Not OP but one thing I've started sticking to that has helped me a lot is paying attention to my sleep cycles when planning alarms. Sometimes you get enough sleep but wake up feeling shocking, while other times you'll wake up after getting less sleep but feel great. There's probably ways to do this much more accurately but I find if I get 6, 7.5, or 9 hours sleep, I'll feel great, but waking up in between those 90 minute intervals is rough.

Greater than 8 hours and I get mentally sluggish. Less than 6 and I'm effectively on drugs. 7.5 seems to be a really good number. The most strange part of it for me is the large effect created by relatively small adjustments in sleep time. This isn't novel, but since it was relevant to my own caffeine adventure I figured I'd share.

During my University days I've found out that I feel rested when sleeping for a number of hours divisible by 1.5, or to put it simply, only multiples of 1.5h. So, if I had to take a nap or work super late a 3h "nap" would've left me fresh and ready to work while a 3.5h or 4h nap would turn me into a zombie. I haven't thought of this in a while since it became a habit for me but seeing the 7.5h you mention along with small time changes making big difference it all came back.

People sleep in cycles. Everyone’s timing of a cycle is different. But the average is around 90 minutes. You’ll feel dramatically better keeping your sleep to obey the boundaries of those 90 minute cycles.

Also REM occurs in the last cycles of sleep. So sleeping 4 hours with little REM and sleeping 6.5 hours with REM is like night and day.