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Comment by A_D_E_P_T | Hacker News Reader

My wife needs 8-9 hours, whereas I can get by just fine with 5-6. She is a very light sleeper who will wake up 3-4 times every night; I can sleep through almost any noise, and never get up in the middle of the night. My son takes after me -- he seems to need significantly less sleep than other kids his age, but he's an extraordinarily deep sleeper.

Anecdotal, but I think that sleep depth might have something to do with it.

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I used to get by fine with 5-6 hours, too, until I started getting 7-8 and realized how much better I feel.

I think this is pretty common! More sleep makes everything better -- attention, immune system (getting colds less often), mood, etc.

I feel like a different person sometimes. And going to bed even 1hr earlier makes it generally much higher quality.

I have spent months at a time getting 7-8 (amid years of 5-6). I never notice any difference and am actually surprised my body can do 7-8 to no purpose.

From the perspective of evolution there's a purpose... burn fewer calories in the dark when there's nothing else to do.

The question is whether it still matters in the modern era.

Anecdotal also but I sometimes sleep alone in my office (have a futon) where it is very quiet. I usually feel fully rested after 6 hours in there versus 8 hours in bed with wife, dog and the cat occasionally coming through.

I wish culturally it was standard for houses to have something like `sleep` rooms that are optimized for that purpose.

They're called a bedroom.

Obviously he means a room for one person to sleep. It’s called a bedroom too but he knows that and so do you.

That's called a divorce

Obviously he wants sleeping in different rooms normalized without a divorce. But you knew that.

I stopped sleeping with my wife in the same bedroom some years ago and it was great for our sleep quality.

It's very funny how people conflate that with other aspects of couples relationships.

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