Jason Field

We all both know that lack of sleep is not really a healthy way of life. But many people have been doing this since before and they became more productive and successful. Here are the few of the famous people we know.

1. Jay Leno – four hours
"He subsists on four hours' sleep per night. Out of fifty-two weeks, he gets
four weeks off, during which time he is miserable. "I hate those weeks off," he
tells me. "To me, a week's vacation just means you're now a week behind."


2. Madonna – four hours
"Madonna has revealed she only grabs four hours' sleep a night because she
constantly worries about everything that is going on her life."

3. Florence Nightingale – four hours
"Florence Nightingale only slept four hours a night"


4. Anton Ballard – four hours
"Ballard keeps pushing himself to get better. He averages around four hours of
sleep per night, and works about 12 hours each day between his meat counter and
his studio."


5. Michelangelo – four hours
"Both aboriginal peoples and highly creative people (such as Thomas Edison and
Michelangelo) rarely sleep for more than four hours at a time."

6. Napoleon Bonaparte – four hours
"Napoleon Bonaparte learned to live with the fact that he was only existing on
three or four hours sleep a night and got on with his grand schemes."

7. Bill Clinton – five to six hours
"President Clinton grabs 5-6 hours"

8. Winston Churchill – six hours
"It was claimed he only spent 6 hours in bed every night. However, he wrote
that one needs to take a complete nap every afternoon, to get fully undressed
and really go to bed. No "halfway measures". He claimed the reward was to "get
two days in one - well, at least one and a half, I'm sure." He claimed this nap
was absolutely neccessary to cope with his responsibilities during the war. His
naps were 1.5 to 2 hours long, for a total of about 8 hours a day!"


9. Nikola Tesla – two hours
"He is said, by some of his followers, to only have slept 2 hours a day. He was
definitely a night owl. But his staff has told of him taking many naps during
the day. And it seems he may have been narcoleptic, and able to sleep with his
eyes open."


10. Leonardo Da Vinci – 15 mins every four hours (ie. 1.5 hours)
" It was said that he would sleep just 15 minutes of every four hours."

11. Margaret Thatcher – four hours
"Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister, was famous for getting by on
only four hours a night."

12. Martha Stewart – four hours
"“There’s not enough time in the day,” complains the woman who says she needs
no more than four hours’ sleep a night."


13. Thomas Edison – four hours
"Thomas Edison slept 3-4 hours at night, regarding sleep as a waste of time"

How about you, how many hours do you sleep everyday?

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link8

wow, I think some successful people just have more energy than average people.

Just watched an interview of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryan both of them also talks about only sleeping about 4-6 hours a day and that they are restless most of the time.

3afash

I've been trying to adapt myself on a polyphasic sleep schedule since forever but I always mess it up. I do believe that after a certain period your body can adapt to sleeping less

Shaleniie Devi

I used to sleep about 3 - 4 hours telling myself that this is what successful people do... but then I found myself TRYING to keep awake for the whole day rather than be productive as brain was only on half-function mode.

Now I've realized that I need the 'regular human' sleep time of at least 6 hours to function well throughout the day... and I feel better.

The key thing for me is to sleep the normal night hours rather than 2 or 3 in the morning.

As a bonus on the vanity side, dark circles be gone!


-Shaleniie

Aron Levin

I found my average to be about 6 hours per day, sometimes less. Has to do with energy I guess.

I also found that lots of people actually spend like 30-60 minutes per day in bed before they go to sleep. Reading, worrying about stuff or just not being able to fall asleep. If they could take care of that they could easily free up another hour each day. Definitely the best time management advice I know. Sleep less.

space for rent.

ProfJannes

Nice topic, i found that if one needs to reduce sleep, you must try and get it in between 10:00 pm and 01:00 or 03:00...the two hours before midnight is very important so your body goes through the day shift...i also found that if you are organized and know what you have to do when you get up...it is easier to get going...

ryanbiddulph

Interesting topic Jason, thanks for sharing.

I get between 5 - 7 per night. Anything less than 5 hours for a week or so and I crash. My body and mind crave the rest so I listen. If my body feels like sleeping in for 8 or more, I do it. Sickness and stress are the results when I ignore my intuition.

If lack of sleep is driven by fear it's not exactly beneficial, especially over the long term. Some of these peeps might be prolific but if fear was their continual driver to get less sleep, more power to them, but it ain't for me

Ryan Biddulph

11 keys to happiness

camelia

If you want to sleep less, do more and more meditation . For further details to learn methodology,check my earlier post here. 1/2 hour of deep meditation is equal to 4 hours of sleep

lkcroft

Need my Beauty Rest...7-8 Hours!

Professional Wedding Photographer

Bryan Kumar

Interesting topic.

It's not just the number of hours you sleep, it's the quality of sleep/rest.

Do you have a comfortable bed? If not (most of us don't,) you really need to invest in a good bed. You'll find that you'll immediately need less sleep because you will be able to enjoy a deeper, uninterrupted sleep.

Are there things that wake you up in the middle of the night? Neighbor's dog? Significant other's snoring? Address those as well and you'll find you need less sleep than you do now.

Also, as someone mentioned above, meditation and other practices that calm the mind and cut down on the 'clutter' during the day while you're awake is also very important. (A restless mind also makes it harder to fall asleep or get some deep-sleep rest. Tossing and turning shouldn't count as part of your sleep hours - but it doens't count as productive hours either, so...good idea to fix that.)

Some experts also recommend that you take a short 20-30 min nap in the middle of the day to make you more alert, productive, relaxed, etc.

And, of course, your diet, exercise, i.e overall health plays a huge part as well.

Finally, it may be helpful to consider how productive you are when you're awake. It just may be that sleeping less isn't the answer but being more productive, effective, i.e. improving your work habits, systems, etc.

Just a few things to think about while you're awake...

mainstreetcm

Six hours of sleep does me just fine. Even on the weekends I only sleep for about 6-7 hours, I just stay up later, so I'm not up until like 10 or 11. I just bought Star Craft 2 so my weekday nights are getting a bit later, but I still bring everything I go to the table each and every day.

ELVISTHEPELVIS

If I don't get 7 to 8 hours then I am a mess. Really there is no use in even trying to go through the day and fight the tiredness because it will leave me unproductive. It is just better to take a nap in that case.