Polyphasic Sleep

eizbaer

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Browsing the web the other day i stumbled across an article on cracked.com (linky) which described the so called "ubermann sleep schedule". Basically the idea behind this is: you sleep every four hours but only for 20 to 30 minutes. It sounds crazy at first, but it seems to work.
When trying this, after two or three days you basically become a sleep deprived zombie, but your body starts to adapt. After another week or so, you've basically made it and the schedule works. You automatically get tired after 4 hours and, after another few weeks, even start waking up automatically after 20-30mins. Getting used to the schedule is the hardest thing about it all. I read that you should have a list of at least 100 things you want to do, otherwise you'll just fail really early into the whole deal because of pure boredom.

While doing more background reading I stumbled upon a site of someone who had done this for a 6 month period and thought it was basically super awesome - because: the important thing is the so called REM phase of your sleep. When sleeping 8 hours at night, you get roughly 1.5 hours, but when following the idea of polyphasic sleep you train your brain to drop into this phase instantly every time you sleep. Do the math and you'll quickly find out that by sleeping LESS (2 to 3 hours per day) you actually get MORE of the important sleep, which in turn - following the theme of the cracked.com article here - hacks your brain into awesomeness.
People doing it actually feel better and more efficient / capable than before.

Nobody is quite sure about the long-term effects of this, because everybody who's done it hasn't been aple to keep it up for more than 6 months, due to having a life and a job and the schedule doesn't allow ANY delays (you HAVE to sleep every 4 hours, else you're destroyed for at least a day...).

To make the whole deal more "useful" they managed to work out their so called "everyman schedule" which allows more room for shifting your sleep around and, basically, having a life / job.
It consists of 3hours "core-sleep" at night and another 3 "naps" of 20-30min spread around the day. This I might actually give a go after my exams, just for the fun of having an additional 4 hours of free time each day. It takes longer getting used to than the uberman, but it should be easier to follow and get used to.

Riiight.... I think I'm finished here :lol:
Anyone who's interested or needs a bit of a read head over to http://www.puredoxyk.com/ , which is basically a site dedicated to the whole deal.

Also:
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Anyone on here ever try anything similar or know someone who's done it?
Anyone want to tell me how stupid I am for wanting to try something like this out?
;)
 
sounds like fun....:p
 
that is pretty interesting, and I might even be able to manage that through the school year if I took naps in my car... one thing I do know, though, is that its damn hard to change your sleep pattern, so the part that says getting used to it is the hardest part is probably right. I might never be able to work up the motivation to stick to that long enough to get it to work.

Changing your sleep pattern is definitely easier said than done. It seems like it shouldn't be too hard, but its a whole different story when you are so tired you can barely function, and you're still trying to stay awake. If you actually are trying to change your sleep pattern, there will be lots of that before you get anywhere.
 
just found a little paragraph on the site i wanted to drop in here :p

http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/polyphasic-sleep-portal/ said:
There are a ton of rumors and stories about famous people who lived polyphasically ? Leonardo DaVinci, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, you name it ? but in all my research I've never found actual data to back those claims up.

looks like the idea has been around for quite a long time...
 
That's... interesting. I would never be able to pull it off, I have issues with sleep as it is nevermind a demanding sleep regimen like that.
 
Sounds really unhealthy.

yeah, one does wonder why we DO sleep 8hours at a time...
they say the important sleep is that REM-phase or whatever, which you actually get more of.
somehow sleep-science isn't quite as advanced as one would hope, so they can't really say what the other phases are for... that's why i wrote it's hard to say what this stuff does to you long-term. since all these people did it for only half a year, no one can say
 
Sounds really unhealthy.

Well... it sorta kinda isn't. What you do is give your body exactely the amount of sleep it needs to keep working. This means that if you get sick, or have a drink, or even just get off-schedule, you're in deep shit (there are reports from people falling asleep no matter where they are "on time" according to schedule, not even five minutes of tolerance allowed).

What i find more interesting is how people's sleep schedule works out if you take away social constraints from it. It is widely know that the "natural" day/night rythm for most people would amount to a twenty-three to twenty-five hour day, depending on several factors including age.
A friend of mine opted to lock himself in his appartment over christmas last year to finally get his master's thesis finished. After spending a week in seclusion, working and sleeping as he saw fit, his usual pattern was shifted by more than five hours, indicating he basically lived a twenty-five hour day.
 
A friend is actually trying this, he says it's hectic maintaining a uni schedule, but he's still alive and not half asleep most of the day.
 
Well... it sorta kinda isn't. What you do is give your body exactely the amount of sleep it needs to keep working. This means that if you get sick, or have a drink, or even just get off-schedule, you're in deep shit (there are reports from people falling asleep no matter where they are "on time" according to schedule, not even five minutes of tolerance allowed).

What i find more interesting is how people's sleep schedule works out if you take away social constraints from it. It is widely know that the "natural" day/night rythm for most people would amount to a twenty-three to twenty-five hour day, depending on several factors including age.
A friend of mine opted to lock himself in his appartment over christmas last year to finally get his master's thesis finished. After spending a week in seclusion, working and sleeping as he saw fit, his usual pattern was shifted by more than five hours, indicating he basically lived a twenty-five hour day.

true.
a friend of mine has that, too, but more extreme. his "day" as dictated by his body / sleep is more like 28-30 hours than 24. so sometimes he gets up at 8am, then maybe at noon, 4pm, in the middle of the night... whatever

A friend is actually trying this, he says it's hectic maintaining a uni schedule, but he's still alive and not half asleep most of the day.

yeah, this is what drives most people to quit. imagine how hard it'd be to really get a nap every 4 hours... you'd have to somehow manage to plan everything else in between your naps :?
 
Well... it sorta kinda isn't. What you do is give your body exactely the amount of sleep it needs to keep working. This means that if you get sick, or have a drink, or even just get off-schedule, you're in deep shit (there are reports from people falling asleep no matter where they are "on time" according to schedule, not even five minutes of tolerance allowed).

What i find more interesting is how people's sleep schedule works out if you take away social constraints from it. It is widely know that the "natural" day/night rythm for most people would amount to a twenty-three to twenty-five hour day, depending on several factors including age.
A friend of mine opted to lock himself in his appartment over christmas last year to finally get his master's thesis finished. After spending a week in seclusion, working and sleeping as he saw fit, his usual pattern was shifted by more than five hours, indicating he basically lived a twenty-five hour day.

But are you getting all stages of your sleep cycle in with this method of on off sleeping? I can only imagine it is important to get all three stages and not just rem sleep.
 
It is now 6:17 am here and I havent sleep for 30 something hours. Intrigued me you have sir. hmmm.... think of all the extra things I could with all this newfound freetime..
 
I keep seeing this thread title and reading "sheep", even though I got a solid 8 hours kip last night.
 
yeah, this is what drives most people to quit. imagine how hard it'd be to really get a nap every 4 hours... you'd have to somehow manage to plan everything else in between your naps :?

He says he's managing, and a safe thing is he doesn't drive, so he gets his naps comfortably.
 
I keep seeing this thread title and reading "sheep", even though I got a solid 8 hours kip last night.

Damn, you beat me to it. I was going to say, I thought it said "Polyphasic sheep". Guess I need some more sleep :lol:
 
I remember a Seinfeld episode where Kramer tries polyphasic sleep...it didn't work out for him I recall. It was called "The Friars Club".
 
I keep seeing this thread title and reading "sheep", even though I got a solid 8 hours kip last night.

Same here, I need more than 6 hours a day.
 
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