bed when I can’t sleep. If I lay there the bed gets warm and uncomfortable. I also get a little rested which makes it even harder to go to sleep. My eyes adjust to the dark too so it’s like trying to sleep with the light on. However if I realise I’m not ready to sleep yet and go find a distraction I’ll have more luck with a second attempt to go to sleep.
I’ve got a 15 month old as well, who, fortunately, sleeps through the night way more often than not. I’m also lucky enough to be one of those people that can just fall asleep without any issues. I catch my bus to work at 7:15am so I’m usually up at about 6:45. My nights I pack in time with my son and wife, gym, dinner, some chores and then kiddo’s bedtime. Once all of that’s done, I play some games; so I usually don’t get to bed until 11-11:30ish.
Hey Serrels, how’s your kid going with teeth? We’ve just cut our first molar and it caused some average nights sleep. Apparently the eye teeth (pointy ones) are worse though. Yay…
I usually live on around 7 hours a night. Then I’ll find a game I become obsessed, a games that give me new experiences. Skyrim, DayZ; these kinds of games will keep me up until 3-4am for the first couple of weeks. I then have to drag my sorry self to work at 6.30am, fuelled on coffee and sugar to make it through the day.
Repeat for a few of weeks until I’ve had my initial love affair with the game, or until my body tells me to stop being such an idiot and get some rest.
I’ve had some late ones thanks to Titanfall over the weekend. I’ll sleep most of the time from 12-7 most weeknights though I’m trying to get it down to 11-11:30 at the latest as the drop off time.
I got almost no sleep last night but for once it didn’t have anything to do with games. My sleeping patterns are mostly set by exercise and online gaming. I like to workout in the mornings rather than afternoons, so if I’m on a gym heavy schedule I tend to go to bed about 10:30 and wake up about 6:30. If I’m not I tend to play games until 12:30 to 2 and wake up in the 9-10 range.
I’m lucky enough that I can just show up to work around 10:30-11:30 and usually leave pretty early so that also plays a part.
It sounds weird but I actually sort of prefer my old schedule where things weren’t flexible. Waking up at 6 on weekdays, working until the afternoon, playing some games when I got home, having an hour and a half sleep before dinner, then up until 1AM playing games with friends. Something about that schedule just worked for me.
The big sleep issue I have with games is that I can easily stay up all night playing games. If I were just sitting there I’d be tired at 1AM, but when I’m playing games I’m not usually tired when I turn them off (or at least not aware of how tired I am). If I lose track of time I can suddenly find myself wide awake at 3AM collecting Agility Orbs or something.
I have a rubbish sleep pattern that seems to change whenever it wants. Generally the pattern is about 5-6 hours on weekdays, 8-12 on weekends, though many years ago I got into a pattern of sleeping 4 hours early at night, waking for a few hours, then sleeping another 4. For a while last year (and some of this), I was falling asleep earlier in the evening on weekdays and sleeping less on weekends. Then things have reverted recently to the default of smaller times during the week and longer sleeps on the weekend. I’m very much a night-time person and probably if it weren’t for the fact that nothing is open and most people aren’t like me, I’d become nocturnal.
My sleep has been pretty regular since I minimised how much caffeine I have.
Usually in bed sometime after 10pm. I get up at 6-7am depending on what is happening the next day.
Body clock makes it hard to sleep in on weekends unless I am really tired.
I am lucky to get more than a solid few hours, I tend to wake up every hour or two no matter what which is very annoying 🙁
I sleep about 7 hours on weeknights. In bed by 10 and up just after 5. Weekends are a little looser but because I’m perpetually tired because work sucks I don’t often stay up late. But it means I get to sleep real easy.
I don’t think I’ve ever stayed up late playing a game when I know I have something important to do the next day. Which is difficult when you’re really in ‘the zone’ but I think sleep rules over all things.
I have zero caffeine now, cut down on sugar and don’t do anything mentally stimulating after 9pm, and for the first time in my life am getting decent sleep.
If I wake up any time after 5am though, then I am lucky to get back to sleep.
I try to force myself to sleep between around 1am to 8am at the moment, but I usually get by on about 4 hours of sleep a night, sometimes 2 or 3. I blame years of shift work.
I have a job that allows for sleep ins, and a child that doesn’t.
It’s my own fault if I feel tired though I s’pose, staying up late most nights to play games and dick around on the internet doesn’t help.
Up at 6am to get ready for work, asleep at about midnight most nights.
Sleep in a little at weekends.
During holidays, however, I end up sleeping from 3am – 11am (approx.). Don’t know why, but I find nighttime agrees with me, far moreso than mornings.
I average 7 hours, normally try to get to sleep before 11:30 and have staggered alarms from 6:15 to 7 because I like that feeling when you just wake up and get to stretch out in bed and junk
I’m usually in bed by 10:30, up around 6:30. I stuffer from insomnia fairly regularly though so that makes things interesting. Usually a day or 2 of feeling awful before I get back into routine.
I’ve found the big thing about insomnia is not to stress it, just deal with it, do some reading and try again in an hr. Once I get upset about not sleeping, then there’ll be no sleeping 🙁
Can’t believe how many here are averaging 6hrs! I would hate myself with that little sleep because I’d be generally awful at most things. I definitely need closer to 7.5hrs to feel good.
I got a 15 month old and a 3 year old, the 15 month old routinely wakes up between 1 and 2am, the 3 year old is an unstoppable night owl and impossible to keep in bed at a reasonable hour (yet he can frequently nap during the day!)
To make matters worse I am a card carrying night owl – I’ll push myself to fit more into my free time and get (if I’m lucky) 5 and a half hours a night (midnight to 5.30)
Lately though at least once a week my body will say ‘fuck this shut’ and I will doze off the second I sit down!
I’ll normally get 6 hours sleep, since dark souls and the ffx remaster copy came out, sleep escapes me quickly
I have a job that requires I work from 9:00am to 5:30pm, Monday to Friday. Transport home takes me roughly an hour, leaving me with a few hours of ‘downtime’, including dinner, before I put my head to pillow.
I have no issue getting to sleep just after 10pm, but its a matter of *staying* asleep. May be a mixture of stress and a few other things, but my body is now used to waking up at set times during the night, quite often midway through a ‘sleep cycle’, which causes me to feel drained come 6AM when I need to get up and get ready for my day.
My partner linked me to some good stuff a while back that indicated they’ve been finding plenty of evidence that for a long, long part of human history we were actually kind of polyphasic. Sleep a few hours after sundown, rise at 1 or 2am’ish to re-fuel, stoke the fire. Engage in some nookie with partner, then back to sleep til sunrise.
Humans don’t start out sleeping 8hr sessions starting a few hours before midnight – babies don’t sleep that way, neither do children until adults condition them to, to fit in with society. Maybe embrace it. 🙂
Shift worker.
Napping generally doesn’t work out well for me, but often I’m so exhausted I have to do it. I do fall asleep quickly generally but I have a lot of trouble going to sleep after night shift.
I stay up late playing video games when I need to switch my cycle around. Or just because sometimes.
Bed by 11-1 am, up by 6 am :/
I sleep five hours a night, every night. It’s been my routine for about four years now (1am – 6am). I have a full-time job, a second career writing books, a copy of Dark Souls 2, and a young family. There’s not much room for sleep if everything else is going to get the attention it deserves.
Damn. Do you feel much better when (if) you do have a lie in at all? Or are you just use to it now, so it really doesn’t make much difference?
I feel overslept if I have more than six hours. Bad news.
Sleep…patterns?
I find myself crashing around 2am-3am. I usually start work around 4pm working til late so sleep ins are the norm. but working at the hotel from 10am – 2am 5 days a week really did my schedule in. My sleep “pattern” is more of a sleep “scribblings of a retard”.
I like to catch a nap when I can. I’m working a few jobs at the moment, and trying to squeeze in gaming, so if I’m not ultra-tired, I’ll game in my free time, otherwise, I nap. Can sometimes be up to a few hours at a time.
Polyphasic taught me to get what I need out of 4hrs plus occasional 20min naps. It’s a quirky middle ground. If I had to, I could probably slide back into polyphasic no worries, though. Did it for about a year and a half.
(Thing is, it requires discipline, an understanding workplace, and an elimination of caffeine. I have one out of three, so… no go. But if circumstances changed, I could probably bargain hard for it.)
Diagnosed narcolpetic, insomniac with sleep apnea here. Sleep is whenever I can get it, but it’s not always relaxing or energising, and at many points, I might as well have not slept.
I usually go to sleep to sleep around 1-2am on a weekday and get up at 7:30 or 8:00, weekends i go to bed at 2-4am and get up at 1-3pm
i have lived off 4-5 hours of sleep a night since i was about 16 years old. If i have 6 or more hours i feel groggy and like my head is still i bed, i foudn that when i take a nap the following routine works perfectly:
1 hour maximum, dont close the curtains/blinds and have a light on even if its light outside, the chances of you waking up to darkness is high and you will not get up after an hour. With a lamp on you wake up and your body doenst see it as bed time due to there still being light. If you still have a little struggle have a TV on or music in the background. This works perfectly!
I run every lunch time, play 11 a side soccer and go to the gym inbetween. and 4-5 hours suits me perfectly.