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A handful of anecdotes does not make your case. Polyphasic sleep with very little overall sleep (eg six short naps a day) is not sustainable. Our bodies require

A handful of anecdotes does not make your case. Polyphasic sleep with very little overall sleep (eg six short naps a day) is not sustainable. Our bodies require more sleep to function at peak performance. I tried out polyphasic sleep in 2006. I spent a lot of time before, during, and after reading all the research I could find. I found no research on long term polyphasic sleep (short naps). There is some short term research that shows it can work as a temporary solution when regular sleep is not possible (eg solo sailing competitions). Everything I've read from sleep researchers has said that they think it's completely unsustainable because you're constantly in sleep debt and you're probably negating sleep mechanisms they're not aware of yet (such as the original article here). My personal anecdote agrees with the researchers. I was able to do it but I always felt about 80-90% normal, like I was functioning at a lower level. I felt cold all the time, possibly due to incorrect hormone levels from lack of sleep (pure speculation). Eventually the sleep debt caught up to me. I started sleeping through my alarm. 25 minutes of sleep would turn into 2 hours. At least once I turned off an alarm on the other side of the room and went back to bed with no memory of doing it. I recommend trying it if you can fit it in your schedule. It was a very interesting experience and taught me a lot about sleep. You need to dedicate at least a month, a week or two isn't enough to "adjust" (which never truly happens).

mistercow 13y ago
It's not just a handful of anecdotes though. I gave a handful of anecdotes that I was able to round up in about 5 minutes of searching. I don't think that the opinion of researchers, uninformed by hard data, and your single anecdote is enough to counter that. > I found no research on long term polyphasic sleep (short naps) That is correct. The research doesn't exist. That's why I said "eh, maybe" in my original comment. Whether or not polyphasic truly can work in the long term for most people is not a settled question. It is completely possible that the anecdotes of people who are successful in the long term simply have an unusual genetic predisposition to needing less sleep. There is a plausible rationale for a selection bias on multiple levels to explain the anecdotes; people who need less sleep may be more interested in sleep hacking, and they would be far more likely to make it past the initial adaptation period. It's also far more likely that polyphasic sleep schedules that include at least one period of "core sleep" are sustainable (e.g. Everyman) than nap-only schedules. And at the extreme end you have biphasic sleep, which gives 6-7 hours and actually has some historical evidence to back it up. Of course, biphasic won't get you a 20 hour workday. Everyman can, if all you do is sleep and work. That's going to be unhealthy for other reasons, but whether or not it's unhealthy because of sleep deprivation is an open question.

mistercow 13y ago

It's not just a handful of anecdotes though. I gave a handful of anecdotes that I was able to round up in about 5 minutes of searching. I don't think that the opinion of researchers, uninformed by hard data, and your single anecdote is enough to counter that. > I found no research on long term polyphasic sleep (short naps) That is correct. The research doesn't exist. That's why I said "eh, maybe" in my original comment. Whether or not polyphasic truly can work in the long term for most people is not a settled question. It is completely possible that the anecdotes of people who are successful in the long term simply have an unusual genetic predisposition to needing less sleep. There is a plausible rationale for a selection bias on multiple levels to explain the anecdotes; people who need less sleep may be more interested in sleep hacking, and they would be far more likely to make it past the initial adaptation period. It's also far more likely that polyphasic sleep schedules that include at least one period of "core sleep" are sustainable (e.g. Everyman) than nap-only schedules. And at the extreme end you have biphasic sleep, which gives 6-7 hours and actually has some historical evidence to back it up. Of course, biphasic won't get you a 20 hour workday. Everyman can, if all you do is sleep and work. That's going to be unhealthy for other reasons, but whether or not it's unhealthy because of sleep deprivation is an open question.