Eight hours of sleep

Bodybuilder · Six-time Classic Physique Mr. Olympia

Eight hours is his stated minimum, and in a 2022 Q&A he put sleep level with two weekly rest days at the top of his priority list, calling it crucial for growth as a bodybuilder. Train hard every day, he adds, and you probably will not sleep well or recover.

Footballer · Portugal captain and five-time Ballon d'Or winner

By his own account in a 2025 Whoop clip, bed is around 11 to 12 and the alarm around 8.30, which works out at eight and a half hours or more in bed. He puts that consistency above everything else for what he calls health-span.

Amazon and Blue Origin founder · Six-page memos and eight hours of sleep

He says eight hours makes a big difference to how he feels, and that he tries hard to make it a priority. Decision quality beats decision volume for him. So cutting sleep to gain a couple of extra hours buys productivity that, in his words, might be an illusion.

Basketball player · NBA all-time leading scorer

Eight hours is his floor, nine is better and some nights run to ten. Sleep, he told Ferriss, is what has become most important to him with age, and the thing that lets his body and mind recover for the next day.

Actor and producer · The 2:30 a.m. daily routine

Eight hours, always: he says the early alarm only works because bedtime moves with it, so a 1 a.m. gym session on a shoot means going to bed at 5 in the afternoon. Fox News notes he times bed so he still gets his eight hours.

Olympic swimmer · Most decorated Olympian in history

Says that with eight hours a night he can run through a wall. To quiet racing thoughts he memorizes every detail of the room, closes his eyes and walks around it three times in his head, starting over if his mind wanders.

Tennis player · Record 24 Grand Slam singles titles

Calls sleep probably more important than any other recovery routine, and likes at least eight and a half hours, eight or nine by his own account. He describes himself as a deep sleeper who does not wake in the night, and aims to be in deep sleep before 1am, which he says is when the REM stretch that matters most begins.

Investor · Berkshire Hathaway chairman

No interest in getting to work at four in the morning. He told PBS NewsHour he likes to sleep and usually gets eight hours a night. CNBC adds, citing ValueWalk, that he gets up at 6:45, reads the paper at home and sometimes arrives after the market has opened.

Microsoft co-founder · Gates Notes reading lists

Almost nobody gets by on five hours, he writes, quoting sleep researcher Thomas Roth, so the seven or eight everyone needs applies to you too, however convinced you are otherwise. He admits he almost never got eight at Microsoft and thought sleeping a lot was lazy.

Bodybuilder and YouTuber · Spring Bulk gym vlogs

Sleep is where he says the growing actually happens. A canceled 8:30 class read to him as a couple of extra hours in bed and therefore as gains, though he has never put a target number of hours on it.