Polyphasic Sleep

[Gobbledigook]

Recently I've been reading a lot about Polyphasic sleeping patterns. Being in college, and having a job I would love to have more time than to merely do what I need to do without anything extra. I looked into alternate sleeping patterns, and while it seems risky... @#$@ it I hate sleeping.

Anyways, I was thinking of doing the Everyman sleep schedule, which basically looks like this in awesome pie chart form: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Everyman.png


There's also the notorious "Uberman" schedule, 20 minute naps 6 times a day, but F that.

Anyways, I was thinking of doing the following schedule:

7:30am-8am
12:30pm-1pm
8pm-8:30pm
1am-4am

If I can do that, then I've effectively gained 4 hours of awake time a day. Which theoretically means like 10 more years of living if I maintain it (probably not though).

Anyways, I'll try and do this soon, and if anyone wants me to, I can post my progress here, considering that this is the only forum I go on were people actually give a damn about things not game related.
[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Brendan/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.png[/IMG]

[Jom]

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Brendan/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.png[/IMG]

You're going to have to upload that image to imageshack or another host if you want to display it.

Back on topic: I have a friend who tried polyphasic sleeping for about 6 weeks and it really depends on what you plan to do with it. He used it to gain a lot more waking hours in order to play more online poker and while he says his average concentration levels were higher - he would previously burn out after a 6 or 7 hour session - he found that doing anything somewhat physical like walking several miles, playing a sport etc just tired him out and left him feeling really drained and it would take him many phases of sleeping just to recover.

[MrMofo]

Scientifically speaking, Kramer tried this on Seinfeld, and it didn't work out very well for him.

[Solid Snake]

Thats cause u dont get deep sleep, u only get light sleep which ur brain recovers yes but not as much as in deep sleep.....
So it doesnt really works out, interns in hospitals here use it cause they basically have to stay up like for 72 hrs straight, so they get his naps in whenever they can, they usually go deep sleep at once and they recover soundly. However regular people just go into light sleep that doesnt helps u recover as much as deep sleep.

[Gobbledigook]

Thats cause u dont get deep sleep, u only get light sleep which ur brain recovers yes but not as much as in deep sleep.....
So it doesnt really works out, interns in hospitals here use it cause they basically have to stay up like for 72 hrs straight, so they get his naps in whenever they can, they usually go deep sleep at once and they recover soundly. However regular people just go into light sleep that doesnt helps u recover as much as deep sleep.

In my own defense, I dream pretty much every time I take a nap, maybe some people are more prone to fall into REM sleep? I don't know, I'm sure there are negatives, but I still kind of want to try it... if only for a week or two, just to see if I can operate on a different schedule.

[Nimthill]

In my own defense, I dream pretty much every time I take a nap, maybe some people are more prone to fall into REM sleep? I don't know, I'm sure there are negatives, but I still kind of want to try it... if only for a week or two, just to see if I can operate on a different schedule.

You dream in REM sleep, but that isn't deep sleep. So yes, you dream during powernaps, but you don't really recover that much.

[Elfdude]

You need 8 hours of sleep or so on average as a young adult. Depending how fast you go through the initial stages of sleep you can cut that time but it's the last few stages of sleep that are most important for functioning. Older people require less sleep because they get better at it.

[Solid Snake]

You need 8 hours of sleep or so on average as a young adult. Depending how fast you go through the initial stages of sleep you can cut that time but it's the last few stages of sleep that are most important for functioning. Older people require less sleep because they get better at it.

They get better at it...

Not completely true.

[Elfdude]

They get better at it...

Not completely true.

There's a skewed bell curve of course, after a certain point in health they require drastically more sleep. The general idea though is as you grow up you put yourself to sleep faster and more efficiently because you've done it a zillion times before. Hence why grandma gets up at 5am after going to sleep shortly before you at midnight.

[Solid Snake]

What Nim said.

[Solid Snake]

I thought it had something to do with the pineal gland? The thing that controls the circadian relfex? From what I know this pineal gland gets activated during day and shuts down at sleep, hence why we sleep at night....
Anywho it becomes like "solid" rock solid as age pass and so the sleep patterns get messed up: so we have elders sleeping at midday or staying up all night...

[Elfdude]

I thought it had something to do with the pineal gland? The thing that controls the circadian relfex? From what I know this pineal gland gets activated during day and shuts down at sleep, hence why we sleep at night....
Anywho it becomes like "solid" rock solid as age pass and so the sleep patterns get messed up: so we have elders sleeping at midday or staying up all night...

I wouldn't call that the reason why we need a lot of sleep early on and less and less sleep as we age.

But yes that probably is a factor.

[Solid Snake]

No mate, I dont think it has squat to do with the amount of time we sleep, but rather at what part of the day we choose to sleep on

[Tesla]

What about those guys in the military? I heard from some friends that they also sometimes get like only 2-3 hours sleep when they are on a training/mission whatever. Sure it toughens you up but, can't be exactly healthy for long periods of time?

[Solid Snake]

No it cant be healthy, the thing is that when they do lie down and sleep, they go directly into deep sleep so they recover more energy...Ive heard it´s possible to kinda "train" your brain to just shut down wihtout going through any light sleep.

[Tiwaz]

It's not training but automatic response of your body.

If you are sleep deprived, your body automatically tries to make your sleep as efficient at recovering as possible.
Thus, after serious sleep deprivation, you only need regular night sleep to fully recover.

It should be noted, though, that this is not healthy.
Phase 3, deep sleep NREM (non rapid eye movement) which sometimes is described as phases 3 and 4, is phase when human body secretes most growth hormones. This is the deep sleep, and in case of sleep deprivation this is first one "restored" to proper levels.

That, however, takes space from other phases like REM-sleep, which appears to be essential for memory.

So person who takes advantage of sleep deprivation to kick straight to deep sleep may suffer problems with memory, more specifically procedural memory which is responsible for learning new skills.

Phase 3 of NREM "refreshes" declarative memory, so person suffering from lack of REM-sleep would have no or little issues on memory which is related to remembering things factually or as events. So someone on "uberman" sleep cycle could learn cities of France with little performance issues, but would have issues learning to ride bike.

[Copperknickers II]

Recently I've been reading a lot about Polyphasic sleeping patterns. Being in college, and having a job I would love to have more time than to merely do what I need to do without anything extra. I looked into alternate sleeping patterns, and while it seems risky... @#$@ it I hate sleeping.

Anyways, I was thinking of doing the Everyman sleep schedule, which basically looks like this in awesome pie chart form: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Everyman.png


There's also the notorious "Uberman" schedule, 20 minute naps 6 times a day, but F that.

Anyways, I was thinking of doing the following schedule:

7:30am-8am
12:30pm-1pm
8pm-8:30pm
1am-4am

If I can do that, then I've effectively gained 4 hours of awake time a day. Which theoretically means like 10 more years of living if I maintain it (probably not though).

Anyways, I'll try and do this soon, and if anyone wants me to, I can post my progress here, considering that this is the only forum I go on were people actually give a damn about things not game related.
[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Brendan/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.png[/IMG]

Well Brendan, by all means try it out and post results. I'm not advocating sleep deprivation, but i've heard similar things, so i'd be very interested if you got it to work.

One thing i can say though: humans are not polyphasic sleepers naturally. We are programmed to get as many waking hours as we can in extreme circumstances, but in ideal conditions we are thoroughly diurnal creatures, night is for finding a nice cave somewhere and sleeping there until morning.

[Jom]

So any updates, or did you die/go insane from lack of sleep?

[0N3]

So if i sleep 6 hours and then suddenly wake up by a noise then sleeping had little effect because i missed the last few stages of sleep?

[gambit]

So if i sleep 6 hours and then suddenly wake up by a noise then sleeping had little effect because i missed the last few stages of sleep?

The important stages can kick in almost immediately, if you havent had REM sleep for a long time it's possible to rebound by jumping right into deep stages as soon as you're asleep.. or within a little while of being asleep. whatever.