I just recently went on a quest to reduce sleep in my life forever, and I ended up spending a lot of time and money on this subject and I'd love to save you that hassel! I was sleeping about 8-10 hours a night which means I was sleeping through 1-2 14 hour days a week! AHHH!
Loughborough Sleep Research Centre (they're on google) Says "Many people can easily sleep more than their usual amount. Whilst many sleep researchers, particularly in the USA, believe that people need this extra sleep, we advocate, with supporting experimental evidence, that this is largely superfluous ('optional') sleep." They say that 6 hours is ideal.
I found that many things effect the amount of sleep you need, 4 important ones are:
1. Amount of light your eyes recieve. Our circadian rythem and therefor melatonin levels are linked directly to the amount of light your eyes recieve (ever been in a class that turned out the lights for a slide show?)
Quality may also play a roll. (Quality = Full spectrum vs. regular incandescent) interestingly enough studies have shown that chickens live 50% longer when put under full spectrum fluorescents vs cool white fluorescent lights). Daylight (which is full spectrum. Daylight is around 10,000 lux and it is recommended that you recieve at least 1 hour a day of 10,000 lux light to maintain proper melatonin levels, (I went to the hardware store and bought 4 24inch ballasts then 4 Full Spectrum bulbs from the pet store and put them around my computer).
2. Another Factor is stress levels, water intake, diet in excercise (keeping your body in good health will help energy overally energy levels)
3. Sleep pattern (an example would be when you go overseas and you can't sleep because you're body clock is thrown off). Having a rigid sleep pattern helps you to fall asleep faster and wake up more refreshed (ever wake up at the same time long enough to where you wake up 5 seconds before your alarm goes off?)
4. Taking a nap mid day. Studies have shown, and I think it's pretty self evident that you have a dip in your energy levels about mid day. (this is caused by your circadian rythem, your body temperature actually drops durring this time same as when it's your bed time but not as dramatic) If you get in the habit of sleeping a good 30-45 minutes(too long and you'll mess up your whole sleep cycle)it should be much easier to sleep less at night and have more energy durring the day (I know in my experience it has). Hope this helped!
