Are Alternative Sleeping Patterns Effective?

shmookey asks: "Some people have adopted some unusual sleeping habits, which they believed help them work. The concept is simple: be active for a few hours, sleep for half an hour, wake up and then repeat. This supposedly maximized your effective REM sleeping time and cut back on wasted hours of idleness. Hack-a-day has a nice article and some links on this, which re-ignited my interest. Does anyone on Slashdot actually do this? How do you make it fit in with earning a living? What sacrifices do you have to make to live this kind of lifestyle?" Called polyphasic sleep, or "The Uberman's sleep schedule", this is not something to dive into lightly, as it requires rigid scheduling, and there may be unexpected complications and other issues. Has anyone tried this? What were your experiences?

Comments

Hmmm.

[Scott Lockwood]

I really wonder. Biologically, we process melatonin best between the hours of 12:00am and 2:00am. I'm wondering, with our biology hardwired that way, is any alternate sleep patern ever effective?

Sleeping in cities around the 1900's

[jgardn]

I can't remember where I read this, but apparently our urban ancestors had different sleep habits than we have today.

If I recall correctly, they would go to bed early, wake up about midnight, play around and eat for a few hours, and then go back to sleep. Then they would wake up early in the morning.

You could find vendors who would go down the street offering apples and such for sale in the middle of the night at that time.

Pretty weird.

Our habit of sleeping all in one chunk is probably a result of World War II, where the military enforced that sleep habit. Other than that, rural people live like this (sun up-sun down) for obvious reasons. They couldn't miss a moment of daylight.

I wouldn't be surprised if various patterns of sleep were highly effective. I know my children like the naps during the day, even if it means they only get 8 hours of sleep at night instead of 10.

I did this for a while, last year

[really?]

Basically, I slept when I felt sleepy - it averaged about 50 to 90 minutes every four hours.
It was REALLY great for me. I definitely got more accomplished. On the other hand, it was driving those around me bonkers. I was either sleeping or going 100 miles an hour at various, and always changing, times of the day/night; so, they could not rely on me for help/conversation/etc unless they could fit it in a certain period.
Had to go to Europe and a "regular" sleeping pattern for a few months, so I changed back to "night" sleeping.
When circumstances allow it I will DEFINITELY go back to what I now know to be poliphasic sleep.

a pharmaceutical rather than behavioral approach

[m-laboratories]

I have a friend who worked for a defense sleep research lab, before Provigil was available via prescription. They were dosing humans, monkeys, rats, mutant fruit flies, basically everything they could get their hands on just trying to find any possible side-effects. Despite a couple years of research with massive quantities of the stuff, they couldn't find a thing.

There are two remarkable qualities to the drug. First, you can use it for days at a time, and it only loses effectiveness after about 120 waking hours. At that point you need to sleep - but you never crash; you just sleep a normal 8 hours, wake up refreshed, and swallow the next pill.

One of the problems with a polyphasic sleep schedule is that it doesn't jive well with the normal structure of society. But with Provigil, you can still be fairly well synced-up with everybody else.

Besides, why change your behavior when you can just use drugs?

the many phases of sleep

[dkktav]

I've read of studies (but not directly read their research results) that indicated a significant risk to giving up real sleep, and making do with only naps. Be careful about sleeping less than about 4 hours a day or in blocks of less than 90-180 minutes unless you're doing it for a short time (e.g. to meet a deadline). My experience is with day cycles varying from 6 to 48 hours. Let me explain their ups and downs:

• 48 hour day

  I did doubledays (48-hour day cycles) extensively when I was working as a sysadmin and got stranded by Boston's subway (the "T") shutting down for the night. At first I took naps, but soon started working through the night and all of the next day, being awake for 36 hours of 48, and at my desk working for 30 of those. For reference, this is when I was about 27-30 years old.

  • pro: You can cut your daily startup time pretty much in half by starting your day only half as often. This is especially useful when that startup time is large (e.g. a long commute).
  • con: I couldn't do software development or real learning on this schedule, because it was difficult to concentrate 20+ hours into my workday. As a senior sysadmin, I did fine, but I switched to sleeping nightly when I started taking college classes again. Also, I had to sleep 7 nights one week due to external pressures, and immediately shot up in weight. (I was still eating for 4-day weeks, but sleeping all 7 nights.)
• 24-28 hour day

  You're all probably familiar with this one, so what's to tell? The 24 works far better with the rest of the world, but 28 is more natural and probably a bit more productive, if you function in near-total isolation, anyway.

• 12 hour day

  I did this one for most of my sophomore year in college. Two 9-hour periods of awakeness, each followed by 3 hours of sleep.

  • pro: Allows you to function pretty well with the rest of the world, while requiring only 6 hours for full sleep.
  • con: If you have family or other people close to you, they'll likely be unhappy that what used to be their main social time with you is lost to your evening sleep period. On the gripping hand, much of the US population spends those hours staring at a television screen, so maybe it isn't a social time for you.
• 6 hour day

  I was on this schedule for only 2 weeks (when I was somewhat over 30 years old), but it felt great. It took me no getting used to, I never needed an alarm clock, and I felt invigorated. I spent 4.5 hours awake, then 1.5 hours asleep. Every meal was breakfast.

  • pro: Requires only 4.5 hours for full sleep. Still has sleep in large enough blocks that normal sleep cycles take place. It once gave me the line (joke unintended at the time): "I really have to go sleep now -- I've already pulled one all-nighter today."
  • con: The wake/sleep schedule becomes much more rigid, even small delays in bedtime hit hard. Few occupations allow for this sort of sleep schedule. It is particularly impractical if you have significant overhead for each waking period (e.g. a round-trip commute every 6-hour "day" versus every 24-hour day).

Long before I learned of REM cycles, back before the information age (in the 1970s), I plotted my waking times and learned that I woke easily at multiples of 90 minutes after I fell asleep. I would typically wake after 7.5 hours, but also woke easily after 6 or 4.5 hours. With effort, I could wake up after 3 hours. These are the 90-minute cycles of natural sleep. I think it unwise to go for a long time without getting 90-minute periods of sleep, and I've heard of research studies that back me up on that.

The more 90-minute sleep cycles you have in a row, the more "watered-down" the later ones become. The first hours of sleep are the deepest and most important, while the later ones are just a few steps down