Polyphasic Sleep: One Man's 6-Month Experiment (2005)

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

by thinkzig • 17 years ago

60 61 17 years ago

This is perhaps the post / experiment I most enjoyed with Pavlina. He wrote a lot of good stuff, I fell out of love with his stuff a year or so ago but this is one that I really enjoyed reading about.

thinkzig• 17 years ago

OP here and I agree with your assessment of the Pavlina blog's change over the past year. His earlier stuff was great but I've had a hard time digesting some of his newer topics.

I posted this because there was a lot of interesting discussion on the Matt Mullenweg post in regards to his sleeping patterns.

My lifestyle would make it hard for me to try polyphasic sleep, but I could see where it would help my productivity if I could pull it off.

trickjarrett2• 17 years ago

Polyphasic sleep is something I consider the ultimate lifehack and something I see society moving towards in a cyberpunk / dystopia future as timezones become more and more irrelevant. BTW: I appreciate you putting the year of the post in the title.

dmm• 17 years ago

Be sure to check out Piotr Wozniak's thoughts on polyphasic sleep:

http://www.supermemo.com/help/faq/polyphasic.htm

crocowhile10• 17 years ago

The article linked by OP is just plain wrong on so many aspects. The one linked here, OTHO, seems to get things quite right.

I am a neuroscientist and I study sleep (genetics of sleep, to be precise); I am amused and intrigued by the amount of threads concerning sleep I found on HN. Only in the last week I think I could find 4 or so.

May I suggest few hints on the matter? As a general rule:

- there is no a common "minimum amount of sleep". Sleeping time, sleeping needs and ability to cope with sleep deprivation are different in different people. By the age of 30 you should definitely be able to know what your needs are.

- the accepted rule is: if you need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, then you are sleep deprived. sleep deprivation is detrimental for your performance

- if you cannot achieve a night of resting sleep you might be experiencing a sleep problem. sleep apnea is very frequent and very likely if you are overweight.

- don't believe of self-reported sleeping patterns, especially if they come from eccentric people or even worse if they date back centuries. Italian dictator Mussolini used to have one person staging in his office at night: he would leave the lights on and move around occasionally so that people looking at the window would believe the Duce never slept. The idea that sleep is for weak and superhero don't need sleep is just BS, of course.

- Let me conclude with a thought. I like to hear your opinions about this. I do research for living and I have learned that putting way too much effort in a very risky business can be very dangerous for your motivation. If you work 80/90 hours a week on something that will fail (and startups, like research, have a high risk of failure) you may end up being so demotivated that you will likely not give yourself a second chance. What I want to say is: if you work so much that it gets to the point when is not fun any more, maybe you should consider slowing down.

randallsquared• 17 years ago

By the age of 30 you should definitely be able to know what your needs are.

Well, except that it was around 30 that my needs started changing. Until then I often needed 8-9 hours a day of sleep, but sometime after 30 I noticed that I wasn't sleeping as long (and I'd long been out of the habit of using an alarm clock until last year, because I worked for myself and never scheduled anything in the early morning). Now my average is more like 7 hours a day, and it's not uncommon for me to wake up after 5 or 6 hours feeling just as rested as I used to after 9.

Talking about sleep schedules with my father led to the interesting revelation that this happened to him about my age, and it continued decreasing right along, so that now, in his 80s, he's only sleeping about 4 hours a night, and doesn't feel that he needs more. So, I guess I've got that to look forward to. :)

petercooper• 17 years ago

- the accepted rule is: if you need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, then you are sleep deprived. sleep deprivation is detrimental for your performance

I have no problems getting to sleep, am not usually tired during the day, and have none of the usual symptoms of sleep apnea, but if I didn't use an alarm clock or similar, I would sleep 12-15 hours a day no problems. Yet, there's no way I can consider that acceptable so I make judicial use of alarms, and I feel just great once I get over 5 minutes or so of sleep inertia.

Often, I can set an alarm for 6 or 7.5 hours after I fall asleep, and I feel great when the alarm goes off and can get up right away. Yet, if I didn't use that alarm, I would not be waking up naturally for several more hours. Perhaps I'm just a deep sleeper?

dmfdmf3• 17 years ago

<i> sleep apnea is very frequent and very likely if you are overweight.</i>

The current theory on apnea is that the throat collapses due to lower pressures on inhale. Being fat makes that situation worse. However, I believe some percentage of people with apnea are blocking on exhale due to anatomical structure or some such. CPAP would not work in this case (CPAP raises the internal throat pressure during breathing to avoid collapse). I think the number of people blocking on exhale could be quite high -- given the high CPAP treatment failures and the number of non-overweight apnea suffers. But the doctors and researchers deny that blocking on exhale is even possible.

zackattack• 17 years ago

I am curious how polyphasic sleep preferentially affects consolidation of declarative or procedural memory. (That is: does it improve procedural memory, affected by REM sleep, at the expense of declarative memory, consolidated by SWS?)

heed• 17 years ago

I sleep with an alarm clock during the week, but I haven't heard it in years. I literally always wake up within a minute or two of it going off. Though I'm afraid if I don't set it, I will sleep through the time I need to be up. Anyone else experience this?

ieatpaste2• 17 years ago

I was wondering if you could comment on nocturnal/abnormal sleep cycles.

icey4• 17 years ago

It's certainly fascinating, but I'm not convinced it's sustainable. I'd like to see someone who has held this schedule up for a period of years.

Aximilation3• 17 years ago

I'm coming up on three years now, for the one with the most experience, check out the pioneer, http://puredoxyk.com I found her articles on everything2 years ago and was intrigued. I recently started a blog about my polyphasic lifestyle, I may not be the best example as I don't follow a strict schedule, but I've stuck at it and it's worked well. My latest post was talking about if it really works, if you're interested, you can read it here: http://blog.aximilation.com/blog.php?p=68&more=1&c=1... For those not wanting to read it, my consensus is that yes it works, but not for everyone with every lifestyle.

icey4• 17 years ago

I've read parts of her blog, but I recall it seeming like it required a lot of regular effort to maintain that schedule; almost as though she was still fighting polyphasic sleep every day.

Do you feel that it requires regular effort on your part to maintain that schedule?

Do you feel any differences mentally?

CGamesPlay2• 17 years ago

I tried this two years ago with a friend. We weren't able to do it for very long, and we had a lot of trouble staying to the schedule (and not oversleeping).

Eventually, you reach this sort of zombie lucidity where you're awake and conscious, but you're not 100% there, in my opinion. I'm not sure if that affected my critical thinking skills, but certainly some part of me was always asleep on that schedule.

Hey, maybe this would have gone away if we'd been able to stick to it for longer. It was absolutely one of the funnest experiments I have tried and I want to do it again sometime.

proee• 17 years ago

How long did you try this for?

CGamesPlay2• 17 years ago

We were on the schedule for a total of about 2 weeks (widely regarded as not enough time).

pchristensen3• 17 years ago

I got through about 2 weeks and while the first 4 days were hell, after that it was like a constant 90% alert. It was a little weird ever hitting 100%, but extremely weird not to space out and dip lower. I kept waiting to space out but it ever happened.

pchristensen3• 17 years ago

Notes from my experience:

http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/polyphasic-sleep-e...

http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/category/polyphasi...

maclifer2• 17 years ago

I thought that Steve Pavlina ended up writing some additional follow-up articles to his polyphasic experiment - make sure to read those, too. It didn't sound like something that would work for most people IMHO.

Aximilation3• 17 years ago

Correct on both points. Steve called it quits quite a while ago, it's funny how his posts keep getting called up years after the fact. If you want more up to date info, google puredoxyk (founder) or jorel314 (collects links to current polyphasic sleepers)

sfphotoarts• 17 years ago

This seems like in our diurnal world to be living against the natural rhythm of things, but for space travelers, this seems like perfect prep for a trip. Maybe Steve should consult with NASA.

msluyter• 17 years ago

I was really intrigued by polyphasic sleep for a while, and used to fantasize about how much I could get done if I tried it. But realistically, I can barely tolerate typing 8 hrs a day as it is, and I have enough distractions and obsessions that it'd be rather unlikely that I'd spend that extra time doing much that was productive -- certainly, I wouldn't be programming.

harry5• 17 years ago

I've been sleeping bi-phasitcally since I saw that article on lifehacker.com in 2005. Sleep cycle is 2:30AM - 7:00AM and another at 5:30PM - 7:00PM. Times are typically rough around the edges by 15 or so minutes.

I'm a self diagnosed hypersomniac (I can sleep ALOT) it helps me feel very rested from a total of 6 hours as opposed to the 11-14 hours it typically takes for me to wake up naturally.

"The downside to this sleep schedule is that it can be inflexible. I’ve read that you can delay naps by an hour if necessary, but missing a nap can cause a rapid crash that takes a while to recover from."

This is very true. If I skip a nap one day after work, I typically pay for it by sleeping 2-3 times as long the next short cycle.

It's definitely beneficial to me. Sleeping 10-12 hours a night and not being rested wastes alot of my not-at-work time and cuts into social obligations. Bi-phastic works for me!

harry5• 17 years ago

Oh, I forgot to mention, the use of alcohol extends my 90 minute cycles to a maximum of about 120 minutes. I typically adjust my schedule to this if I am capable of doing so at the time. (I drink 3+ nights a week)

TrevorJ2• 17 years ago

So you have gone to the trouble of employing an extremely rigid sleep structure that requires a lot of self-control to maintain in order to gain back some productive time, but you reduce it's efficiency by 1.5 to 2 hours each week so that you can drink 3-4 nights a week? :)

dave_au• 17 years ago

Kind of related - I tried the 28 hour day / 6 day week when I started my PhD.

I could still code but I couldn't do theory - turned that part of my brain off like a switch.

And even though I only did it for 1 or 2 weeks it took more than month for me to get back to feeling normal.

It turns out a lot of systems in the body like that 24 hour thing. I'm glad I stopped before my digestive system got angry :)

Still kind of glad that I tried it because a) I know I won't try anything like it when stakes are higher and b) the amount of discipline it took was roughly equivalent to the amount of discipline it takes to time manage myself to peak productivity on a regular sleep cycle.

Polyphasic Sleep: One Man's 6-Month Experiment (2005)

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