How much you sleep is enough?

You've probably been told that 7 to 8 hours sleep a night is the ideal amount.

Not everyone can afford to sleep that much.

Sometimes it's not about finding the right amount of sleep but instead just enough sleep to actually get by on.

Whether you sleep alone or have a partner falling asleep can be difficult.

Just because you get in bed at midnight doesn't mean you will fall asleep at midnight.
Even if you do fall asleep right away a variety of things can keep waking you up and prevent you from falling back asleep.

For example, last night I got in bed at midnight but then realized at about 12:30 that I had to use the restroom.

At 1:00 my roommate then decided to go get some food. The front door of the house is right by my room.

He then came back at 2:00.

I slept from 2:30 to 6:00 until my other roommate woke up and let the dog out.

He showered and left at 6:30, putting the cat gate up so she would be trapped upstairs. Our cat is a very active Bengal cat and is always looking to knock stuff over.

So of course she knocked over the cat gate and it comes crashing down the stairs and bangs into the front door of my room at 7:00.

At 7:45 the other roommate goes upstairs to use the restroom and replaces the cat gate.

At 8:00 the cat knocks over the cat gate again and so I wake up for work.

I think I probably got about 5 hours of sleep total and it has really affected me today.

For me, 5 hours was not enough.

My concentration is off and I might not be as quick with a smile or a quick reply as I usually am. I just feel like the world's a bit blurry.

I once knew a girl named Rene though that always got 5 hours a night and she functioned just fine with that amount. She was a paralegal at a law firm I used to work at.

Everyday she would come into work chipper as a bird and be friendly and happy with everyone.

Since she was extremely attractive most of the guys found a few minutes to chat with her.

I once made the mistake of having lunch with her and I never heard the end of it from my girlfriend at the time.

Rene told me she usually got about 5 hours of sleep every night but she could function on 4 hours.

Her entire family was like that......... they just didn't need much sleep.

On the other hand I once lived with a guy that couldn't even get through the day unless he had between 10 to 12 hours of sleep every night.

When he would get home from work he would watch TV for about an hour and go right to bed.

He would sleep almost right up to the time that I had to be at work.

I felt like he was always sleeping even though he didn't seem like a depressed guy.

He was actually very friendly and had a lot of luck with the ladies.

He told me one day that he just had always needed a lot of sleep.

I guess everyone is different.

So how much sleep do you think is enough?