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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?
An excellent writeup on the Uberman sleep schedule can be found here.
In the past I've restricted my sleep to as little as three hours a night for several weeks without ill effects, but I've never tried the Uberman sleep schedule. Now that I'm older, I seem to need my sleep much more desperately than I used to (I get physically ill if I get less than five hours sleep per night), so I doubt I'll be trying it anytime soon.
I have a friend who decided to try it during his long period of unemployment (in fact, I first heard of it from him), but he dropped out after a few weeks. I suspect that he just enjoyed sleeping too much to give up so much of it. ^_^
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
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?
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
We all know how well this stuff worked out for Cosmo Kramer.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Let me tell you a bit about my experi... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
What limited info I know about long-term sleep deprivation is that its very deceptive. Subjects think they are fine once they get used to it. But objective tests show significant declines in cognition performance. The point: feeling fine and being fine are two different things when it comes to sleep and the brain.
Before embarking on this, I'd get and baseline some cognitive tests (memory, reaction time, logic) to ensure that the new schedule isn't adversing affecting your brain.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
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.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Polyphasic sleep isn't an effective long-term way to decrease your overall sleep time. For starters, it tends to take people a certain amount of time to get to sleep, which changes depending on time of day and overall sleep debt that has been built up. This wastes precious minutes.
As well as this, there have been quite a few studies that have examined what happens to people who try polyphasic sleep. The results tend to involve an ever-increasing sleep debt. You could try looking for the '90 minute day' - most participants who come out of those experiments will afterwards sleep for quite a while. That's pretty strong evidence that they've built up quite a bit of sleep debt.
You don't WANT to maximise your REM sleep at the expense of slow-wave sleep. While it's true that REM sleep tends to happen in 90 minute cycles mostly unrelated to the sleep/wake cycle, REM sleep is not the only goal of sleep. In normal people, it tends to happen most towards the end of the sleep period. It's also interesting to note that people suffering from clinical depression tend to have a greater ratio of REM sleep to non-REM sleep.
It would be much more effective in my opinion to gradually decrease the amount of sleep you get each night by something like 15 minutes. Once you get down to around the 5-6 hour mark, you're likely to start to suffer for it, but if you break the rigid routine, you're likely to require less sleep than you did before decreasing sleep time. The theory goes that people who do this sleep more efficiently - they also tend to get greater periods of slow-wave sleep early in the sleep period.
And of course, the so-called 'Uberman' cycle completely ignores the effects that light and dark have on people. Try looking up the research of Dr. Leon Lack into bright light therapy. If you are stupid enough to try polyphasic sleep, you might want to make sure that during your wake periods, you're exposed to quite strong light and during your sleep periods, you don't get any. Even if your sleep/wake cycle becomes uncoupled with the time of day - which is unlikely considering that people with different sleep patterns like this STILL find it more difficult to get to sleep at certain times of day - bright light and darkness will probably have a big impact.
Polyphasic sleep is used by Solo Circumnavigating sailors. It's the only way to survive. Taking 20 minute catnaps is a lot safer than trying to sleep for hours at a time. Or, for that matter, doing something as dangerous as sailing around the world by yourself while chronicly sleep deprived. I think there was a Nova that talked about this sort of thing a while back.
this is not something to dive into lightly, as it requires rigid scheduling
Pfft. Just have a kid. I guarantee that at least one parent will automatically do this.
Well, not so much "experiments" as "crushing bouts of insomnia".
I have, in the past, maintained sleep schedules where I averaged just under 3 hours of sleep a night for well over a month at a time. I know precisely how much I was sleeping because I kept precise logs, as per my doctor's request. This wasn't by choice--I simply couldn't sleep.
You see, I've always struggled with insomnia, and twice in my life it's gotten this bad. As such, I've come to be aquainted with what affect sleep patterns can have on a person. I can say that a lot of what I'm reading in the "Uberman's Sleep Schedule" seems plausible, except the bit about not being tired. You're tired, damn tired, but you can't tell after a while.
Naturally, the circumstances for me were a bit... different, but I can't really recommend a schedule like this. When you don't get enough sleep, you're never really awake. Worse, you can't really tell how much it's affecting you while you're still suffering from sleep deprevation--it's a lot like being drunk in that regard. Only the incredibly foolish (or incredibly experienced) think they can tell how drunk they are.
What's the point of spending more time awake if you're only sort of awake?
On the other hand, it's only fair to mention that my curiosity is in fact piqued. I'm tempted to try it myself, and see what happens. Worst comes to worst, it could trigger another long-term disruption in my sleep schedule, but hey, at least that's a known evil!
-- That tickles!
If you forcibly deprive someone of sleep, they end up with physical brain damage and then die.
So it is true that my boss is trying to kill me. I though I was just being paranoid.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
I tried the "uberman's sleep schedule" for two weeks about three years ago. The first week was rough, but the second went pretty well. The rigidity really is a crucial factor... I overslept once and couldn't get back into the schedule (on the 13th or 14th day).
l e.
I've been working up a plan to get a schedule like this going again, but it's really tricky due to the various circumstances of real life... separate weekend activities/schedules from the rest of the week, parties or dates might last more than three hours... it's almost a catch-22 scenario for everyone past the age of four or so.
But the 'thirty minutes every four hours' schedule isn't the only alternative... as another poster mentioned, sleeping in a couple separate blocks also works -- e.g., a 3-1-2-2 schedule (a total of eight hours sleep with one block of 3 hours, a block of 1 hour, and so on), or similar. I've heard rumors from some psychology friends that the most effective sleep schedule is different for each person; perhaps experimenting with a few representative schedules is worth trying.
There is some good discussion on this very topic on everything2, just follow the wikipedia link through (e2 probably doesn't have quite as much server power): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uberman_sleep_schedu
Let S_n = {nst+us+vt : s,t in Z \ {0}, u,v in {-1,1}}. For all n in Z where |n| > 2, Z \ S_n is infinite... right?
Steve Pavlina, apparently a man with a huge amount of people following his blog about various ways of self-improvement, has rather nice coverage on his experiment with polyphasic sleep. Long story short, he's been doing it for over 90 days now and claims to have improved his quality of life tremendously. It's a nice read, go check it out. Here's an excerpt from his entry on day 90:
Personally, I do think polyphasic sleep can have a positive effect. It just takes a lot of character and a suitable life situation to make it work. Not for everybody, but not bogus either.
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.
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
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?
Without an external stimulus such as daylight or a rigid schedule, most peoples' sleep cycles will be between 25 and 26 hours. 28 hours is about the upper limit of what people can manage, while 22 hours is the lower limit.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
For starters, it tends to take people a certain amount of time to get to sleep, which changes depending on time of day and overall sleep debt that has been built up. This wastes precious minutes.
the whole point of polyphasic sleep is to get to a point where your body can instantly go to sleep. the first week is the problem because you arent trained for that yet, it takes forever to go to sleep after you slept four hours ago. the trick with polyphasic sleep, the way to learn how to do it is, you only put your head down on the pillow for the alloted time. sleep or no. by the end of day three a 15 minute nap is instant and divine. there is no "wasted minutes", only ever growing debt and madness which payoff latter by sending you instantly to sleep.
As well as this, there have been quite a few studies that have examined what happens to people who try polyphasic sleep. The results tend to involve an ever-increasing sleep debt. You could try looking for the '90 minute day' - most participants who come out of those experiments will afterwards sleep for quite a while. That's pretty strong evidence that they've built up quite a bit of sleep debt.
like most things in nature, growth is bounded. if you dont sleep for four days straight, you dont need 24 hours of consecutive sleep. polyphasic sleep simply finds that upper bound of sleep debt very quickly and forces your body to adjust to recieving and maximizing the short duration payments it recieves. That restlessness before sleep you spoke of, the inability to get to sleep... the point of polyphasic is to overcome that.
REM sleep is not the only goal of sleep
indeed, some people naturally have no REM at all. on the other hand, it does signify a very deep state of slumber. if you can get to rem directly, you're skipping many of "entering sleep" stages most people go through.
"If you are stupid enough to try polyphasic sleep, you might want to make sure that during your wake periods, you're exposed to quite strong light and during your sleep periods, you don't get any."
As for light cycles, most people sleep through some part of daylight. 15 minute and one hour naps throughout the day is not seriously going to injure your daylight exposure. Sitting in cublices all day will.
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In summation;
You list a number of barriers to starting polyphasic sleep; trying to get to sleep in the middle of the day, trying to sleep during the light, &c &c. Its true taht these all can be barriers to entry but the point of the exercise is to overcome these barriers, to adjust your system, maximize sleep value and reap enormous temporal rewards. the question is "can we go to the moon?" and you start talking about how gravity's keeping us down... well great, the question wasnt "is it easy", the question is, is it possible.
Polyphasic sleep isn't an effective long-term way to decrease your overall sleep time.
Yes and no. Polyphasic sleep is an exceedingly effective way to get the magic 26 hour day. Yes, it really is. It works great, you feel fine (after you get adjusted & break through the problems establishing the cycle) and you're sleeping one third the time.
What makes your statement right is the terms "long-term":
Actually living a polyphasic sleep cycle, once you've started it, is extremely difficult. The cycle continues itself fine, without problems, but it is extremely inflexible to the callings of real normal life. It is an unstable equilibrium, waiting for the first moment of deviation to go spiralling out of control. Accidentally oversleeping can have devestating effects, missing a regular rest interval will crush you. When its working, it works fine, there are really no self evident mental defects, no externally discernable oddities (besides the disappearing every four hours)... but keeping it up is exceedingly hard to manage in a relatively busy world. Thats the biggest problem with polyphasic sleep, with normal sleep you can skip nights here&there,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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