Well, good luck. The problem is that these schedules have no scientific basis. You're still fighting against your circadian clock, so you will feel extremely tired near your circadian core body temperature minimum. You will also have considerable difficulty sleeping at times of day when your circadian clock is promoting wake. The net result is not enough sleep, which over time turns into sleep deprivation. With high enough sleep deprivation, you will be able to fall asleep more quickly at all times of day, but your waking performance will be sub-optimal.
I will never understand why people (read "crazy idiots" xD) would ever want to do such a thing to themselves, but it's your life, go do whatever you want to do with it. ^ ^
So, good luck. You will need it with this plan of yours as I got my doubts wheter you will actually succeed with this kind of approach. And when you do get there, you will probably not like the idea of holding that kind of sleep pattern up for more then 2 weeks, but only time will tell that.
People giving health arguments why it's a bad idea --
I'm quite unimpressed by the amount of studies I could find into sleep. Also, as far as I can tell the point of sleep is to cure feeling tired. Something interesting to think about is Randy Gardner who stayed up for 264 hours without caffeine and was monitored by a navy research unit. Always thought that was cool.
There's a blogger who documents really well transitioning into polyphasic sleep and I found his extremely detailed accounts fairly inspiring (I linked his blog in the OP).
On December 19 2011 05:46 Felo wrote: As a child I read the book "Never Cry Wolf" that sums up the experience of an biologist that researched wolves.
One of the points in his book was that he observed how wolves slept:
They curled up, got up every ~10 minutes, turned their body around and got back to sleep for another 10 minutes, they did this for about an hour and got up after that. He claimed that he tried this out during his field studies and that he had great results in the sense that he reduced his sleep time tremendously - he claimed that one of the reasons probably was that it increased the rate of the blood flow in your body.
I tried it as a kid for several months and it worked out okay-ish as far as I remember. I wasn't any fitter than usual (he claimed that) but I only slept 2-3 hours per night and could still use the rest of the time to its fullest. Even today I move a lot while sleeping and only sleep 4-5 hours per night without being exhausted at daytime. My approach to that as a child simply was to try out this way of sleeping which led to a couple of days where I was really down and exhausted but as I had vacations I simply pulled trough.
Its obviously not about your approach but it seems relevant when you try to get the most out of your minimized sleep time.
This is really cool. I don't get why people buy into the "you need 8 hours a day." Seems like it's largely backed up by "common sense."
On December 19 2011 08:11 aerotonox wrote: I just started with this program on 5 december, good to know that people are also giving it a chance on TL! :D
How's it working for you?
The idea that I'll be able to do it but my brain and motor functions will suffer will be challenged by my testing before and during my adoption of polyphasic sleep.
Edit - another awesome thing discussed on the wikipedia page for sleep deprivation is a nightmarish experiment where they put a rodent on little stand too small to comfortably sleep on, and they're surrounded by water. The rodent falls asleep when it gets tired but is instantly awaken by the water and crawls back onto the stand so it doesn't drown.
On December 19 2011 09:38 Riot grrrl wrote: People giving health arguments why it's a bad idea --
I'm quite unimpressed by the amount of studies I could find into sleep. Also, as far as I can tell the point of sleep is to cure feeling tired. Something interesting to think about is Randy Gardner who stayed up for 264 hours without caffeine and was monitored by a navy research unit. Always thought that was cool.
There's a blogger who documents really well transitioning into polyphasic sleep and I found his extremely detailed accounts fairly inspiring (I linked his blog in the OP).
On December 19 2011 05:46 Felo wrote: As a child I read the book "Never Cry Wolf" that sums up the experience of an biologist that researched wolves.
One of the points in his book was that he observed how wolves slept:
They curled up, got up every ~10 minutes, turned their body around and got back to sleep for another 10 minutes, they did this for about an hour and got up after that. He claimed that he tried this out during his field studies and that he had great results in the sense that he reduced his sleep time tremendously - he claimed that one of the reasons probably was that it increased the rate of the blood flow in your body.
I tried it as a kid for several months and it worked out okay-ish as far as I remember. I wasn't any fitter than usual (he claimed that) but I only slept 2-3 hours per night and could still use the rest of the time to its fullest. Even today I move a lot while sleeping and only sleep 4-5 hours per night without being exhausted at daytime. My approach to that as a child simply was to try out this way of sleeping which led to a couple of days where I was really down and exhausted but as I had vacations I simply pulled trough.
Its obviously not about your approach but it seems relevant when you try to get the most out of your minimized sleep time.
This is really cool. I don't get why people buy into the "you need 8 hours a day." Seems like it's largely backed up by "common sense."
On December 19 2011 08:11 aerotonox wrote: I just started with this program on 5 december, good to know that people are also giving it a chance on TL! :D
How's it working for you?
The idea that I'll be able to do it but my brain and motor functions will suffer will be challenged by my testing before and during my adoption of polyphasic sleep.
Edit - another awesome thing discussed on the wikipedia page for sleep deprivation is a nightmarish experiment where they put a rodent on little stand too small to comfortably sleep on, and they're surrounded by water. The rodent falls asleep when it gets tired but is instantly awaken by the water and crawls back onto the stand so it doesn't drown.
Read Micro's Insomniac thread/guide on these forums (link: Insomnia guide) , it will give you a better insight in sleep and the things revolving around that. Even though it focus lies with Sleeplesness/Insomnia, which is different of course then this, it still is damn informative, in my eyes at least.
My advice is just don't do it, it's really not worth it wheter there is truly a risk to it or not.
I know that my personal experience (as a Insomniac) will be different then what you are trying to achieve here (regulated sleep is a "whole" other story after all), but I can tell you that it may hurth your health either way if you keep this sleep pattern up for long enough (more then 1 year). If you are just going to do it for.. a week, a month or so, then I doubt it will really give you any permanent damage (or any at all for that matter).
But even if this regulated sleep pattern you want to achieve is not harmfull to your health in any way, then it's merely (as already pointed out in the blog you linked) not practical to keep it up seeing the society we live in. Of course, it's quite a achievement to pull off and probably a unique experience as well to go through, so in that way it may be worth for you to do so. If you think so, then well, yeah go for it. ^ ^
I also doubt you will truly get more hours in a day out of this. Yes, technically speaking you may be awake longer a day, but that extra time will be less worth because of your state of body and mind. I doubt you will have the same energy reserves as you would have with a normal 8 hour sleep pattern here. So in the end you will most likely find out that, while you may have more hours, you will need more time to complete tasks and thus.... not gain any real "extra" time.
Though, this all comes from someone who would do almost anything to get more sleep then she get's right now. So I see no good reason in doing something like this. Alot of people just don't realise how good you have it with the 6-8 hours sleep a night, it's not something that comes natural to everyone. >.<
Anyways, your life, your choice, so don't let me hold you back from doing something you really want too. (doubt I could hold you back if you really want to do it. xD) And once again good luck with this all. ^ ^
I'm quite unimpressed by the amount of studies I could find into sleep. Also, as far as I can tell the point of sleep is to cure feeling tired. Something interesting to think about is Randy Gardner who stayed up for 264 hours without caffeine and was monitored by a navy research unit. Always thought that was cool.
There is in fact a large literature on the topic. Sleep is a relatively young field of science, but we nonetheless have quite a good understanding of the processes that regulate sleep and wake, and just about every sleep/wake schedule you can imagine has been tested. Ultradian (or polyphasic) sleep/wake cycles have been used in many experiments, which have demonstrated that it is extremely difficult and unpleasant to maintain this type of schedule. The reason people who adopt these schedules need to invent activities to keep themselves going through the night is because the body is desperately attempting to enter sleep. These schedules are incompatible with the basic drives our bodies have evolved.
Regarding the point of sleep being to cure feeling tired, that's not true. That's like saying the reason you eat is to cure feeling hungry. Like feeding, sleep serves many important functions. These include memory consolidation, hormone regulation, metabolic regulation, immune function, etc. Attempting ultra-long wake episodes, or chronically restricting your daily sleep quota cannot be recommended.
If you do decide to go through with this, I highly recommend not driving or engaging in similarly dangerous activities, especially during the nighttime hours.
@Gnight, I appreciate your concerns regarding sleep deprivation and the value of a good night's sleep. These concerns, for me, do not outweigh the potential benefit of more productive hours in a day. On the social concern, I am currently curtailing my social life in order to get more time to work. With more hours overall, I could hypothetically get more social time and more work time.
@whathtefat. My comment about a lack of literature on the topic was definitely from a place of ignorance. A handful of searches on polyphasic sleep only yielded one book called Why We Nap, which discussed various experiments as well as examples where people are forced to adopt polyphasic sleep. However, just as with Gnight's comments, the arguments I've read against polyphasic sleep don't outweigh the benefits I could see of successfully transitioning to it.
You'll be pleased to hear that from January 5, when I begin adjusting to a polyphasic schedule, I have zero obligations for a month and a half and I don't own a vehicle of any kind.
EPT
