Polyphasic sleep

[gl1koz3]

The prospect of uncontrollable need for sleep every few hours is crap. This essentially wastes your resources, when you need to work on complex problem solving. This includes at least 8-10 hours of straight work to get accomplished. Having the naps in between would result in around 15-30 minutes of "catching up with your own thoughts". As per some other research about how much time you need to get back on track after being interrupted.

 

[The Hairminator]

Six 20-30 minute naps a day... If my math isn't failing me now, doesn't that equal about 3 hours of sleep every 24 hours?

I can't imagine that being very healthy for your body, since every health class I've ever taken says 8 hours is best for your body.

The thing is that that the only type of sleep you really need is the REM (Rapid Eye Movement- when you dream) stage, which is initated fairly quickly. On a usual night your body goes from REM to Heavy Sleeping and back few times. You are generally more wide awake if you wake up while you're in the REM stage, too.

What the uberman does is to maximize the time of REM, so while you only sleep about ~3 hours every day you get about the same amount of REM sleep. Timing is very important here though, and you could easily fuck up your sleeping schedules and wind up extremely tired.

 

[ninjajoeman]

Six 20-30 minute naps a day... If my math isn't failing me now, doesn't that equal about 3 hours of sleep every 24 hours?

I can't imagine that being very healthy for your body, since every health class I've ever taken says 8 hours is best for your body.

Every health class you have ever taken is wrong then. They are just repeating old bad information. Studies show that people that sleep six hours on average live longer healthier lives then people who sleep eight. Start going below six and the trend starts to reverse. It seems the sweet zone is between six and seven hours.

sir I hope your lying.

 

[arsenicCatnip]

I think that polyphasic sleep comes with a hell of a lot of pseudoscience attached. I wouldn't take the risk - it probably screws up your circadian rhythms, making it rather difficult to fit into a normal society full of people who sleep during the night.

Every health class you have ever taken is wrong then. They are just repeating old bad information. Studies show that people that sleep six hours on average live longer healthier lives then people who sleep eight. Start going below six and the trend starts to reverse. It seems the sweet zone is between six and seven hours.

I don't think we should actually want people lasting into their eighties in the Western world, considering that every person living over 65 or so is just an extra person which the government usually has to pay pensions out to, without getting industrial productivity from them either. And in case you're wondering, I don't believe that I'm being hypocritical, because I'm not from a remarkably long-lasting family anyway, and chances are that I'll die in my sixties without some sort of hardcore bionic treatment.

Eight-hour sleep for me.

Nine or ten hours for me, and I'm fresh as a daisy. I've heard some weird stuff about polyphasic sleep, so I don't think I'd ever test it out.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

That sounds dumb. "Yay, I napped all day and now I'm wide awake at 3 in the morning. Too bad everyone is asleep."

Incidentally, Inception was the BEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER. GO WATCH IT NOW.

 

[Mimssy]

I'm familiar with the idea. Apparently after a week your body adjusts to it. Tell your friends to keep at it, and then you could get back to us?

I tried it for about four days. In the end I felt a strong desire to eat myself like a bowl of cornflakes, but thankfully I passed out before I could add milk.

I was awake for 6 days straight once and by the end of it my line of thought was right there with you. I was more paranoid that the people around me thought I was a tasty tasty snack, though.

Haha, I love the idea that you had that cartoon hot-dog dilemma. You know, where everyone's on a desert island and suddenly their best friend turns into a delicious apple pie? =]
By the way, welcome to The Escapist. Be wary of people who are obsessed with "DEINE PERFECK GRAMMAR, HERR!" God forbid you should make a spelling mistake around here.

haha, thanks. I get really hungry when I'm more sleep deprived than usual (When I became a vegetarian, everyone looked like a roast beef sandwich for a week). It's a little surprising that I haven't bitten anyone yet. Right now I'm trying out a sleep schedule that involves little to no sunlight. It's great for evening out my pale.

I guess you would, needing more energy and stuff. So you're vegetarian? Groovy. I might try it when I get to Uni, meat is expensive anyway. Is it particularly difficult to keep it up?

And yeah, you might want to watch it with the biting. Some people think it's adorable, others might be a little upset when you've torn out their throat and are using it to make surf'n'turf.

PALE PEOPLE UNITE! Stupid daywalkers, with their healthy complexion and enjoyment of summer and melanoma, making us candlestick people look bad. =[

It isn't hard at all, especially if you are away at school. I was never much of a carnivore anyway.

People start lookin' at ya funny when you're salting their arm while wearing a bib and brandishing cutlery.

They can keep their tans and skin cancer. I take solace in knowing that I'd be easier to find if I get lost in the woods because I'll glow. Living in south Florida has shown me what too much sun does to a person's skin. There are women here who look like worn out leather sofas.

 

[manaman]

I think that polyphasic sleep comes with a hell of a lot of pseudoscience attached. I wouldn't take the risk - it probably screws up your circadian rhythms, making it rather difficult to fit into a normal society full of people who sleep during the night.

Every health class you have ever taken is wrong then. They are just repeating old bad information. Studies show that people that sleep six hours on average live longer healthier lives then people who sleep eight. Start going below six and the trend starts to reverse. It seems the sweet zone is between six and seven hours.

I don't think we should actually want people lasting into their eighties in the Western world, considering that every person living over 65 or so is just an extra person which the government usually has to pay pensions out to, without getting industrial productivity from them either. And in case you're wondering, I don't believe that I'm being hypocritical, because I'm not from a remarkably long-lasting family anyway, and chances are that I'll die in my sixties without some sort of hardcore bionic treatment.

Eight-hour sleep for me.

I have the same problem, women in my family life into their 90s. The men don't quite have the same luck. I don't get to have a steady sleep schedule. Like tonight, I have been staying up late so long that I can't seem to get to sleep and I have to be up in about four hours.

So I end up sleeping for four hours or five hours, then crashing for half the day.

 

[sky14kemea]

I was gonna try the Uberman sleep pattern, but I got talked out of it by my friends D:

It sounded interesting, but I bet it takes a lot of practise to nap on que >.>
good luck to your friend, I hope he does well with it!

 

[nelsonr100]

This



I'm just waiting for the right moment to try this out

 

[Spencer Petersen]

While the whole "shorter but more often" technique works for dieting pretty well I don't think it works well for sleep. The most regenerative part of sleep is the deep sleep that only starts after you've been asleep for a short while. When you cut your sleep up you greatly cut down on the amount of deep sleep you get.

 

[Tallim]

I used to do this and it worked extremely well. Don't do it if you are extremely active as you will end up with all your muscles aching like hell.
The crash is horrible if it happens, you sleep for forever and when you wake up you feel like you have been drinking all night while insulting a heavy weight boxer.

The days feel very long, by which I mean time seems to go slowly not that your just awake more. That is great if your doing something fun but not if your doing something very dull.

Essentially if you have a full time job it will not work unless you set your own hours. Don't ever plan to do anything that you can't have your sleep during. Once you are in the pattern a missed nap messes you up royally as your brain goes nuts as it expects to get that 20 minute sleep.

The first week is a killer and you will probably fail many times and sleep through the alarm. You will not be able to think straight and you will constantly be tired.

 

[Rakkana]

I gave it a go when my insomnia was worse. Then the teachers caught on I was sleeping in lessons.

 

[Doclector]

Screw that. I'm on summer holiday from college atm, going to bed around 2:00 am and waking up at around 11:00 am FTW.

 

[Snownine]

That is definitely a sub optimum arrangement. Besides how they hell would you do that with work?

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

That would be horrible. The day would never end and it would get confusing when talking about stuff that happened on Tuesday, for example.

 

[z121231211]

Wait, since when was deep sleep useless?

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

Two of my friends experimented with the Uberman sleeping schedule, the one where you have six twenty or thirty minute naps per twenty four hours to increase your waking hours. One of them is still doing it, although he lapsed a few times. I see him asleep on the couch in the library at recess. I find it amusing. He said he needs to find something to engage himself or his body just feels like going to sleep, but he seems functional enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep

At first I was curious about trying it, but I really like sleep, and I don't like really like schedules.

What do you think of it?

Did you know that during the first 2 hours of waking up from sleep or a nap, if you fall asleep or nap again, your body gets no rest aty all from it? It simply makes you drowsy and makes you feel like you got rest. This is pretty much what they're doing. Their body isn't going to get enough R.E.M sleep and while it won't happen as quickly as someone who doesn't sleep at all, it's going to cause damage eventually

 

[Marter]

First off, I tried it, and found the adjustment period too difficult to continue with it.

I also talked to my Biology teacher this year, and she said that it would be terrible for you. Also, if someone is to try it, keep the naps to under 20 minutes, or you'll be doing even more damage.