Lukas pointed me to Steve Pavlina’s fascinating experiment with polyphasic sleep, in which you sleep for 20-30 minutes every four hours.
Perhaps the holy grail of caffeine geeks everywhere, polyphasic sleep allows you to get by with only about 2-3 hours of sleep per day, spread out in six equal REM-heavy naps. Apparently the REM element is critical, and is brought about initially by sleep deprivation during the 7-10 day transitional period.
I’ve never been one to get enough sleep, since there’s always something else to do. And I don’t plan on getting any less busy any time soon. I will have a few weeks off when school gets out this summer, so I’m considering giving polyphasic sleep a shot.
There isn’t much (or even any) research on the health effects of long-term polyphasic sleep, though apparently there isn’t any drowsiness or sleep-deprivation symptoms after you adjust to the naps. Most of the famous people (e.g. Buckminster Fuller) who have tried it eventually went back to a normal (monophasic) sleep schedule because the rest of the world shuts down at night and expects you to be awake during the day.
If you get a decent lunch break and work an 8-hour day, you can pull it off while working a full-time job. Steve Pavlina works from home, so that wasn’t a problem, but he found it difficult to spend time with friends and family, so he gave it up after more than 5 months.
My challenges would be:
- Giving up caffeine (interferes with the naps)
- Knowing how to spend all that extra time productively (e.g. not blogging!)
Thoughts?
Given that the Sabbath rest (both weekly and daily) is perhaps one of the Christian faiths distinctives, this just seems like another way to squeeze it out.
Sorry to be so blunt, but it just seems like a dumb idea.
Matt-
True enough, but rest does not have to equal sleep. You could argue that having more waking time allows for more rest and more of the things that God intended for us to do in our non-working time, such as meditating on the scriptures. Right now, it’s often a tradeoff between sleeping and doing these things (though only because I have gotten myself into a tightly scheduled and busy lifestyle in the first place :)).
It probably would not be healthy to do this in order to facilitate one’s workaholic tendencies. But it would be nice to have more time to do things we enjoy, such as reading for pleasure, and it would be nice to have more time to yourself (for parents) when the kids are asleep.
What about a good eaight hours of sleep a night, PLUS 20-30 minutes every fours hours you’re awake?
Now THAT is a plan!
Seriously though, I still reckon we have everything out of whack if we’re looking for ways to survive on less sleep to fit everything in.
I agree with Matt G.
Sleeping at night is a natural, God-given blessing. There is plenty of time to do what we need to do–we’re just too given over to doing the wrong things. Instead of trying to minimize sleep, there needs to be self-discipline and discovering what really matters in life.
The day/night waking/sleeping schedule is one of many that deeply embeds us in the ecosphere of this planet’s biology. It works. We evolved to do it. There is no good reason to stop doing it. I’m sure there are other ways to “get by” with less or different sleep patterns. But why bother?
As a parent, the idea of having more time while the kids sleep is attractive. But exactly how would we be supposed to leave them unattended for thirty-minute intervals throughout the day? Some parents actually do still care for their own children during the day…
From what little I have read, as fascinating as it is (and tempting!), very few have tried it, and even fewer have carried it out with complete success. It seems like rather than actually being productive during their now-awake hours, they spend that time in a fog. My input is that it is too much trouble, too risky, and too inflexible for our lifestyle.
Justin-
I’m with Amy. I’m not really convinced that polyphasic sleep is good for people. (Actually, I’m just trying to dissuade you because, as much as you accomplish now, I’m sure if you stopped sleeping you’d achieve global domination in about a week.) While I’m sure you’d make an excellent benevolent dictator, why spend weeks to adjust to this new schedule just to have to spend weeks reverting to monophasic sleep when the summer’s over?
Wow, you guys are harsh. If I said I was going to spend the first two weeks of my summer drinking Mountain Dew and playing Counterstrike, I don’t think I’d have gotten nearly the same reaction :).
virusdoc-
Parents of newborns say they like the schedule because it allows them to sleep in short bursts as their children do. If you depend on getting 8 uninterrupted hours, the baby is probably not going to go along with that plan.
Lesley-
You crack me up, as always. The part you left out is that it takes a few days to revert to actually going to bed at a reasonable time after summer vacation.
The period of newborn sleep to which you refer actually only lasts a few months. By about 3-4 months of age, most babies settle down to a schedule of 6+ hours of sleep a night and three or so lengthy (45-90 min) naps during the day. YMMV, but it’s hardly an interruption worthy of completely reworking your own sleep patterns.
God rests once every 7 days. There.
At the risk of sounding like a simpleton - I just really like sleeping. I don’t think I’ll be giving it up any time soon.
I think its an insanely brilliant idea. Leonardo da Vinci and Buckminster Fuller both did it for some period during their lives, so those are a couple of pretty good advocates. I’m most likely going to try it before the school year is out, since I’ve been researching all over the place about it. Basically, if it works, it does give you more time. I feel like I’m already burning my candle at both ends, so why not burn the middle too?
Anyway, no one says you can’t rest while you’re awake. You can be restfully meditating. Perhaps monophasic sleep is a terribly wasteful way to spend your night, slothful even. Meh. I don’t plan to judge it one way or the other until I try it.
Oh, and God doesn’t necessarily rest seven days, but he did that one time.
An ally at last!
Ten bucks says that both of you will become grumpy and irritable withing three days of starting. Withing three weeks either you will have committed homicide or there will be multiple contracts out on you.
You will give up after three months.
I still think it is a dumb idea.
What I’ve read says it takes about two weeks to adjust, so I would agree with your initial prediction (though not the homicide/contract part :)). Also, I will be starting back to school at the end of the summer, so I will probably end the experiment then unless it works out really well and will fit my work schedule.
Even for a single month, though, that’s 150-200 extra hours to spend living life. A quiet, dark life, but hey. I spend enough of my waking hours on the internet as it is. I could get out more during the day, and still get everything done.
Just please promise me that you would do the computer/i-net thing while I’m asleep so we could do fun stuff during the day :).
This first Chuck Norris joke applies to your blog,
the rest are just for fun.
Chuck Norris doesn’t ever sleep…he waits.
Jawbreakers were first created in the shape of Chuck Norris’s fist.
Chuck Norris can slam revolving doors, while counting to infinity; twice.
Jeeves asks Chuck Norris…lol.
Chuck Norris can divide by zero! He can also speak braille.
Geico saved 15% by switching to Chuck Norris.
When Chuck Norris gives you the finger, he’s telling you how long you have to live before he roundhouse kicks you to the face.
Chuck Norris doesn’t have a bank account, he just tells any bank how much that he needs…
CJ