[darrelld]

Here is my personal advice:

Get a good solid 8 hours of sleep. Sometimes a lack of motivation is is simply fatigue. It makes my work day drastically different.

Don't try and cheat it either by sleeping less using caffeine to feel awake.

[merrua]

I'd amend this to whatever number of hours you need. For some people that's 10 for others 5. Beyond that this is very very true. Tiredness makes everything more stressful and difficult and suppressed creative thought (which good programming needs).

[willhinsa]

Yes!! Sleep is the bedrock of your life. Without sleep you are more stressed, eat worse, exercise less, and are less intelligent. It's not about some macho ability to go on less sleep. You're just a high functioning, chronically sleep deprived human. You have the performance of a drunk person, but you don't even get to enjoy fun drunken conversations. Sleep deprivation is insane.

P.S. I am saying this as I bring on another all nighter, doing work I don't really enjoy. ;) I bought a Mi Band to track my sleep, though! I highly recommend it. If you measure it, it will improve.