11 ms·

Polyphasic sleep takes napping to the extreme

107 points by trickle_learn 6y ago

seven4 6y ago
One unintended consequence of Covid19 related lockdown/work from home has been less commute and more hours to sleep. This is the most regular/high quality sleep i've had in years and I'm only now seeing how badly my normal sleep habits have been effecting me. Experimenting with any non-monophasic sleep pattern sounds exhausting and I'm afraid could have serious health impacts...would love to see the science/literature evolve to a point of consensus though.
- alessivs 6y ago
  > Experimenting with any non-monophasic sleep pattern sounds exhausting and I'm afraid could have serious health impacts I assume you speak for yourself. Biphasic sleep is not an abnormal occurrence and actually quite embedded in some non-anglo cultures (e.g. late afternoon opening times). Even when occurring naturally, it isn't extravagant to be aware of provisions so that nap time doesn't cause a naturally avoidable interference.[1] [1]: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Best_time_for_napping https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Best_time_for_napping
  - corty 6y ago
    I would guess that biphasic sleep was killed by the common consumption of stimulant drugs like tea or coffee in western culture.
    - taeric 6y ago
      I would guess electric lights.
      - corty 6y ago
        That doesn't make sense to me, siesta wastes precious daylight. If anything, the availability of light at night should have promoted daytime sleep, if there was any influence.
        nijaru 6y ago
        Growing up somewhere with a Mediterranean climate that has hot summers, I’ve always assumed it was to sleep through the heat before a/c was invented.
        taeric 6y ago
        There is almost certainly something to this. Sun exposure is dangerous.
        nradov 6y ago
        How can people sleep during the hottest part of the day? I've never been able to manage that.
        eru 6y ago
        You can doze off. And falling asleep is a skill you can train. (I can nap in hotter and brighter conditions during the day than I can tolerate at night.)
        taeric 6y ago
        Lights help extend the evening. Such that you sort of barrel through a time that would make you tired by just cranking up the light.
    - abeppu 6y ago
      That's an interesting guess -- I had read that biphasic sleep was common in the West prior to the industrial revolution, when work for long days away from home was common, and light began to be more available at night. Maybe the right kind of historian is around to answer: Was biphasic sleep also the norm in preindustral societies that had tea or coffee cultures relatively early?
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Depends which kind of biphasic you’re talking about. Afternoon naps were probably killed by stimulants. But the “first” and “second” sleep historically common were probably killed off by the electric light.
  - tom_mellior 6y ago
    > I assume you speak for yourself. Biphasic sleep is not an abnormal occurrence and actually quite embedded in some non-anglo cultures I think you misunderstood the parent, and your reaction seems a bit confrontational. Surely the parent wasn't suggesting that a good night's sleep plus an afternoon nap "sounds exhausting" and "could have serious health impacts". They were talking about patterns that do not include a good night's sleep.
    - alessivs 6y ago
      Ah, that's an understandable interpretation, but my response was not meant to be unnecessarily confrontational. If anything, the closing sentence was an admission that, while we seem wired to sleep mono or biphasically and maintain good health, a poorly executed second sleep block had the potential to compromise it, and that there were provisions that in my judgment were worth knowing.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Biphasic and triphasic are actually pretty normal, historically. Modern humans go to bed super late compared to our pre-electricity brethren; most people the world over would go to bed super early and have a “first” and “second” sleep, plus maybe an afternoon nap. You’ll notice this effect if you go camping. The moment the sun goes down you’ll crash much sooner than you would at home, and you might find yourself fully awake at 2am or so.
  - ghettoimp 6y ago
    > Biphasic and triphasic are actually pretty normal, historically. Is there evidence of this? I'm not doubting - I think I've seen this suggested before. I just don't know how people figured this out?
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Oh, there’s tons of evidence for this, largely in the writings of pre-electricity figures who clearly treated the subject as common knowledge. Advice manuals from the time even indicate that this was the best time for couples to conceive. Modern tribes without access to continuous light actually still sleep like this too, which is fascinating. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783
    - jabirali 6y ago
      Maybe check the references in this article? https://theconversation.com/did-we-used-to-have-two-sleeps-rather-than-one-should-we-again-57806 https://theconversation.com/did-we-used-to-have-two-sleeps-r...
    - samtheprogram 6y ago
      Anecdotally I remember reading that in Britain it used to be more common for some to wake up in the middle of the night and do light reading, but you’ll probably want to do some more research as I don’t recall the source.
    - kccqzy 6y ago
      Biphasic sleep is pretty common in Asian cultures. An afternoon nap is common in pre-schools and elementary schools, less common but still not non-existent in higher education and the workplace.
- m463 6y ago
  I can take a nap if I feel tired. Usually in the afternoon, which would have been impossible when in the office.
DanBC 6y ago
I think the article points out a useful fallacy: that polyphasic sleep means you can get away with less sleep. We should probably move away from trying to get less sleep, and move toward getting better sleep. This may reduce our waking hours, but would make those hours more productive. Having 18 hours a day available isn't much help if you're a tired confused angry mess. > Polyphasic sleep purportedly had famous practitioners such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Napoleon, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Edison, but there is scant evidence to prove such claims. Buckminster Fuller appears to be one of the first documented polyphasic sleepers Roger Ekirch did some work around historical accounts of sleep and found "the second sleep" referred to biphasic sleep, and that this was common and well known. https://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/sleepcommentary.html https://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/sleepcommentary.html And some reporting of his work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783 https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shi...
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > isn't much help if you're a tired confused angry mess. Depends. I can go through a lot of email like this.
- corty 6y ago
  My experience agrees that sleeping less through alternative sleep patterns is possible. However, the benefits of sleeping less are spurious: While I can improve motivation and concentration in my observation, work results when inspected later do not agree, at least for the concentration. It is easier to get stuff done, but the overall quality of work and thought is diminished. I would equate the state to being intoxicated: Certain inhibitions to motivation are removed, but so is a part of your intelligence and concentration as well as the ability for self-observation and self-judgement. Therefore I would suppose that many who report improvements while sleep-deprived are just inadvertently fooling themselves. However, all this is just based on my observation, ymmv.
- trickle_learn 6y ago
  Good point! I actually mention Ekirch in a separate post. I'd call what he's talking about "biphasic," because people in that time slept in two phases. I personally prefer biphasic to involve an afternoon nap. https://trickle.app/drip/23814-sleep-of-pre-industrial-communities-provides-insight-into-how-ancestors-may-have-slept/ https://trickle.app/drip/23814-sleep-of-pre-industrial-commu...
kkaranth 6y ago
This website(trickle.app) looks really interesting. Can anyone who weigh in on the overall quality of the content?
bonniemuffin 6y ago
Having recently experienced raising an infant, let me tell you, getting all my sleep in <2 hour chunks is HORRIBLE, even if I'm getting a pretty reasonable total amount of sleep. I was getting what this article suggests would be a viable polyphasic sleep schedule (total of 8 hours per 24 hour period, in chunks of 1-2 hours throughout the day and night whenever the baby slept), but I started hallucinating, got deeply depressed, and felt like I was losing touch with reality. All the symptoms vanished as soon as I started getting longer chunks of sleep at night.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  Although I don't have any belief in polyphasic sleep being true or not unless you were getting that sleep in extremely regular intervals - that is to say with exactly the same amount of time between each interval and with the time you slept during each sleep period also rigorously timed what you had would not be a viable polyphasic sleep schedule. Since the polyphasic idea is to decrease the actual amount slept getting 8 hours also is going against the whole purpose of doing it. I've raised two children, one of them with real sleep irregularities, and neither time did I have anything resembling what the adherents of polyphasic sleep would consider a reasonable schedule.
- toast0 6y ago
  Oh man, raising an infant and sleep deprivation hit me too. For about a week, I had to just chart if I was awake or not and just sleep when the chart said to sleep... Other than the couple of times where I ended up not sleeping for 24 hours, I thought the wake up/eat/sleep cycles around 2 hours were ok, but 3 hours was torture, the wakeup would always happen in the middle of deep sleep and really mess things up. Once it got over four hours, it all seemed fineish. Not a lot of memory retention from that period though. Pretty happy we had a good sleeper or I would have been wrecked.
- monkeydreams 6y ago
  > getting all my sleep in <2 hour chunks is HORRIBLE I can sympathise with this. My son spent about 18 months (from 4 months old onwards) only sleeping 45 -50 minutes at a time, before waking up crying. It felt like every aspect of our lives at that point was outside of our control and any attempt to organise ourselves or to co-ordinate outside assistance (in the form of family, friends, medical intervention) was an ordeal beyond our mental capabilities. Things improved just before his 2nd birthday. He went from 45 minute sleep to 6 hour sleep in the course of two days.
deelawn 6y ago
I did tried my best to keep to the dymaxion schedule (thirty minute nap every six hours) in college for about two months for a blogging assignment. The first two weeks were pretty terrible but it got better after that. I can confirm what was written in the article, that oversleeping or missing one of those naps would be disastrous for continuing to keep the schedule. On a positive note, I was more productive during that term than I ever had been before. I was working out, cooking my own meals, and finished all of my assignments long before they were due.
- themodelplumber 6y ago
  I wonder if that productivity effect is part of what enabled Fuller's gift of gab. I noticed that when I really need to bust through a lot of outward-facing sensory or communicative tasks, a sleep deficit is very helpful. For example I posted a personal-record number of blog posts while working on little sleep--to the point that some blog readers emailed me and asked how I did it. I found it hard to recommend the procedure because there were big tradeoffs in other ways, like a deep sense of inner resilience and confidence that only returned in strength when I was rested up again.
krater23 6y ago
I tried polyphasic sleep and exactly what the text said, I stopped because social pressure of a monophasic world. It worked, but some other things like meeting friends more than four hours was more important for me. So, I read three screen sites of text with only one argument: Polyphasic animals are sleeping longer. I don't think thats a really good argument compared with reports from people that are doing polyphasic sleep for months.
FirefoxIsSlow 6y ago
Does biphasic sleep count as polyphasic? I've been doing it for years following the 6 hr core and 20 minute nap. (Basically this https://efficiencyiseverything.com/sleep/ https://efficiencyiseverything.com/sleep/) It's been extremely doable for over a year. Sure I sleep in when I'm hungover or on a lazy Saturday, but it's closer to a regular 8 hour sleep rather than 10 hours. I'm not in agreement of this overly simple article.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  How do you keep your nap to just 20 minutes though? I literally can’t sleep for that short amount of time. I’ll either stay awake for the full 20 minutes or I’ll fall so dead asleep that I don’t wake up again until morning.
  - yosito 6y ago
    For me, I tense all of my muscles for 5 seconds, then relax, close my eyes and let my mind go blank. I don't "try" to sleep, I just try to enjoy relaxing. 9/10 times, I'm waking up to the 21 minute alarm I set before I even notice I had fallen asleep. Every once in awhile, I don't fall asleep, and then I assume that my body didn't need it. Very rarely, my alarm goes off and I decide that I'm going to nap longer. In those cases, I lose the rest of my day, but it's usually because my body really needed it.
  - gwd 6y ago
    Falling asleep quickly when you're tired I think is something that can be trained; I probably learned it in boot camp, where most days we got only 6 hours of sleep, unless you had watch duty, in which case you got 5 hours; and near the end there was a week where we only got 4 hours. Your body just learns to grab whatever sleep it can. Re taking short naps: When I was at university, if I needed a power nap, I'd set the timer on my watch for 7 minutes and set it on my forehead; then I'd normally do two of these in a row (so 14 minutes of nap total). Once I got used to it, 1) as soon as I closed my eyes I'd start dreaming 2) I'd frequently have the experience of slowly coming to consciousness seconds before the alarm went off. But that only works if you're only moderately tired. If you're really sleep deprived, there's nothing you can do but actually take a longer rest.
xwdv 6y ago
It’s unsustainable but you don’t need to sustain it forever, you only sustain it during a time of your life where it can have the most impact, then phase it out when you get diminishing returns.
- trickle_learn 6y ago
  Agreed it can be effective short term. But you'll feel the effects of sleep deprivation over time and that comes with certain health risks.
leoc 6y ago
Isn't human sleep naturally biphasic rather than monophasic? https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shi...
- StillBored 6y ago
  I've thought for at least 15 years that my natural sleep pattern was 3AM->8AM with another "nap" from PM6->9PM. But this COV19 work from home thing, and my weekend sleeping patterns for a few years now, has been PM3-6PM. So, whether this reflects some deep sleep dysfunction or what, I don't know. What I do know is that i'm a lot more productive/etc when I sleep when I feel tired. Given how hot it gets in TX I don't really mind missing the 3-4 hours during the hottest part of the day.
- smabie 6y ago
  More than that, hunter gatherers pretty much just sleep whenever they want. It's only since the shift towards pastoralism and then agriculture that necessitated a regular sleep/wake cycle.
- elric 6y ago
  If you count an early afternoon nap as the second phase, then yes. Otherwise, no. The whole medieval "second sleep" thing was probably a cultural thing and not a biological thing and it seems to have been limited to Europe during that time period.
  - gwd 6y ago
    Jared Diamond in "The World Until Yesterday" says that when he was on expeditions with natives in New Guinea, they would all go to sleep when the sun went down (near the equator so usually pretty close to 7pm), then wake up around midnight and chat for an hour or two around the fire, before going back to sleep again and waking up at sunrise (again around 5 or 6).
    - elric 6y ago
davidmanheim 6y ago
This "article" doesn't actually have any substantive evidence for the claim in the title.
smabie 6y ago
Can dang change the title. The actual title is "Polyphasic sleep takes napping to the extreme." Moreover, the article never claims that polyphasic sleep is unsustainable, just that many people who tried it abandon it due to social pressure.
enobrev 6y ago
I've tried this a few times - mostly in my twenties. Back then I generally only slept 4-6 hours per night and when I wasn't trying to set a schedule, my sleep schedule would shift at least an hour a day. I was also drinking quite often and sometimes would stay awake for 24 - 36 hours at a time (coffee and booze only). All that is to say my sleep schedule in my twenties was a roller-coaster. I got lots of work done. I got lots of partying in. Sometimes (many times) I mixed the two. I say all that to say that I had a lot of freedom to play with my sleep schedules, and I tried quite a few. I was able to do the two hours of sleep with four hours awake schedule for 2-3 weeks at a time and it generally worked pretty well as long as I adhered strictly. Getting less sleep than that at a time didn't feel right at all. If I pushed either the awake or sleep time, my body would automatically try to escape the schedule and it would be hard for me to get it back. The hardest part was fitting things into 4-hour blocks. If it was a stretch with nothing but work - like during some nasty winter weather - then it was easy, but as it's been said elsewhere, that gets hard to do when you have a social life. When my son was born, I decided to finally lock in my sleep schedule - for the first time since I was a teenager. I was sleeping from 4am until noon, which allowed me to care for my son at night while my wife slept. This was key to a happy marriage, by the way. We were both getting 6-8 hours of uninterruped sleep a night with a newborn! Once he was sleeping through the night (4-months-old, sleeping 12 hours a night!), I shifted to a "normal" schedule of 11pm-7am. While switching, I became so completely stuck into a 2x4-hour sleep schedule that it took about 3 weeks for me to get past and shift my sleep. It seems my body got so used to 7-8 full hour stretches, that it fought me from changing it. I suddenly understood why people have such a hard time with sleep! In my 40+ years of life, that was the hardest sleep schedule change I've ever made! These days I do everything I can to get 7-8 hours and because of my boy I try to make sure that sleep is at night. I miss my revolving sleep schedule. I miss working at night. But my memory is far better. My caffeine intake is almost non-existent except for pleasure. My relationship with my wife is _probably_ better. And I get to spend time with my son every day, so it's a huge win. As a side note, this sort of sleep schedule can be hell with a significant other, as I've dealt with plenty of times over the years. I'm very fortunate that my wife doesn't mind me shifting my schedule however I want, whenever I want, as long as I make time for her in my "day".
regularfry 6y ago
Ever since I read Why We Sleep, I've been extremely reticent to go anywhere near sleep reduction. We don't know much about the lifetime-long-term effects of this type of sleep reduction, but what we do know about sleep deprivation in general puts the bar quite high for demonstrating this won't really mess you up if extended out to interesting timescales.
paulcole 6y ago
For any content marketers out there reading this: If you want your SEO’ed content to get upvoted on HN it must be about a controversial approach to nutrition, wellness, mental health, or exercise. Ideally, your thesis will be that the approach you’re writing about is a terrible idea and doomed to fail. Be prepared for the “well actually” from anyone who has had even moderate fleeting success. If possible, get a small detail slightly wrong so commenters will rush to correct you.
leesec 6y ago
Used to work on a cement tugboat, 12 hour days 28 days a time. Unfortunately, it wasn't 12 on 12 off, it was 6 x 6 x 6 x 6. Meaning you could rarely get more than 4.5 hours of sleep at one time for the whole hitch. Depending on if the Captain had it out for you or what your route demanded, your sleep schedule could be even more irregular. It felt unsustainable to me. You'd come off the boat a zombie, and in just 12 days of drinking and disrupted sleep later, you'd get to do it again.
- audiometry 6y ago
  A tugboat made out of cement? A tugboat that delivers cement?
  - leesec 6y ago
    Yeah a tug and barge that hauls around cement.
- smabie 6y ago
  Why couldn't you just work 12 hour shifts instead of 6 hour ones? Honestly, 6 hours on, 6 off sounds like complete hell to me.
  - leesec 6y ago
    Yeah why anything? Many of the policies on the boat seemed solely to punish the employee. Some boats had it 12 x 12, some boats even had 4 x 8 x 4 x 8, which is just a normal 8 hour day. But not my boat. I lasted less than a year, it was also hell to me.
  - cardiffspaceman 6y ago
    It sounds like a variation on a six-hour shift system. Any seagoing vessel with a crew complement of 2 or more sailors is going to try to have one portion of the crew at work at all times. Skimming [1] I didn't see a 6-on/6-off system, but I believe, the skipper has the last word even when asleep. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchkeeping#Six_Hour_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchkeeping#Six_Hour_Shift
fny 6y ago
I was on a polyphasic sleep schedule for two weeks when I was in high school. I had an econ class where the teacher didn't mind if I fell asleep. It worked fairly well for about two weeks. Towards the end, I was very sleep deprived, but I didn't realize it: I had forgotten what it felt like to be fully rested. While the increased hours in a day we're incredible, mentally intensive tasks were difficult. Homework was easy, but working through AMC practice questions did not go as well. It's a clear quantity vs quality trade-off. I stopped the experiment early when I started having trouble falling asleep in that econ class. Also, I felt perpetual in this somewhat giddy state: that feeling when you just catch a second wind and everything seems funny. Mild delirium. In retrospect, it seems like hypomania. I could see a case for polyphasic sleep for a few weeks at a time if you're in a crunch to do a lot of work that doesn't require too much thinking. Recharge for a week and repeat if necessary. Otherwise, it's a really, really bad idea.
tomc1985 6y ago
20 minute naps? That seems like barely enough time to lose consciousness let alone get any kind of REM sleep.
- rsfern 6y ago
  20 minute power naps are awesome if you can get the timing right. I usually use an alarm, because if I nap much longer than 20 minutes then coming out of deep sleep leaves me feeling super disoriented.
  - stolen_biscuit 6y ago
    20 minute power naps are a lifesaver for me. If I only got around <= 5-6 hours sleep the night before, getting a solid 20 minutes in in the afternoon is enough to make me feel alert and awake until my regular bedtime. Anything over 25 minutes and I feel groggy and lethargic until the next day. Do not go beyond 20-25 minutes in one nap.
whymauri 6y ago
I maintained a pseudo-polyphasic schedule for two years during high school. I think it went like this: 2:00 or 3:00 AM - 6:00 AM (three to four hours) 6:20 AM - 7:20 AM transit (one hour) At least three 10- to 20-minute naps throughout the school day. I negotiated with my teachers to make this acceptable. One pre-lunch nap, one around lunch hours, and one after. 2:20 PM - 3:20 PM transit (one hour) 8:30 PM - 9:30 PM transit or at home (one hour) I was dual-enrolling at the local college at the time for night classes. I was productive, but it was awful, and I wouldn't recommend it. It became a (benign) running joke at my school that I was more likely to be asleep than awake. I got 7-8 hours of sleep, but it's nothing compared to sleeping like normal. Any disruption to my schedule was absolutely fatal for my productivity.
- krustyburger 6y ago
  What made you do this? Was it to gain an academic advantage? I don’t mean to sound judgmental; I honestly find this fascinating.
  - whymauri 6y ago
    I had to transit anyways, and I found it hard to work in transit. In hindsight, I had terrible sleeping habits, and eventually, it forced me to start taking naps wherever I could. A schedule materialized organically and became the norm when I gained the trust of my instructors. And yeah, it was for a competitive advantage. Not within my school, but for college. I didn't understand how college or scholarships worked until my 10th year, which meant that I had to become competitive much quicker than other applicants. On a side note, the worst periods were phasing in-and-out of schedule during winter and summer break (I worked a 9-to-5 on breaks), which I did three or four times.
    - krustyburger 6y ago
      You really put yourself through a wringer at a tender age. Not to sound flippant, but I doubt many people would be capable of that. Congratulations on surviving what you put yourself through. I hope your habits are more ordinary these days.
kren 6y ago
I attempted uberman on two separate occasions and had to stop in fear that lack of sleep would permanently damage my brain. I was able to hit rem every nap after 2-3 weeks but never recovered on sleep within the 30 day transition period. I'm pretty sure it is because it is much easier if you are a vegetarian since eating meat is so heavy and messes with your sleep. It was a neat experience though. I had the most vivid lucid dreams, flying and doing whatever I could imagine. The rem naps would seemingly last 90 minutes even though my alarm would wake me after 20. The days meshed together and felt surreal. I enjoyed it but I feel like I'd have to give up meat to realistically achieve uberman.
- swader999 6y ago
  Tried it as well with similar experience. Concluded that it sort of works but I didn't feel my concentration was superior on it. Socially it's terrible. If you miss your scheduled 20 minute nap every four hours it's devastating.
  - kren 6y ago
    Yeah, it was always weird gaming with friends and then being like "be back in 20..." I'd always return with them asking how the nap was and I'd always say it wasn't enough...haha
- urxvtcd 6y ago
  I also tried uberman some years ago, I don't remember how many days I lasted but I'd guess between 5 and 10. It was amazing that I was able to fall asleep, have a dream and wake up before an alarm, and feel refreshed. But still, I was severely sleep-deprived, I was starting to hallucinate, and I gave up. I was sensing some presence in the room, I knew it wasn't real, but I got scared as shit and decided to fall asleep. In hindsight, that was stupid as hell. The shit kids read on the internet.
  - kren 6y ago
    Haha, yeah 10 days is when it is the hardest, actually, and it gets slightly easier once the body adjusts after that. But hallucinating sounds no good!
hellotomyrars 6y ago
I fully agree that common sense and biology would certainly suggest that trying to stick to a regimented schedule of very specific sleep in small segments for a total of far below 8 hours is probably not as healthy as just getting a good nights sleep regularly. That said the content of this piece doesn’t actually make any meaningful, substantiated argument to that effect. It kind of just lightly suggests that it’s probably not healthy and that social demands ruin the viability of polyphasic sleep anyways. Everyone is different and I don’t think 8 hours is perfect but I would be interested to see a data-driven analysis of sleep patterns/length and long-term effects. I have serious doubts that anyone getting less than 4 hours a sleep for a long period of time (weeks or more) is going to be firing on all cylinders, no matter the creative schedule they construct around it. But I’d be open to seeing meaningful data about it.
patelh 6y ago
I tried this in college. I was doing 6 hours sleep per day (3 hours and 2 90 min segments with 6 hours awake time between them) Worked great while taking 12 credit hours over summer semester. But you end up being up when everyone else is asleep and sleeping when others are awake. Not great for social life but I did get 4.0 that semester.
fouc 6y ago
Everyman sleep schedule is much more sustainable than the uberman schedule. It basically involves doing 3 hour core sleep and three roughly equidistant 25 minute naps. It's fairly easy to move the naps around as needed, once you're used to this. There's also a variant of sleeping 4.5 hours, and then having two 25 minute naps. The idea here is that each 25 minutes nap is essentially "replacing" the ~1.5 hour sleep you're giving up. There's roughly 70-110 minutes per sleep cycle, you're giving up a normal sleep cycle and then making up for it with a power nap. Your body is forced to get more efficient on grabbing the necessary deep sleep during the core sleep period. It's supposed to take about 1 month to adapt. I personally did this schedule for 10 days straight, without even using an alarm clock. But I started getting sick so I stopped.
- dindresto 6y ago
  Did you become sick from adapting to the new sleep schedule or was it just a coincidence?
  - fouc 6y ago
    I mean, my immune system was down due to lack of sleep. I'd have to be healthier or luckier to make it through the adaptation period without getting sick perhaps.
- AndrewDucker 6y ago
  I am not convinced you can force your body to get more efficient at sleeping.
  - rudedogg 6y ago
    Not sure about entering deep sleep more quickly, but you definitely get faster at falling asleep when you make napping a habit.
teddyh 6y ago
Regarding alternative sleep schedules, I tend to believe xkcd: “Small print: this schedule will eventually drive one stark raving mad.” — https://xkcd.com/320/ https://xkcd.com/320/
vadyalex 6y ago
I would highly recommend "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker to get academic insight to latest research related to sleep and basic understanding what sleep is. There is a good touch on how other species sleep; and why having a nap during a day is beneficial in improving intellectual and physical capacities! Sleep health benefits are definitely underrated in modern society.. Based on my understanding of the topic I sympathise the research narrative to move to polyphasic sleep cycle to COPE with sleep disorders I do not believe it is adequate sleeping routine to any healthy individual and doing so can be harmful to health! And from personal note as a parent raising second infant I can confirm that having segmented night sleep over long periods of time is most de-humanizing experience with real mental threads.
baylessj 6y ago
I'll echo the same sentiment as many others in this thread: tried polyphasic sleep in college (2 hour block at night and 3-4 20 min naps during day) and found it to be horrible. Any inconsistencies in my schedule and I was a wreck. Was _slightly_ better than just getting the 2 hour block like I had originally been doing, but wasn't anything like getting a healthy 6-8 hours.
gadders 6y ago
Steve Pavlina did a series of experiments on this: https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ Googling it I was surprised to find that he did it 15 years ago. Times go by fast...
driverdan 6y ago
I did a month of polyphasic sleep about 15 years ago. It's doable and was an interesting experiment but is not sustainable. Mentally I felt 80-90%. I couldn't concentrate or think as well. I felt cold all the time as if my hormones were out of wack. Towards the end of the month I was very sleep deprived. I would fall asleep and go into REM almost instantly. I slept through alarms, something I otherwise never do. A few times I shut the alarm off and went back to sleep with no memory of doing so. An interesting side effect was that after going back to a normal schedule I needed less sleep. For months afterwards I only slept 7-7.5h a night instead of 8h.
lcall 6y ago
Years ago I tried this, after having read a lot about it, trying multiple times, hard, as I was determined to get more done on things that were important to me. I can be very self-disciplined and almost fell asleep dropping to the floor while standing at one point. For a while I thought it helped me get more done. Today I have health problems (CFS), and these attempts at the polyphasic or "uberman" sleep cycle (~28 min of sleep per 4-hour period) is one of the two leading possible causes I think of (don't bother asking me the other one). Out of general experiences and lessons learned over the years I have tried to write things at my simple, hopefully-skimmable web site to hopefully help someone else avoid learning some things the hard way: http://lukecall.net http://lukecall.net . (Anyway, I get things off my chest there.) ps: prior HN discussions (which I have not reviewed): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=polyphasic+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=polyphasic+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fne...
- sjf 6y ago
  I think alternative sleep schedules are like alternative medicine. If they were actually feasible and beneficial, they would be commonplace, and even recommended. Especially considering how often posts like this come up here, there is obviously a high level of interest.
  - bccdee 6y ago
    I think what normally happens is people see the unbelievable claim of "6 20-minute naps" and think "wow that's incredible." Then they try it, fail horribly and never try a less extreme schedule. In my experience, Uberman requires a superhuman constitution, but some of the less-extreme schedules are perfectly viable. I figured social distancing would be a great opportunity to give some polyphasic sleep schedules a try. I started with Uberman (6x20-minute naps), but that was awful. It was just a long slow crash, and it was totally unsustainable. I recovered my lost sleep and then started Everyman 2 (4.5 hours at night + 2x20-minute naps) at the start of May, and I've really been enjoying it. I feel just as awake as I did before, but I'm waking up at 3:30am now. Only time will tell if my 2pm nap survives the end of social distancing, but for the moment it's going great. Under normal circumstances, the failure of my first attempt would have totally ended the experiment, because I can't normally afford to tamper with my sleep for months on end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. But once I swallowed my pride and set some reasonable goals, I managed to have a really good experience with the whole thing. I'd definitely recommend giving it a shot if you're curious, with the caveat that anyone interested should start with a moderate plan like Everyman 2 rather than gambling on one of the extreme schedules. https://polyphasic.net/ https://polyphasic.net/ is a good resource for prospective polyphasic sleepers.
jsf01 6y ago
Having tried doing a polyphasic sleep cycle around four years ago, the one thing that I really missed was the clear delineation between days. On a normal sleep schedule, you wrap up your day with an evening routine and begin the next day with another routine. Each day is a single discrete unit you can look back on and remember easily. On a polyphasic schedule each day blends into the next. It’s like one long neverending day. You can’t really do most normal social activities because you need to adhere to a strict napping schedule. At first it’s cool to be awake at 3am when the rest of your world is asleep. But eventually it’s just a pain to not be able to go to stores or the gym or whatever until after your next nap. Looking back, it’s harder to remember any specific details about the experience. I know I did it to get a ton of work done on a project I was deep into at the time, but outside of the late nights and extreme tiredness from the beginning of it, I can’t remember much. The value of a long night’s rest for solidifying memories, at least anecdotally for me, can’t be understated. Other things like scheduling meals, managing sunlight and your obligations to others when you need to sleep, require a bit of forethought. Life’s just much easier on a “normal” sleep schedule. Polyphasic will drive you nuts.
- trickle_learn 6y ago
  Love the insight about the days blending together. I know there's lots of science supporting what you say about sleep being essential for consolidating memory.
fouric 6y ago
Is there any research done on either (1) the net productivity difference between extreme polysleep (e.g. Uberman) or (2) the long-term health effects of sustained extreme polysleep? Also, it seems like Uberman gives you an increase in available time at the cost of a significant amount of cognitive ability. If you subscribe to the Deep Work hypothesis (which I do), such a trade is extremely undesirable, even ignoring any potential health issues.
jason_slack 6y ago
I am a long-term polyphasic sleeper. I've just always been this way. I have been told stories that as an infant I drove my family nuts with my lack of a need to sleep. Now, I am 43 (in a few days), and polyphasic sleep has become a bit harder on me. Now, I am averaging between 2.5-3.5 hours each day but the real issue is if I get woken up. Example: a smoke detector goes off in the middle of the night. I can't go back to sleep because I will oversleep now. I am somewhat foggy for several hours after something like this. Also, the opposite has been happening. I am on HRT and taking estrogen injections. On the day of my injection until about 2 days after I can not sleep. My body just won't allow it. Estrogen dominance has taken over. I am routinely up for 42-46 hours before my body gives in and demands sleep. I sleep 2-3 hours and I am awake. Not feeling replenished as I should and sometimes I feel like I need to be left alone for a long period of time so I don't inadvertently snap at my wife or children. I'm happy to talk about whatever, AMA.
- lcall 6y ago
  wow. maybe there are basic bio differences, and one shouldn't try to force oneself into this pattern... (WRT my comment elsewhere here.)
  - jason_slack 6y ago
    I sleep about 2 hours (say 2:30am - 4:30am) and I want a 1 hour nap when my kids go down for a nap. It's not a standard pattern that you might read about, IIRC.
cercatrova 6y ago
Incidentally, I've been sleeping polyphasically for some time now. Of course, there have been no real studies done on polyphasic sleep and it must be taken on anecdotal evidence alone. However, I don't feel any ill effects after a year. My schedule is tamer than others, however; the Everyman 2 consists of a 4.5 hour core sleep and two 20 minute naps [0]. Schedules like Uberman (six 20 minute naps equidistant in time, every 4 hours), Dymaxion, Tesla, and other nap-only sleeps do not seem to be stable, at least for most people who are not genetically mutated to sleep less [1]. There are quite some pros as well, such as more time for one; instantly falling asleep (got rid of my insomnia); removal of substances such as alcohol, marijuana, and caffeinated drinks like coffee; and lucid dreams with nearly every sleep. The latter is very useful for me as I can test out ideas in dreams and see how they could fare, a sort of omnipotent virtual reality. The fact that many think polyphasic sleep is only Uberman or other nap-based schedules with ~2 hour total sleep time is disappointing to see. There are other schedules on that site that are far tamer, such as Everyman 1: sleep 6 hours at night, one 20-min nap during the day, which you could do on a lunch break. There are whole gradations from 9 hours (two 4.5 hour sleeps, not necessarily reduction of total sleep time, but it gives better sleep for some) to Uberman or Tesla (~2 hour total sleep time), which by the way is not known to be stable over a longer time period, a fact that the polyphasic community willingly accepts. It is particularly disappointing to see because, as another commenter said, I'd like to see more research on sleep and perhaps synthesizing its effects into a compound, but if people dismiss these alternate sleep schedules, we may not fully understand what the brain is doing during sleep, as fewer researchers are incentivized to study it, thinking it's just BS, which hurts the field overall. I do wonder though if the main advantages of polyphasic sleep are that it enforces a more rigid structure than monophasic sleep; if you miss a nap, or you oversleep, you're done for. If one could enforce the same level of scheduling in monophasic sleep, I wonder if they wouldn't have the same advantage of increased time. It's too easy to make excuses with monophasic sleep however, saying that you'll just sleep after one more drink / turn of a game / line of code, so polyphasic sleep acts as an enforcer of such a schedule, and here is where its true strength lies. Communities I've found helpful are r/polyphasic, and its related Discord server. There are many examples there of successful polyphasic sleepers who've maintained their (non Uberman or Dymaxion) schedules for years at a time. In particular, the user GeneralNguyen is a great resource. [0] https://polyphasic.net/schedules/everyman/ https://polyphasic.net/schedules/everyman/ [1] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-identified-people-who-need-little-sleep https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-id...

107 points by trickle_learn 6y ago

One unintended consequence of Covid19 related lockdown/work from home has been less commute and more hours to sleep. This is the most regular/high quality sleep i've had in years and I'm only now seeing how badly my normal sleep habits have been effecting me. Experimenting with any non-monophasic sleep pattern sounds exhausting and I'm afraid could have serious health impacts...would love to see the science/literature evolve to a point of consensus though.

alessivs 6y ago
> Experimenting with any non-monophasic sleep pattern sounds exhausting and I'm afraid could have serious health impacts I assume you speak for yourself. Biphasic sleep is not an abnormal occurrence and actually quite embedded in some non-anglo cultures (e.g. late afternoon opening times). Even when occurring naturally, it isn't extravagant to be aware of provisions so that nap time doesn't cause a naturally avoidable interference.[1] [1]: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Best_time_for_napping https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Best_time_for_napping
- corty 6y ago
  I would guess that biphasic sleep was killed by the common consumption of stimulant drugs like tea or coffee in western culture.
  - taeric 6y ago
    I would guess electric lights.
    - corty 6y ago
      That doesn't make sense to me, siesta wastes precious daylight. If anything, the availability of light at night should have promoted daytime sleep, if there was any influence.
      - nijaru 6y ago
        Growing up somewhere with a Mediterranean climate that has hot summers, I’ve always assumed it was to sleep through the heat before a/c was invented.
        taeric 6y ago
        There is almost certainly something to this. Sun exposure is dangerous.
        nradov 6y ago
        How can people sleep during the hottest part of the day? I've never been able to manage that.
        eru 6y ago
        You can doze off. And falling asleep is a skill you can train. (I can nap in hotter and brighter conditions during the day than I can tolerate at night.)
      - taeric 6y ago
        Lights help extend the evening. Such that you sort of barrel through a time that would make you tired by just cranking up the light.
  - abeppu 6y ago
    That's an interesting guess -- I had read that biphasic sleep was common in the West prior to the industrial revolution, when work for long days away from home was common, and light began to be more available at night. Maybe the right kind of historian is around to answer: Was biphasic sleep also the norm in preindustral societies that had tea or coffee cultures relatively early?
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Depends which kind of biphasic you’re talking about. Afternoon naps were probably killed by stimulants. But the “first” and “second” sleep historically common were probably killed off by the electric light.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  > I assume you speak for yourself. Biphasic sleep is not an abnormal occurrence and actually quite embedded in some non-anglo cultures I think you misunderstood the parent, and your reaction seems a bit confrontational. Surely the parent wasn't suggesting that a good night's sleep plus an afternoon nap "sounds exhausting" and "could have serious health impacts". They were talking about patterns that do not include a good night's sleep.
  - alessivs 6y ago
    Ah, that's an understandable interpretation, but my response was not meant to be unnecessarily confrontational. If anything, the closing sentence was an admission that, while we seem wired to sleep mono or biphasically and maintain good health, a poorly executed second sleep block had the potential to compromise it, and that there were provisions that in my judgment were worth knowing.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Biphasic and triphasic are actually pretty normal, historically. Modern humans go to bed super late compared to our pre-electricity brethren; most people the world over would go to bed super early and have a “first” and “second” sleep, plus maybe an afternoon nap. You’ll notice this effect if you go camping. The moment the sun goes down you’ll crash much sooner than you would at home, and you might find yourself fully awake at 2am or so.
- ghettoimp 6y ago
  > Biphasic and triphasic are actually pretty normal, historically. Is there evidence of this? I'm not doubting - I think I've seen this suggested before. I just don't know how people figured this out?
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Oh, there’s tons of evidence for this, largely in the writings of pre-electricity figures who clearly treated the subject as common knowledge. Advice manuals from the time even indicate that this was the best time for couples to conceive. Modern tribes without access to continuous light actually still sleep like this too, which is fascinating. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783
  - jabirali 6y ago
    Maybe check the references in this article? https://theconversation.com/did-we-used-to-have-two-sleeps-rather-than-one-should-we-again-57806 https://theconversation.com/did-we-used-to-have-two-sleeps-r...
  - samtheprogram 6y ago
    Anecdotally I remember reading that in Britain it used to be more common for some to wake up in the middle of the night and do light reading, but you’ll probably want to do some more research as I don’t recall the source.
  - kccqzy 6y ago
    Biphasic sleep is pretty common in Asian cultures. An afternoon nap is common in pre-schools and elementary schools, less common but still not non-existent in higher education and the workplace.
m463 6y ago
I can take a nap if I feel tired. Usually in the afternoon, which would have been impossible when in the office.

DanBC 6y ago

I think the article points out a useful fallacy: that polyphasic sleep means you can get away with less sleep. We should probably move away from trying to get less sleep, and move toward getting better sleep. This may reduce our waking hours, but would make those hours more productive. Having 18 hours a day available isn't much help if you're a tired confused angry mess. > Polyphasic sleep purportedly had famous practitioners such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Napoleon, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Edison, but there is scant evidence to prove such claims. Buckminster Fuller appears to be one of the first documented polyphasic sleepers Roger Ekirch did some work around historical accounts of sleep and found "the second sleep" referred to biphasic sleep, and that this was common and well known. https://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/sleepcommentary.html https://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/sleepcommentary.html And some reporting of his work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783 https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shi...

MattGaiser 6y ago
> isn't much help if you're a tired confused angry mess. Depends. I can go through a lot of email like this.
corty 6y ago
My experience agrees that sleeping less through alternative sleep patterns is possible. However, the benefits of sleeping less are spurious: While I can improve motivation and concentration in my observation, work results when inspected later do not agree, at least for the concentration. It is easier to get stuff done, but the overall quality of work and thought is diminished. I would equate the state to being intoxicated: Certain inhibitions to motivation are removed, but so is a part of your intelligence and concentration as well as the ability for self-observation and self-judgement. Therefore I would suppose that many who report improvements while sleep-deprived are just inadvertently fooling themselves. However, all this is just based on my observation, ymmv.
trickle_learn 6y ago
Good point! I actually mention Ekirch in a separate post. I'd call what he's talking about "biphasic," because people in that time slept in two phases. I personally prefer biphasic to involve an afternoon nap. https://trickle.app/drip/23814-sleep-of-pre-industrial-communities-provides-insight-into-how-ancestors-may-have-slept/ https://trickle.app/drip/23814-sleep-of-pre-industrial-commu...

kkaranth 6y ago

This website(trickle.app) looks really interesting. Can anyone who weigh in on the overall quality of the content?

bonniemuffin 6y ago

Having recently experienced raising an infant, let me tell you, getting all my sleep in <2 hour chunks is HORRIBLE, even if I'm getting a pretty reasonable total amount of sleep. I was getting what this article suggests would be a viable polyphasic sleep schedule (total of 8 hours per 24 hour period, in chunks of 1-2 hours throughout the day and night whenever the baby slept), but I started hallucinating, got deeply depressed, and felt like I was losing touch with reality. All the symptoms vanished as soon as I started getting longer chunks of sleep at night.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
Although I don't have any belief in polyphasic sleep being true or not unless you were getting that sleep in extremely regular intervals - that is to say with exactly the same amount of time between each interval and with the time you slept during each sleep period also rigorously timed what you had would not be a viable polyphasic sleep schedule. Since the polyphasic idea is to decrease the actual amount slept getting 8 hours also is going against the whole purpose of doing it. I've raised two children, one of them with real sleep irregularities, and neither time did I have anything resembling what the adherents of polyphasic sleep would consider a reasonable schedule.
toast0 6y ago
Oh man, raising an infant and sleep deprivation hit me too. For about a week, I had to just chart if I was awake or not and just sleep when the chart said to sleep... Other than the couple of times where I ended up not sleeping for 24 hours, I thought the wake up/eat/sleep cycles around 2 hours were ok, but 3 hours was torture, the wakeup would always happen in the middle of deep sleep and really mess things up. Once it got over four hours, it all seemed fineish. Not a lot of memory retention from that period though. Pretty happy we had a good sleeper or I would have been wrecked.
monkeydreams 6y ago
> getting all my sleep in <2 hour chunks is HORRIBLE I can sympathise with this. My son spent about 18 months (from 4 months old onwards) only sleeping 45 -50 minutes at a time, before waking up crying. It felt like every aspect of our lives at that point was outside of our control and any attempt to organise ourselves or to co-ordinate outside assistance (in the form of family, friends, medical intervention) was an ordeal beyond our mental capabilities. Things improved just before his 2nd birthday. He went from 45 minute sleep to 6 hour sleep in the course of two days.

deelawn 6y ago

I did tried my best to keep to the dymaxion schedule (thirty minute nap every six hours) in college for about two months for a blogging assignment. The first two weeks were pretty terrible but it got better after that. I can confirm what was written in the article, that oversleeping or missing one of those naps would be disastrous for continuing to keep the schedule. On a positive note, I was more productive during that term than I ever had been before. I was working out, cooking my own meals, and finished all of my assignments long before they were due.

themodelplumber 6y ago
I wonder if that productivity effect is part of what enabled Fuller's gift of gab. I noticed that when I really need to bust through a lot of outward-facing sensory or communicative tasks, a sleep deficit is very helpful. For example I posted a personal-record number of blog posts while working on little sleep--to the point that some blog readers emailed me and asked how I did it. I found it hard to recommend the procedure because there were big tradeoffs in other ways, like a deep sense of inner resilience and confidence that only returned in strength when I was rested up again.

krater23 6y ago

I tried polyphasic sleep and exactly what the text said, I stopped because social pressure of a monophasic world. It worked, but some other things like meeting friends more than four hours was more important for me. So, I read three screen sites of text with only one argument: Polyphasic animals are sleeping longer. I don't think thats a really good argument compared with reports from people that are doing polyphasic sleep for months.

FirefoxIsSlow 6y ago

Does biphasic sleep count as polyphasic? I've been doing it for years following the 6 hr core and 20 minute nap. (Basically this https://efficiencyiseverything.com/sleep/ https://efficiencyiseverything.com/sleep/) It's been extremely doable for over a year. Sure I sleep in when I'm hungover or on a lazy Saturday, but it's closer to a regular 8 hour sleep rather than 10 hours. I'm not in agreement of this overly simple article.

elliekelly 6y ago
How do you keep your nap to just 20 minutes though? I literally can’t sleep for that short amount of time. I’ll either stay awake for the full 20 minutes or I’ll fall so dead asleep that I don’t wake up again until morning.
- yosito 6y ago
  For me, I tense all of my muscles for 5 seconds, then relax, close my eyes and let my mind go blank. I don't "try" to sleep, I just try to enjoy relaxing. 9/10 times, I'm waking up to the 21 minute alarm I set before I even notice I had fallen asleep. Every once in awhile, I don't fall asleep, and then I assume that my body didn't need it. Very rarely, my alarm goes off and I decide that I'm going to nap longer. In those cases, I lose the rest of my day, but it's usually because my body really needed it.
- gwd 6y ago
  Falling asleep quickly when you're tired I think is something that can be trained; I probably learned it in boot camp, where most days we got only 6 hours of sleep, unless you had watch duty, in which case you got 5 hours; and near the end there was a week where we only got 4 hours. Your body just learns to grab whatever sleep it can. Re taking short naps: When I was at university, if I needed a power nap, I'd set the timer on my watch for 7 minutes and set it on my forehead; then I'd normally do two of these in a row (so 14 minutes of nap total). Once I got used to it, 1) as soon as I closed my eyes I'd start dreaming 2) I'd frequently have the experience of slowly coming to consciousness seconds before the alarm went off. But that only works if you're only moderately tired. If you're really sleep deprived, there's nothing you can do but actually take a longer rest.

xwdv 6y ago

It’s unsustainable but you don’t need to sustain it forever, you only sustain it during a time of your life where it can have the most impact, then phase it out when you get diminishing returns.

trickle_learn 6y ago
Agreed it can be effective short term. But you'll feel the effects of sleep deprivation over time and that comes with certain health risks.

leoc 6y ago

Isn't human sleep naturally biphasic rather than monophasic? https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shi...

StillBored 6y ago
I've thought for at least 15 years that my natural sleep pattern was 3AM->8AM with another "nap" from PM6->9PM. But this COV19 work from home thing, and my weekend sleeping patterns for a few years now, has been PM3-6PM. So, whether this reflects some deep sleep dysfunction or what, I don't know. What I do know is that i'm a lot more productive/etc when I sleep when I feel tired. Given how hot it gets in TX I don't really mind missing the 3-4 hours during the hottest part of the day.
smabie 6y ago
More than that, hunter gatherers pretty much just sleep whenever they want. It's only since the shift towards pastoralism and then agriculture that necessitated a regular sleep/wake cycle.
elric 6y ago
If you count an early afternoon nap as the second phase, then yes. Otherwise, no. The whole medieval "second sleep" thing was probably a cultural thing and not a biological thing and it seems to have been limited to Europe during that time period.
- gwd 6y ago
  Jared Diamond in "The World Until Yesterday" says that when he was on expeditions with natives in New Guinea, they would all go to sleep when the sun went down (near the equator so usually pretty close to 7pm), then wake up around midnight and chat for an hour or two around the fire, before going back to sleep again and waking up at sunrise (again around 5 or 6).
  - elric 6y ago

davidmanheim 6y ago

This "article" doesn't actually have any substantive evidence for the claim in the title.

smabie 6y ago

Can dang change the title. The actual title is "Polyphasic sleep takes napping to the extreme." Moreover, the article never claims that polyphasic sleep is unsustainable, just that many people who tried it abandon it due to social pressure.

enobrev 6y ago

I've tried this a few times - mostly in my twenties. Back then I generally only slept 4-6 hours per night and when I wasn't trying to set a schedule, my sleep schedule would shift at least an hour a day. I was also drinking quite often and sometimes would stay awake for 24 - 36 hours at a time (coffee and booze only). All that is to say my sleep schedule in my twenties was a roller-coaster. I got lots of work done. I got lots of partying in. Sometimes (many times) I mixed the two. I say all that to say that I had a lot of freedom to play with my sleep schedules, and I tried quite a few. I was able to do the two hours of sleep with four hours awake schedule for 2-3 weeks at a time and it generally worked pretty well as long as I adhered strictly. Getting less sleep than that at a time didn't feel right at all. If I pushed either the awake or sleep time, my body would automatically try to escape the schedule and it would be hard for me to get it back. The hardest part was fitting things into 4-hour blocks. If it was a stretch with nothing but work - like during some nasty winter weather - then it was easy, but as it's been said elsewhere, that gets hard to do when you have a social life. When my son was born, I decided to finally lock in my sleep schedule - for the first time since I was a teenager. I was sleeping from 4am until noon, which allowed me to care for my son at night while my wife slept. This was key to a happy marriage, by the way. We were both getting 6-8 hours of uninterruped sleep a night with a newborn! Once he was sleeping through the night (4-months-old, sleeping 12 hours a night!), I shifted to a "normal" schedule of 11pm-7am. While switching, I became so completely stuck into a 2x4-hour sleep schedule that it took about 3 weeks for me to get past and shift my sleep. It seems my body got so used to 7-8 full hour stretches, that it fought me from changing it. I suddenly understood why people have such a hard time with sleep! In my 40+ years of life, that was the hardest sleep schedule change I've ever made! These days I do everything I can to get 7-8 hours and because of my boy I try to make sure that sleep is at night. I miss my revolving sleep schedule. I miss working at night. But my memory is far better. My caffeine intake is almost non-existent except for pleasure. My relationship with my wife is _probably_ better. And I get to spend time with my son every day, so it's a huge win. As a side note, this sort of sleep schedule can be hell with a significant other, as I've dealt with plenty of times over the years. I'm very fortunate that my wife doesn't mind me shifting my schedule however I want, whenever I want, as long as I make time for her in my "day".

regularfry 6y ago

Ever since I read Why We Sleep, I've been extremely reticent to go anywhere near sleep reduction. We don't know much about the lifetime-long-term effects of this type of sleep reduction, but what we do know about sleep deprivation in general puts the bar quite high for demonstrating this won't really mess you up if extended out to interesting timescales.

paulcole 6y ago

For any content marketers out there reading this: If you want your SEO’ed content to get upvoted on HN it must be about a controversial approach to nutrition, wellness, mental health, or exercise. Ideally, your thesis will be that the approach you’re writing about is a terrible idea and doomed to fail. Be prepared for the “well actually” from anyone who has had even moderate fleeting success. If possible, get a small detail slightly wrong so commenters will rush to correct you.

leesec 6y ago

Used to work on a cement tugboat, 12 hour days 28 days a time. Unfortunately, it wasn't 12 on 12 off, it was 6 x 6 x 6 x 6. Meaning you could rarely get more than 4.5 hours of sleep at one time for the whole hitch. Depending on if the Captain had it out for you or what your route demanded, your sleep schedule could be even more irregular. It felt unsustainable to me. You'd come off the boat a zombie, and in just 12 days of drinking and disrupted sleep later, you'd get to do it again.

audiometry 6y ago
A tugboat made out of cement? A tugboat that delivers cement?
- leesec 6y ago
  Yeah a tug and barge that hauls around cement.
smabie 6y ago
Why couldn't you just work 12 hour shifts instead of 6 hour ones? Honestly, 6 hours on, 6 off sounds like complete hell to me.
- leesec 6y ago
  Yeah why anything? Many of the policies on the boat seemed solely to punish the employee. Some boats had it 12 x 12, some boats even had 4 x 8 x 4 x 8, which is just a normal 8 hour day. But not my boat. I lasted less than a year, it was also hell to me.
- cardiffspaceman 6y ago
  It sounds like a variation on a six-hour shift system. Any seagoing vessel with a crew complement of 2 or more sailors is going to try to have one portion of the crew at work at all times. Skimming [1] I didn't see a 6-on/6-off system, but I believe, the skipper has the last word even when asleep. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchkeeping#Six_Hour_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchkeeping#Six_Hour_Shift

fny 6y ago

I was on a polyphasic sleep schedule for two weeks when I was in high school. I had an econ class where the teacher didn't mind if I fell asleep. It worked fairly well for about two weeks. Towards the end, I was very sleep deprived, but I didn't realize it: I had forgotten what it felt like to be fully rested. While the increased hours in a day we're incredible, mentally intensive tasks were difficult. Homework was easy, but working through AMC practice questions did not go as well. It's a clear quantity vs quality trade-off. I stopped the experiment early when I started having trouble falling asleep in that econ class. Also, I felt perpetual in this somewhat giddy state: that feeling when you just catch a second wind and everything seems funny. Mild delirium. In retrospect, it seems like hypomania. I could see a case for polyphasic sleep for a few weeks at a time if you're in a crunch to do a lot of work that doesn't require too much thinking. Recharge for a week and repeat if necessary. Otherwise, it's a really, really bad idea.

tomc1985 6y ago

20 minute naps? That seems like barely enough time to lose consciousness let alone get any kind of REM sleep.

rsfern 6y ago
20 minute power naps are awesome if you can get the timing right. I usually use an alarm, because if I nap much longer than 20 minutes then coming out of deep sleep leaves me feeling super disoriented.
- stolen_biscuit 6y ago
  20 minute power naps are a lifesaver for me. If I only got around <= 5-6 hours sleep the night before, getting a solid 20 minutes in in the afternoon is enough to make me feel alert and awake until my regular bedtime. Anything over 25 minutes and I feel groggy and lethargic until the next day. Do not go beyond 20-25 minutes in one nap.

whymauri 6y ago

I maintained a pseudo-polyphasic schedule for two years during high school. I think it went like this: 2:00 or 3:00 AM - 6:00 AM (three to four hours) 6:20 AM - 7:20 AM transit (one hour) At least three 10- to 20-minute naps throughout the school day. I negotiated with my teachers to make this acceptable. One pre-lunch nap, one around lunch hours, and one after. 2:20 PM - 3:20 PM transit (one hour) 8:30 PM - 9:30 PM transit or at home (one hour) I was dual-enrolling at the local college at the time for night classes. I was productive, but it was awful, and I wouldn't recommend it. It became a (benign) running joke at my school that I was more likely to be asleep than awake. I got 7-8 hours of sleep, but it's nothing compared to sleeping like normal. Any disruption to my schedule was absolutely fatal for my productivity.

krustyburger 6y ago
What made you do this? Was it to gain an academic advantage? I don’t mean to sound judgmental; I honestly find this fascinating.
- whymauri 6y ago
  I had to transit anyways, and I found it hard to work in transit. In hindsight, I had terrible sleeping habits, and eventually, it forced me to start taking naps wherever I could. A schedule materialized organically and became the norm when I gained the trust of my instructors. And yeah, it was for a competitive advantage. Not within my school, but for college. I didn't understand how college or scholarships worked until my 10th year, which meant that I had to become competitive much quicker than other applicants. On a side note, the worst periods were phasing in-and-out of schedule during winter and summer break (I worked a 9-to-5 on breaks), which I did three or four times.
  - krustyburger 6y ago
    You really put yourself through a wringer at a tender age. Not to sound flippant, but I doubt many people would be capable of that. Congratulations on surviving what you put yourself through. I hope your habits are more ordinary these days.

kren 6y ago

I attempted uberman on two separate occasions and had to stop in fear that lack of sleep would permanently damage my brain. I was able to hit rem every nap after 2-3 weeks but never recovered on sleep within the 30 day transition period. I'm pretty sure it is because it is much easier if you are a vegetarian since eating meat is so heavy and messes with your sleep. It was a neat experience though. I had the most vivid lucid dreams, flying and doing whatever I could imagine. The rem naps would seemingly last 90 minutes even though my alarm would wake me after 20. The days meshed together and felt surreal. I enjoyed it but I feel like I'd have to give up meat to realistically achieve uberman.

swader999 6y ago
Tried it as well with similar experience. Concluded that it sort of works but I didn't feel my concentration was superior on it. Socially it's terrible. If you miss your scheduled 20 minute nap every four hours it's devastating.
- kren 6y ago
  Yeah, it was always weird gaming with friends and then being like "be back in 20..." I'd always return with them asking how the nap was and I'd always say it wasn't enough...haha
urxvtcd 6y ago
I also tried uberman some years ago, I don't remember how many days I lasted but I'd guess between 5 and 10. It was amazing that I was able to fall asleep, have a dream and wake up before an alarm, and feel refreshed. But still, I was severely sleep-deprived, I was starting to hallucinate, and I gave up. I was sensing some presence in the room, I knew it wasn't real, but I got scared as shit and decided to fall asleep. In hindsight, that was stupid as hell. The shit kids read on the internet.
- kren 6y ago
  Haha, yeah 10 days is when it is the hardest, actually, and it gets slightly easier once the body adjusts after that. But hallucinating sounds no good!

hellotomyrars 6y ago

I fully agree that common sense and biology would certainly suggest that trying to stick to a regimented schedule of very specific sleep in small segments for a total of far below 8 hours is probably not as healthy as just getting a good nights sleep regularly. That said the content of this piece doesn’t actually make any meaningful, substantiated argument to that effect. It kind of just lightly suggests that it’s probably not healthy and that social demands ruin the viability of polyphasic sleep anyways. Everyone is different and I don’t think 8 hours is perfect but I would be interested to see a data-driven analysis of sleep patterns/length and long-term effects. I have serious doubts that anyone getting less than 4 hours a sleep for a long period of time (weeks or more) is going to be firing on all cylinders, no matter the creative schedule they construct around it. But I’d be open to seeing meaningful data about it.

patelh 6y ago

I tried this in college. I was doing 6 hours sleep per day (3 hours and 2 90 min segments with 6 hours awake time between them) Worked great while taking 12 credit hours over summer semester. But you end up being up when everyone else is asleep and sleeping when others are awake. Not great for social life but I did get 4.0 that semester.

fouc 6y ago

Everyman sleep schedule is much more sustainable than the uberman schedule. It basically involves doing 3 hour core sleep and three roughly equidistant 25 minute naps. It's fairly easy to move the naps around as needed, once you're used to this. There's also a variant of sleeping 4.5 hours, and then having two 25 minute naps. The idea here is that each 25 minutes nap is essentially "replacing" the ~1.5 hour sleep you're giving up. There's roughly 70-110 minutes per sleep cycle, you're giving up a normal sleep cycle and then making up for it with a power nap. Your body is forced to get more efficient on grabbing the necessary deep sleep during the core sleep period. It's supposed to take about 1 month to adapt. I personally did this schedule for 10 days straight, without even using an alarm clock. But I started getting sick so I stopped.

dindresto 6y ago
Did you become sick from adapting to the new sleep schedule or was it just a coincidence?
- fouc 6y ago
  I mean, my immune system was down due to lack of sleep. I'd have to be healthier or luckier to make it through the adaptation period without getting sick perhaps.
AndrewDucker 6y ago
I am not convinced you can force your body to get more efficient at sleeping.
- rudedogg 6y ago
  Not sure about entering deep sleep more quickly, but you definitely get faster at falling asleep when you make napping a habit.

teddyh 6y ago

Regarding alternative sleep schedules, I tend to believe xkcd: “Small print: this schedule will eventually drive one stark raving mad.” — https://xkcd.com/320/ https://xkcd.com/320/

vadyalex 6y ago

I would highly recommend "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker to get academic insight to latest research related to sleep and basic understanding what sleep is. There is a good touch on how other species sleep; and why having a nap during a day is beneficial in improving intellectual and physical capacities! Sleep health benefits are definitely underrated in modern society.. Based on my understanding of the topic I sympathise the research narrative to move to polyphasic sleep cycle to COPE with sleep disorders I do not believe it is adequate sleeping routine to any healthy individual and doing so can be harmful to health! And from personal note as a parent raising second infant I can confirm that having segmented night sleep over long periods of time is most de-humanizing experience with real mental threads.

baylessj 6y ago

I'll echo the same sentiment as many others in this thread: tried polyphasic sleep in college (2 hour block at night and 3-4 20 min naps during day) and found it to be horrible. Any inconsistencies in my schedule and I was a wreck. Was _slightly_ better than just getting the 2 hour block like I had originally been doing, but wasn't anything like getting a healthy 6-8 hours.

gadders 6y ago

Steve Pavlina did a series of experiments on this: https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ Googling it I was surprised to find that he did it 15 years ago. Times go by fast...

driverdan 6y ago

I did a month of polyphasic sleep about 15 years ago. It's doable and was an interesting experiment but is not sustainable. Mentally I felt 80-90%. I couldn't concentrate or think as well. I felt cold all the time as if my hormones were out of wack. Towards the end of the month I was very sleep deprived. I would fall asleep and go into REM almost instantly. I slept through alarms, something I otherwise never do. A few times I shut the alarm off and went back to sleep with no memory of doing so. An interesting side effect was that after going back to a normal schedule I needed less sleep. For months afterwards I only slept 7-7.5h a night instead of 8h.

lcall 6y ago

Years ago I tried this, after having read a lot about it, trying multiple times, hard, as I was determined to get more done on things that were important to me. I can be very self-disciplined and almost fell asleep dropping to the floor while standing at one point. For a while I thought it helped me get more done. Today I have health problems (CFS), and these attempts at the polyphasic or "uberman" sleep cycle (~28 min of sleep per 4-hour period) is one of the two leading possible causes I think of (don't bother asking me the other one). Out of general experiences and lessons learned over the years I have tried to write things at my simple, hopefully-skimmable web site to hopefully help someone else avoid learning some things the hard way: http://lukecall.net http://lukecall.net . (Anyway, I get things off my chest there.) ps: prior HN discussions (which I have not reviewed): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=polyphasic+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=polyphasic+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fne...

sjf 6y ago
I think alternative sleep schedules are like alternative medicine. If they were actually feasible and beneficial, they would be commonplace, and even recommended. Especially considering how often posts like this come up here, there is obviously a high level of interest.
- bccdee 6y ago
  I think what normally happens is people see the unbelievable claim of "6 20-minute naps" and think "wow that's incredible." Then they try it, fail horribly and never try a less extreme schedule. In my experience, Uberman requires a superhuman constitution, but some of the less-extreme schedules are perfectly viable. I figured social distancing would be a great opportunity to give some polyphasic sleep schedules a try. I started with Uberman (6x20-minute naps), but that was awful. It was just a long slow crash, and it was totally unsustainable. I recovered my lost sleep and then started Everyman 2 (4.5 hours at night + 2x20-minute naps) at the start of May, and I've really been enjoying it. I feel just as awake as I did before, but I'm waking up at 3:30am now. Only time will tell if my 2pm nap survives the end of social distancing, but for the moment it's going great. Under normal circumstances, the failure of my first attempt would have totally ended the experiment, because I can't normally afford to tamper with my sleep for months on end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. But once I swallowed my pride and set some reasonable goals, I managed to have a really good experience with the whole thing. I'd definitely recommend giving it a shot if you're curious, with the caveat that anyone interested should start with a moderate plan like Everyman 2 rather than gambling on one of the extreme schedules. https://polyphasic.net/ https://polyphasic.net/ is a good resource for prospective polyphasic sleepers.

jsf01 6y ago

Having tried doing a polyphasic sleep cycle around four years ago, the one thing that I really missed was the clear delineation between days. On a normal sleep schedule, you wrap up your day with an evening routine and begin the next day with another routine. Each day is a single discrete unit you can look back on and remember easily. On a polyphasic schedule each day blends into the next. It’s like one long neverending day. You can’t really do most normal social activities because you need to adhere to a strict napping schedule. At first it’s cool to be awake at 3am when the rest of your world is asleep. But eventually it’s just a pain to not be able to go to stores or the gym or whatever until after your next nap. Looking back, it’s harder to remember any specific details about the experience. I know I did it to get a ton of work done on a project I was deep into at the time, but outside of the late nights and extreme tiredness from the beginning of it, I can’t remember much. The value of a long night’s rest for solidifying memories, at least anecdotally for me, can’t be understated. Other things like scheduling meals, managing sunlight and your obligations to others when you need to sleep, require a bit of forethought. Life’s just much easier on a “normal” sleep schedule. Polyphasic will drive you nuts.

trickle_learn 6y ago
Love the insight about the days blending together. I know there's lots of science supporting what you say about sleep being essential for consolidating memory.

fouric 6y ago

Is there any research done on either (1) the net productivity difference between extreme polysleep (e.g. Uberman) or (2) the long-term health effects of sustained extreme polysleep? Also, it seems like Uberman gives you an increase in available time at the cost of a significant amount of cognitive ability. If you subscribe to the Deep Work hypothesis (which I do), such a trade is extremely undesirable, even ignoring any potential health issues.

jason_slack 6y ago

I am a long-term polyphasic sleeper. I've just always been this way. I have been told stories that as an infant I drove my family nuts with my lack of a need to sleep. Now, I am 43 (in a few days), and polyphasic sleep has become a bit harder on me. Now, I am averaging between 2.5-3.5 hours each day but the real issue is if I get woken up. Example: a smoke detector goes off in the middle of the night. I can't go back to sleep because I will oversleep now. I am somewhat foggy for several hours after something like this. Also, the opposite has been happening. I am on HRT and taking estrogen injections. On the day of my injection until about 2 days after I can not sleep. My body just won't allow it. Estrogen dominance has taken over. I am routinely up for 42-46 hours before my body gives in and demands sleep. I sleep 2-3 hours and I am awake. Not feeling replenished as I should and sometimes I feel like I need to be left alone for a long period of time so I don't inadvertently snap at my wife or children. I'm happy to talk about whatever, AMA.

lcall 6y ago
wow. maybe there are basic bio differences, and one shouldn't try to force oneself into this pattern... (WRT my comment elsewhere here.)
- jason_slack 6y ago
  I sleep about 2 hours (say 2:30am - 4:30am) and I want a 1 hour nap when my kids go down for a nap. It's not a standard pattern that you might read about, IIRC.

cercatrova 6y ago

Incidentally, I've been sleeping polyphasically for some time now. Of course, there have been no real studies done on polyphasic sleep and it must be taken on anecdotal evidence alone. However, I don't feel any ill effects after a year. My schedule is tamer than others, however; the Everyman 2 consists of a 4.5 hour core sleep and two 20 minute naps [0]. Schedules like Uberman (six 20 minute naps equidistant in time, every 4 hours), Dymaxion, Tesla, and other nap-only sleeps do not seem to be stable, at least for most people who are not genetically mutated to sleep less [1]. There are quite some pros as well, such as more time for one; instantly falling asleep (got rid of my insomnia); removal of substances such as alcohol, marijuana, and caffeinated drinks like coffee; and lucid dreams with nearly every sleep. The latter is very useful for me as I can test out ideas in dreams and see how they could fare, a sort of omnipotent virtual reality. The fact that many think polyphasic sleep is only Uberman or other nap-based schedules with ~2 hour total sleep time is disappointing to see. There are other schedules on that site that are far tamer, such as Everyman 1: sleep 6 hours at night, one 20-min nap during the day, which you could do on a lunch break. There are whole gradations from 9 hours (two 4.5 hour sleeps, not necessarily reduction of total sleep time, but it gives better sleep for some) to Uberman or Tesla (~2 hour total sleep time), which by the way is not known to be stable over a longer time period, a fact that the polyphasic community willingly accepts. It is particularly disappointing to see because, as another commenter said, I'd like to see more research on sleep and perhaps synthesizing its effects into a compound, but if people dismiss these alternate sleep schedules, we may not fully understand what the brain is doing during sleep, as fewer researchers are incentivized to study it, thinking it's just BS, which hurts the field overall. I do wonder though if the main advantages of polyphasic sleep are that it enforces a more rigid structure than monophasic sleep; if you miss a nap, or you oversleep, you're done for. If one could enforce the same level of scheduling in monophasic sleep, I wonder if they wouldn't have the same advantage of increased time. It's too easy to make excuses with monophasic sleep however, saying that you'll just sleep after one more drink / turn of a game / line of code, so polyphasic sleep acts as an enforcer of such a schedule, and here is where its true strength lies. Communities I've found helpful are r/polyphasic, and its related Discord server. There are many examples there of successful polyphasic sleepers who've maintained their (non Uberman or Dymaxion) schedules for years at a time. In particular, the user GeneralNguyen is a great resource. [0] https://polyphasic.net/schedules/everyman/ https://polyphasic.net/schedules/everyman/ [1] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-identified-people-who-need-little-sleep https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-id...