Questions of Sleep

I can’t sleep right now.
Because I can’t sleep right now I will ask questions about sleep. First off I am wondering if you can bank sleep to the next night. For instance last night I slept for 9 hours. I went to bed at 12 and woke up at 8:15 on my own. I forced myself to continue sleeping until 9. Should I wake up naturally or put myself back to sleep. I notice when I have to push for eight when my body wants to wake up another time I am very tired. But I got eight hours why am I tired?

Also, now I can’t sleep I think because my body was only up for 11 hours as I tried to get to bed at ten. I dozed for a bit but now I am horribly awake. Instead of sitting in bed wasting time I decided to ask about it. So I got 9 hours last night, will 6 or 7 be okay tonight?

Also the only reason I don’t get up when my body says to and I force myself to keep going is because I’m afraid I haven’t recovered. Wouldn’t my body be the best judge of that. I literally wake up 3 or 4 times while trying to get to the eight hour marks on the weekends. Should my goal be to sleep enough so that I wake up rested without an alarm going off or a strict 8 hours.

If so I may need sleeping pills some nights. I notice this especially happens when I go to bed earlier as to wake up for an AM workout, usually I hit it around 3PM but when I have no time I switch it to a 6 AM wake up. Please help me.

You can’t bank sleep. You should go to sleep when you’re tired and let yourself wake up naturally. Obviously this isn’t always possible, but that’s not the problem; you’re thinking too much.

You can’t bank sleep. Everyone is different, some people need 8, some need more, some people need 6, the 8 is just an average.

If you feel rested when you wake up naturally then get up. Forcing yourself to lay there an extra 15-45 minutes isn’t going to do you much good other than making you possibly feel less rested as you might wake up in the middle of a sleep cycle.

There are days I find I can’t fall asleep despite the best intentions, I try to read and stay away from the computer/TV/video games. I’ve found ZMA after the first initial getting used to it week, is a great sleep aid.