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How to hack your brain - Part I: Sleep

128 points by symptic 17y ago

scott_s 17y ago
Relevant discussion from the last time this came up: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652747 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652747
pchristensen 17y ago
Again, here is the link to my experience doing polyphasic sleep: http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/category/polyphasic/ http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/category/polyphasi... I agree with Dustin - it works but you have to be strict on the schedule. My life didn't accommodate the schedule so I had to stop, but it did work for the short time I could schedule it.
- scott_s 17y ago
  No one's life accommodates that sleeping schedule - which is why we don't naturally sleep like that.
  - youngian 17y ago
    If the rest of the world wasn't so rigorously attached to monophasic, I don't see why it would be so difficult. It's not an inherently unworkable schedule, it's just that our work, commerce, and socializing all take forms that don't accommodate it. Anyways, I'm intrigued by what he calls the "Everyman" schedules - they seem like a compromise between the rigid Uberman and the monophasic that the rest of the world uses.
    - scott_s 17y ago
      It's difficult because our bodies did not evolve to sleep to that schedule. Every account I've read concludes with "It's great! I'm happy with how it turned out! Oh, by the way, I don't do it anymore because it's so hard to keep up." Read the thread I linked to, which is now at the bottom of this discussion.
    - ahoyhere 17y ago
      The sleep cycle evolved before artificial lighting, when night was truly deep and dark. That's not work, commerce, or socialization at work.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
rms 17y ago
There's also biphasic -- 4 hours + 4 hours, but you could probably comfortably spread the two sessions out across 28 hours however you want
- philwelch 17y ago
  Humans are naturally biphasic, but more in the 6-7 hours + .5-1 hours range. Which is why some cultures have a midday siesta. Famous people who actually slept biphasically include Winston Churchill, who was by all accounts energetic, hardworking, and did not sleep that much overall.
symptic 17y ago
I can appreciate how effective these methods are, but I personally don't like the idea of stripping one of the enjoyable things in my schedule down to how efficient it is. Working hard is great, but I think there is such thing as too much of it at the cost of an enjoyable life (for me).
- brc 17y ago
  I imagine that trying to do weird sleep patterns will exclude you from that other great evolutionary need : sex. Not many partners would put up with someone dropping everything and running off for a 20 minute nap. They'd likely classify you under 'freak' and go and find someone else to share genetic material with.
kirse 17y ago
I always wonder about these people who claim to have adjusted sleep cycles (i.e. 28 hours). Personally I find that I also drift to staying awake later and later if I'm not exercising during the week. If I get in a solid hour workout daily (like I usually do), I'm out like a light in 5 minutes as soon as it's time for bed. Do enough physical work during the day and your body will have no problem passing out because it's simply exhausted. I also love how he labels the 8-hour sleep "the waste". Any other athletes here will confirm that you can't possibly recover, build muscle, and have the energy for hard workouts with 20 minute naps during the day. Polyphasic sleep might allow one to just barely function, but it's hardly functioning at your best.
- miracle 17y ago
  How do you know that your muscles only recover during night and not during day. You could still lay on the coach and read a book and your muscles would recover as well, or not?
  - mbrubeck 17y ago
    According to the NIH, Sleep is one of the events that modify the timing of secretion for certain hormones. Many hormones are secreted into the blood during sleep. For example, scientists believe that the release of growth hormone is related in part to repair processes that occur during sleep. http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/sleep/guide/info-sleep.htm http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/sleep/guid...
    - jordyhoyt 17y ago
      Right, and what first came to mind for me was Melatonin. I was looking into sleep hacks a couple years back and studying up on Melatonin drove me away from trying out anything that would disturb a "normal" amount of time sleeping in the dark. I remember seeing a study that linked a lack of Melatonin production to some kinds of cancer. Can't seem to find it now.
    - scott_s 17y ago
      That NIH page on sleep is fascinating.
oliveoil 17y ago
I think there are two major problems with "hacking" one's sleeping patterns like this. First is physiological side effects that can go undetected for a very long time and cause permanent damage. Lack of sleep increases blood pressure, for instance. Or the effectiveness of the thinking process itself (which is more difficult to measure) -- I was told at school that when I sleep my brain "processes and sorts information". Well if you reduce the amount of sleep four times perhaps you become more prone to make mistakes when working (and lose time fixing them).
- ph0rque 17y ago
  The original article's claims, and your counter-claims, need to be proven/disproven by a study of individuals practicing poly-phasic sleep for e.g. 10-20 years. Until then, we're basically in anecdote territory.
  - colins_pride 17y ago
    Why hasn't that study been done? I think it's because this is something that is very hard to stick with. After the physical adjustment, one has to be willing to organize one's life in a way consistent with this, and that is tough when everybody uses this other mode of sleep.
miracle 17y ago
So did anybody try to do directly the uberman's sleep schedule (6 times 20 minutes sleep)? A friend tried passing to it through multiple core sleep phases, but failed miserably after one week.
endergen 17y ago
Just do heavy exercise, you will require more sleep and sleep deeper. I don't sleep well unless I'm doing 1.5 hours of exercise. Doing mentally stimulating work before going to bed is the worst way to sleep well. I need almost 2 hours of mindless tv or something besides programming before going to bed to sleep properly. Otherwise I have programming dreams. Perhaps Dustin exercises a lot, or maybe he's always been more into intellectual pursuits.
JabavuAdams 17y ago
I wonder how this affects learning and memory. anecdotes: My wife and I are both very attuned to our learning processes, and we both notice immediate skill improvements after "sleeping on it". This applies to learning, retention, and even physical skills (sports and video games). Because sleep affects cognition, being poorly rested can amplify all kinds of bad habits. When I'm fully rested, I'll think "let me sketch out a solution and plan my code changes". When I'm sleep deprived, I just jump in and flail. It's literally the difference between "oh, I know I should do X, but I'll just dive in 'cause that's fun" versus just doing X, and having fun anyway. There were times in university where I would get up at 6 pm, and go to sleep at 6 am. I couldn't understand so-called "morning people". Now, though, if I go to bed tired at 10:30 pm, I wake up rested at 6:30 am. It really is a matter of training. I rarely go to bed later than midnight now, after 20 years of rarely going to bed before midnight. That feeling of being fully rested was a vivid surprise. My eyes open, and I realize I'm lying down, but I could just as well be standing up. There's no friction. There's no pain. I'm ready to go. So, in summary ... be very careful about messing with your sleep patterns, and don't assume that you're somehow incompatible with the standard sleep schedule. i suspect that a lot of it is just plain old boring training, not sexy hacking.
- youngian 17y ago
  There were times in university where I would get up at 6 pm, and go to sleep at 6 am. I couldn't understand so-called "morning people". Now, though, if I go to bed tired at 10:30 pm, I wake up rested at 6:30 am. It really is a matter of training. I rarely go to bed later than midnight now, after 20 years of rarely going to bed before midnight. I actually had a very different experience. In college I spent a month trying to become a "morning person." After the initial adjusment period, it worked great for a little under two weeks - I'd go to sleep at 10:30, and hop out of bed at 7:00 feeling fresh and ready to go. But suddenly (perhaps once I finally caught up on my sleep debt) I stopped falling asleep at 11. Instead I'd lie in bed wide awake for two or three hours, and feel as grumpy as ever the next morning. After three consecutive days of that, I gave up on being a morning person and have yet to look back.
- pradocchia 17y ago
  > even physical skills That would be expected. Physical skills are still resident in the nervous system, just somewhat removed from consciousness. What is stressed during the day is strengthened at night.
iamelgringo 17y ago
Sorry, Dustin. Your writing and sense of design (as always) are really wonderful. But your medical suggestions... not so much. It's really not possible to "hack" your sleep schedule effectively for any length of time. True, some people, called "short sleepers" do function rather well on 3-4 hours of sleep a night. But, most people require an average of 7-9 hours of sleep, and when they deviate from that for any length of time, they eventually rebound to their required length of sleep. When you do try to "hack" your natural sleep schedule, you end up tired, and functioning sub optimally. Scientific studies have shown that people who are chronically sleep deprived are as dangerous behind the wheel of a car as someone who is legally intoxicated. Why would you do that to yourself willingly? There is a lot of good scientific research being done in the field of sleep medicine. There are physicians who specialize in sleep. I've been going to one for the past year. And, while sleep medicine is a young discipline, a sleep doctor can be quite helpful. If you're tired all the time, may I suggest you see a physician who has studies and specialized in such things instead of trying to diagnose and treat yourself via the internet.
- symptic 17y ago
  I have several friends who have successfully gone on and off of the polyphasic sleep cycle. Just as with most things in life, you need to be open and willing and dedicated to make it work. This relates to forging your way with a startup, gaining muscle, adjusting sleep patterns, dating... everything. It's fair to go from your own experiences, but I know polyphasic sleep is doable, reasonable, and even better for some people. My cup of tea? Definitely not.
  - jongraehl 17y ago
    Like dieting but more so, few can stay on a short sleep + naps regimen permanently. I'd guess that napping efficiently is difficult unless, you're sleep deprived enough so that you can nap under almost any condition, which doesn't sound like it feels good.
  - WilliamLP 17y ago
    > I have several friends who have successfully gone on and off of the polyphasic sleep cycle. The big question is do you know anyone who went on, and did not go off.
bcl 17y ago
Steve Pavlina has some extensive blogging on the subject, as well as his daily logs over at http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/
lutorm 17y ago
Now, I'm certainly not an expert on sleep, but my current night reading just happens to be "The Promise of Sleep" by Willam Dement, founder of the Stanford sleep center and student of Kleitman, the discoverer of REM sleep. And this article contradicts what he writes in so many ways. Here's what I took away from the book: Just as a start, the author got that thing about REM sleep being the only sleep that matters exactly backwards. Depriving people of REM sleep has not shown any effects on increasing sleep debt (ie feeling tired), it's the non-REM sleep that you need to not feel tired. (Which makes sense because in REM sleep your brain is essentially awake.) What the purpose of REM sleep is, is not known. Furthermore, the idea that you can "train" yourself to need less sleep has no basis in science. This does not mean there aren't a few people who have all kinds of strange sleep issues, but for the majority of people there seems to be no scientific evidence that this works at all. About the "intrinsic 28-hour pattern", in most cases (not all, there are probably people with real physiological disorders) this tendency to have a longer day than 24 hours is induced by artificial light in the evening. Electric lighting, and certainly staring into a bright LCD screen, is bright enough to register as daylight to your biological clock, and cause it to shift forward. In studies where people were isolated from artificial lights, people who normally would have a rhythm slightly longer reverted back to almost exactly 24 hours. Rather than "hacking your brain", it would probably be more beneficial for the majority of people to just learn about how sleep works and of the importance of managing it properly.
- erlanger 17y ago
  That explains why I slept so well when I was locked up (back as a young'n in juvie): You didn't have control of the light in your cell, so from ~10pm to ~7am lights were out whether you liked it or not. I'm a life-long insomniac.
  - jongraehl 17y ago
    The reverse - going to sleep as the sun creeps up - is difficult for me. It feels worse to me to try to sleep as dawn comes than just an hour earlier. I'd expect to fall quickly and pleasantly asleep after an all-nighter, but the combination of dawn, the pounding of my heart and racing of my mind actually leave me awake and thinking for an extra few minutes. It's possible that going to sleep in that state gives me extra insight on what I was working on, but it doesn't feel good.
chaostheory 17y ago
Until there's more research studying the long term effects of this, I really don't think it's a good idea. Current research has identified that conventional sleeping helps memory, learning, creativity, and muscle repair/recovery (related to working out); not sleeping well can lead to stuff like high blood pressure and the hardening of heart arteries (which leads to heart attacks). Then again if you don't have much of a choice if you have a hard deadline, this may be a useful tool to use now and again.
- Aximilation 17y ago
  Polyphasic sleep != sleep deprivation unless it is not done correctly. Yes, not sleeping well (deprivation) can cause those things, but it does not mean that polyphasic sleep causes them. if you have adapted and are on a consistent schedule, you should be more rested than before.
  - chaostheory 17y ago
    " not sleeping well (deprivation) can cause those things, but it does not mean that polyphasic sleep causes them. " Until there's research conducted on the long term effects of polyphasic sleep, who's to say it doesn't cause those things?
quizbiz 17y ago
I just wish I remembered more of my dreams and perhaps even be able to control them to use as brainstorming sessions.
WilliamLP 17y ago
What's conspicuously missing from this article is the author mentioning which method he is using, and how long he has maintained it. Without that, it reads like an article about what he wants to do, but has never managed to maintain. It's akin to taking diet advice from someone who has lost and gained weight many times in their lives and has never proven they can stop the cycling.
menloparkbum 17y ago
I've always wondered if the polyphasic sleep hackers have girlfriends or wives. It seems like you'd either have to be chaste, or else have a very odd relationship with your significant other. I can't imagine having sex, then taking a 20 minute nap, then getting right back to SEO strategy or whatever it is the polyphasic crowd needs all that extra time for. The other thing is that I've never heard of a woman trying polyphasic sleep or even being mildly interested in trying it. It seems to be one of those things that only guys with blogs care about.
- die_sekte 17y ago
  Ahem. PureDoxyK, the one who posted about polyphasic sleep on a couple of sites (kuro5hin, everything2) a few years ago, who mostly started the whole craze and who still tries various sleep patterns out, is female: http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/about-me/ http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/about-me/ And Steve Pavlina who tried out polyphasic sleep for quite some time is married.
  - shard 17y ago
    I've read through Pavlina's polyphasic sleep blog entries and some of PureDoxyK's entries before, and IIRC neither of them went into detail about how it affected their sex lives.
    - PureDoxyk 17y ago
      Dude, I wrote a whole page about it, and put it on the main polyphasic page of my site with the link "Polyphasic Sleep and Sex"! What more do you want??! ;) It's here: http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/index.php/about-polyphasic-sleep/polyphasic-nookie-post/ http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/index.php/about-polyphasi... PD (P.S. Yes, girl, and married. And pro-nookie. ;)
- abossy 17y ago
  Steve Pavlina is married, and he describes the effect his sleep cycle had on his relationship to his wife. I can't remember if he discusses sex at all, but you may be interested in finding out for yourself: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/
gregwebs 17y ago
There’s no clearly defined biological reason for it, and it is intuitively an evolutionary disadvantage. Sleeping during the night was extremely important for human survival. We evolved to find food during the day. Any waking hours at night time instead of sleeping means a huge amount of extra energy expended to support being awake. Sleep pressure has a huge evolutionary advantage. It may be a disadvantage now.
c00p3r 17y ago
You think military and some goverment agencies didn't spent millions and decades for it? =)
proee 17y ago
OPEN SOURCE BED PROJECT? We have the latest technologies when it comes to automobiles and other products, yet our bed is still using the same technology that's existed for thousands of years. Let's rethink our sleeping apparatus. Here's my inventive thoughts on sleeping. Why not use all the technology at our disposal to create the ultimate sleeping bed? Here's the basic design: 1. The bed has a lid that closes over top (think coffin but roomier inside). 2. Bed has temperature control system to vent air and adjust to sleeping preferences. 3. Bed mattress has cooling pipes to control mattress temperatures. 4. Lot of control systems to monitor air temperature, mattress temperature and body temperature and keeps them all in check. 5. Integrated lighting in the dome of the bed is used for waking and mood setting 6. Bed sits on motorized incline to help with morning assist routines The fun with this projects comes in setting up the control system for optimal sleep cycles. With the variable being temperature (air and mattress), light, sound, and bed angle. Any takers? Edit: additional note is this could be considered a "green" bed because it has a self contain heating/cooling system which is more efficient than heating/cooling your entire house. So at night, you can lower your overall energy requirements for hvac related bills.
- philwelch 17y ago
  Aside from claustrophobes, this might work alright. But it would require a lot of material, and it would have to look good, because people like beds that are made out of nice looking wood. And it's expensive building a roomy king-size coffin out of maple ;)
  - proee 17y ago
    Well it wouldn't be claustrophobic assuming you make the dome with sufficient headroom. You could do some human factor studies and determine what size of enclosure people can lay down inside and still feel fine. In terms of material, I'd prefer something more techie than wood - some sort of composite material to make the canopy light and moder looking. Maybe like a large oval shape.
    - philwelch 17y ago
hendler 17y ago
great submission. Thanks. I really like hearing about this kind of hacking vs using something like provigil. My experience has been that I can function with less sleep (4-5 hours with 1/2 hour nap), but less optimally, eventually. The naps can often be very refreshing, and sustaining even, but eventually it's not enough. At least for me. I've done these sleep patterns for about 6 months at a time - with longer sleep once a week. Exercise (more precisely, blood flow to the brain) makes a big difference for me. Staying vertical in a chair for 12 hours a day with no exercise or nap vs 16 hours a day with exercise break/nap feels comparable.
albemuth 17y ago
Didn't Kramer try this and fail?

128 points by symptic 17y ago

Relevant discussion from the last time this came up: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652747 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652747

pchristensen 17y ago

Again, here is the link to my experience doing polyphasic sleep: http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/category/polyphasic/ http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/category/polyphasi... I agree with Dustin - it works but you have to be strict on the schedule. My life didn't accommodate the schedule so I had to stop, but it did work for the short time I could schedule it.

scott_s 17y ago
No one's life accommodates that sleeping schedule - which is why we don't naturally sleep like that.
- youngian 17y ago
  If the rest of the world wasn't so rigorously attached to monophasic, I don't see why it would be so difficult. It's not an inherently unworkable schedule, it's just that our work, commerce, and socializing all take forms that don't accommodate it. Anyways, I'm intrigued by what he calls the "Everyman" schedules - they seem like a compromise between the rigid Uberman and the monophasic that the rest of the world uses.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    It's difficult because our bodies did not evolve to sleep to that schedule. Every account I've read concludes with "It's great! I'm happy with how it turned out! Oh, by the way, I don't do it anymore because it's so hard to keep up." Read the thread I linked to, which is now at the bottom of this discussion.
  - ahoyhere 17y ago
    The sleep cycle evolved before artificial lighting, when night was truly deep and dark. That's not work, commerce, or socialization at work.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

rms 17y ago

There's also biphasic -- 4 hours + 4 hours, but you could probably comfortably spread the two sessions out across 28 hours however you want

philwelch 17y ago
Humans are naturally biphasic, but more in the 6-7 hours + .5-1 hours range. Which is why some cultures have a midday siesta. Famous people who actually slept biphasically include Winston Churchill, who was by all accounts energetic, hardworking, and did not sleep that much overall.

symptic 17y ago

I can appreciate how effective these methods are, but I personally don't like the idea of stripping one of the enjoyable things in my schedule down to how efficient it is. Working hard is great, but I think there is such thing as too much of it at the cost of an enjoyable life (for me).

brc 17y ago
I imagine that trying to do weird sleep patterns will exclude you from that other great evolutionary need : sex. Not many partners would put up with someone dropping everything and running off for a 20 minute nap. They'd likely classify you under 'freak' and go and find someone else to share genetic material with.

kirse 17y ago

I always wonder about these people who claim to have adjusted sleep cycles (i.e. 28 hours). Personally I find that I also drift to staying awake later and later if I'm not exercising during the week. If I get in a solid hour workout daily (like I usually do), I'm out like a light in 5 minutes as soon as it's time for bed. Do enough physical work during the day and your body will have no problem passing out because it's simply exhausted. I also love how he labels the 8-hour sleep "the waste". Any other athletes here will confirm that you can't possibly recover, build muscle, and have the energy for hard workouts with 20 minute naps during the day. Polyphasic sleep might allow one to just barely function, but it's hardly functioning at your best.

miracle 17y ago
How do you know that your muscles only recover during night and not during day. You could still lay on the coach and read a book and your muscles would recover as well, or not?
- mbrubeck 17y ago
  According to the NIH, Sleep is one of the events that modify the timing of secretion for certain hormones. Many hormones are secreted into the blood during sleep. For example, scientists believe that the release of growth hormone is related in part to repair processes that occur during sleep. http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/sleep/guide/info-sleep.htm http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/sleep/guid...
  - jordyhoyt 17y ago
    Right, and what first came to mind for me was Melatonin. I was looking into sleep hacks a couple years back and studying up on Melatonin drove me away from trying out anything that would disturb a "normal" amount of time sleeping in the dark. I remember seeing a study that linked a lack of Melatonin production to some kinds of cancer. Can't seem to find it now.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    That NIH page on sleep is fascinating.

oliveoil 17y ago

I think there are two major problems with "hacking" one's sleeping patterns like this. First is physiological side effects that can go undetected for a very long time and cause permanent damage. Lack of sleep increases blood pressure, for instance. Or the effectiveness of the thinking process itself (which is more difficult to measure) -- I was told at school that when I sleep my brain "processes and sorts information". Well if you reduce the amount of sleep four times perhaps you become more prone to make mistakes when working (and lose time fixing them).

ph0rque 17y ago
The original article's claims, and your counter-claims, need to be proven/disproven by a study of individuals practicing poly-phasic sleep for e.g. 10-20 years. Until then, we're basically in anecdote territory.
- colins_pride 17y ago
  Why hasn't that study been done? I think it's because this is something that is very hard to stick with. After the physical adjustment, one has to be willing to organize one's life in a way consistent with this, and that is tough when everybody uses this other mode of sleep.

miracle 17y ago

So did anybody try to do directly the uberman's sleep schedule (6 times 20 minutes sleep)? A friend tried passing to it through multiple core sleep phases, but failed miserably after one week.

endergen 17y ago

Just do heavy exercise, you will require more sleep and sleep deeper. I don't sleep well unless I'm doing 1.5 hours of exercise. Doing mentally stimulating work before going to bed is the worst way to sleep well. I need almost 2 hours of mindless tv or something besides programming before going to bed to sleep properly. Otherwise I have programming dreams. Perhaps Dustin exercises a lot, or maybe he's always been more into intellectual pursuits.

JabavuAdams 17y ago

I wonder how this affects learning and memory. anecdotes: My wife and I are both very attuned to our learning processes, and we both notice immediate skill improvements after "sleeping on it". This applies to learning, retention, and even physical skills (sports and video games). Because sleep affects cognition, being poorly rested can amplify all kinds of bad habits. When I'm fully rested, I'll think "let me sketch out a solution and plan my code changes". When I'm sleep deprived, I just jump in and flail. It's literally the difference between "oh, I know I should do X, but I'll just dive in 'cause that's fun" versus just doing X, and having fun anyway. There were times in university where I would get up at 6 pm, and go to sleep at 6 am. I couldn't understand so-called "morning people". Now, though, if I go to bed tired at 10:30 pm, I wake up rested at 6:30 am. It really is a matter of training. I rarely go to bed later than midnight now, after 20 years of rarely going to bed before midnight. That feeling of being fully rested was a vivid surprise. My eyes open, and I realize I'm lying down, but I could just as well be standing up. There's no friction. There's no pain. I'm ready to go. So, in summary ... be very careful about messing with your sleep patterns, and don't assume that you're somehow incompatible with the standard sleep schedule. i suspect that a lot of it is just plain old boring training, not sexy hacking.

youngian 17y ago
There were times in university where I would get up at 6 pm, and go to sleep at 6 am. I couldn't understand so-called "morning people". Now, though, if I go to bed tired at 10:30 pm, I wake up rested at 6:30 am. It really is a matter of training. I rarely go to bed later than midnight now, after 20 years of rarely going to bed before midnight. I actually had a very different experience. In college I spent a month trying to become a "morning person." After the initial adjusment period, it worked great for a little under two weeks - I'd go to sleep at 10:30, and hop out of bed at 7:00 feeling fresh and ready to go. But suddenly (perhaps once I finally caught up on my sleep debt) I stopped falling asleep at 11. Instead I'd lie in bed wide awake for two or three hours, and feel as grumpy as ever the next morning. After three consecutive days of that, I gave up on being a morning person and have yet to look back.
pradocchia 17y ago
> even physical skills That would be expected. Physical skills are still resident in the nervous system, just somewhat removed from consciousness. What is stressed during the day is strengthened at night.

iamelgringo 17y ago

Sorry, Dustin. Your writing and sense of design (as always) are really wonderful. But your medical suggestions... not so much. It's really not possible to "hack" your sleep schedule effectively for any length of time. True, some people, called "short sleepers" do function rather well on 3-4 hours of sleep a night. But, most people require an average of 7-9 hours of sleep, and when they deviate from that for any length of time, they eventually rebound to their required length of sleep. When you do try to "hack" your natural sleep schedule, you end up tired, and functioning sub optimally. Scientific studies have shown that people who are chronically sleep deprived are as dangerous behind the wheel of a car as someone who is legally intoxicated. Why would you do that to yourself willingly? There is a lot of good scientific research being done in the field of sleep medicine. There are physicians who specialize in sleep. I've been going to one for the past year. And, while sleep medicine is a young discipline, a sleep doctor can be quite helpful. If you're tired all the time, may I suggest you see a physician who has studies and specialized in such things instead of trying to diagnose and treat yourself via the internet.

symptic 17y ago
I have several friends who have successfully gone on and off of the polyphasic sleep cycle. Just as with most things in life, you need to be open and willing and dedicated to make it work. This relates to forging your way with a startup, gaining muscle, adjusting sleep patterns, dating... everything. It's fair to go from your own experiences, but I know polyphasic sleep is doable, reasonable, and even better for some people. My cup of tea? Definitely not.
- jongraehl 17y ago
  Like dieting but more so, few can stay on a short sleep + naps regimen permanently. I'd guess that napping efficiently is difficult unless, you're sleep deprived enough so that you can nap under almost any condition, which doesn't sound like it feels good.
- WilliamLP 17y ago
  > I have several friends who have successfully gone on and off of the polyphasic sleep cycle. The big question is do you know anyone who went on, and did not go off.

bcl 17y ago

Steve Pavlina has some extensive blogging on the subject, as well as his daily logs over at http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

lutorm 17y ago

Now, I'm certainly not an expert on sleep, but my current night reading just happens to be "The Promise of Sleep" by Willam Dement, founder of the Stanford sleep center and student of Kleitman, the discoverer of REM sleep. And this article contradicts what he writes in so many ways. Here's what I took away from the book: Just as a start, the author got that thing about REM sleep being the only sleep that matters exactly backwards. Depriving people of REM sleep has not shown any effects on increasing sleep debt (ie feeling tired), it's the non-REM sleep that you need to not feel tired. (Which makes sense because in REM sleep your brain is essentially awake.) What the purpose of REM sleep is, is not known. Furthermore, the idea that you can "train" yourself to need less sleep has no basis in science. This does not mean there aren't a few people who have all kinds of strange sleep issues, but for the majority of people there seems to be no scientific evidence that this works at all. About the "intrinsic 28-hour pattern", in most cases (not all, there are probably people with real physiological disorders) this tendency to have a longer day than 24 hours is induced by artificial light in the evening. Electric lighting, and certainly staring into a bright LCD screen, is bright enough to register as daylight to your biological clock, and cause it to shift forward. In studies where people were isolated from artificial lights, people who normally would have a rhythm slightly longer reverted back to almost exactly 24 hours. Rather than "hacking your brain", it would probably be more beneficial for the majority of people to just learn about how sleep works and of the importance of managing it properly.

erlanger 17y ago
That explains why I slept so well when I was locked up (back as a young'n in juvie): You didn't have control of the light in your cell, so from ~10pm to ~7am lights were out whether you liked it or not. I'm a life-long insomniac.
- jongraehl 17y ago
  The reverse - going to sleep as the sun creeps up - is difficult for me. It feels worse to me to try to sleep as dawn comes than just an hour earlier. I'd expect to fall quickly and pleasantly asleep after an all-nighter, but the combination of dawn, the pounding of my heart and racing of my mind actually leave me awake and thinking for an extra few minutes. It's possible that going to sleep in that state gives me extra insight on what I was working on, but it doesn't feel good.

chaostheory 17y ago

Until there's more research studying the long term effects of this, I really don't think it's a good idea. Current research has identified that conventional sleeping helps memory, learning, creativity, and muscle repair/recovery (related to working out); not sleeping well can lead to stuff like high blood pressure and the hardening of heart arteries (which leads to heart attacks). Then again if you don't have much of a choice if you have a hard deadline, this may be a useful tool to use now and again.

Aximilation 17y ago
Polyphasic sleep != sleep deprivation unless it is not done correctly. Yes, not sleeping well (deprivation) can cause those things, but it does not mean that polyphasic sleep causes them. if you have adapted and are on a consistent schedule, you should be more rested than before.
- chaostheory 17y ago
  " not sleeping well (deprivation) can cause those things, but it does not mean that polyphasic sleep causes them. " Until there's research conducted on the long term effects of polyphasic sleep, who's to say it doesn't cause those things?

quizbiz 17y ago

I just wish I remembered more of my dreams and perhaps even be able to control them to use as brainstorming sessions.

WilliamLP 17y ago

What's conspicuously missing from this article is the author mentioning which method he is using, and how long he has maintained it. Without that, it reads like an article about what he wants to do, but has never managed to maintain. It's akin to taking diet advice from someone who has lost and gained weight many times in their lives and has never proven they can stop the cycling.

menloparkbum 17y ago

I've always wondered if the polyphasic sleep hackers have girlfriends or wives. It seems like you'd either have to be chaste, or else have a very odd relationship with your significant other. I can't imagine having sex, then taking a 20 minute nap, then getting right back to SEO strategy or whatever it is the polyphasic crowd needs all that extra time for. The other thing is that I've never heard of a woman trying polyphasic sleep or even being mildly interested in trying it. It seems to be one of those things that only guys with blogs care about.

die_sekte 17y ago
Ahem. PureDoxyK, the one who posted about polyphasic sleep on a couple of sites (kuro5hin, everything2) a few years ago, who mostly started the whole craze and who still tries various sleep patterns out, is female: http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/about-me/ http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/about-me/ And Steve Pavlina who tried out polyphasic sleep for quite some time is married.
- shard 17y ago
  I've read through Pavlina's polyphasic sleep blog entries and some of PureDoxyK's entries before, and IIRC neither of them went into detail about how it affected their sex lives.
  - PureDoxyk 17y ago
    Dude, I wrote a whole page about it, and put it on the main polyphasic page of my site with the link "Polyphasic Sleep and Sex"! What more do you want??! ;) It's here: http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/index.php/about-polyphasic-sleep/polyphasic-nookie-post/ http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/index.php/about-polyphasi... PD (P.S. Yes, girl, and married. And pro-nookie. ;)
abossy 17y ago
Steve Pavlina is married, and he describes the effect his sleep cycle had on his relationship to his wife. I can't remember if he discusses sex at all, but you may be interested in finding out for yourself: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

gregwebs 17y ago

There’s no clearly defined biological reason for it, and it is intuitively an evolutionary disadvantage. Sleeping during the night was extremely important for human survival. We evolved to find food during the day. Any waking hours at night time instead of sleeping means a huge amount of extra energy expended to support being awake. Sleep pressure has a huge evolutionary advantage. It may be a disadvantage now.

c00p3r 17y ago

You think military and some goverment agencies didn't spent millions and decades for it? =)

proee 17y ago

OPEN SOURCE BED PROJECT? We have the latest technologies when it comes to automobiles and other products, yet our bed is still using the same technology that's existed for thousands of years. Let's rethink our sleeping apparatus. Here's my inventive thoughts on sleeping. Why not use all the technology at our disposal to create the ultimate sleeping bed? Here's the basic design: 1. The bed has a lid that closes over top (think coffin but roomier inside). 2. Bed has temperature control system to vent air and adjust to sleeping preferences. 3. Bed mattress has cooling pipes to control mattress temperatures. 4. Lot of control systems to monitor air temperature, mattress temperature and body temperature and keeps them all in check. 5. Integrated lighting in the dome of the bed is used for waking and mood setting 6. Bed sits on motorized incline to help with morning assist routines The fun with this projects comes in setting up the control system for optimal sleep cycles. With the variable being temperature (air and mattress), light, sound, and bed angle. Any takers? Edit: additional note is this could be considered a "green" bed because it has a self contain heating/cooling system which is more efficient than heating/cooling your entire house. So at night, you can lower your overall energy requirements for hvac related bills.

philwelch 17y ago
Aside from claustrophobes, this might work alright. But it would require a lot of material, and it would have to look good, because people like beds that are made out of nice looking wood. And it's expensive building a roomy king-size coffin out of maple ;)
- proee 17y ago
  Well it wouldn't be claustrophobic assuming you make the dome with sufficient headroom. You could do some human factor studies and determine what size of enclosure people can lay down inside and still feel fine. In terms of material, I'd prefer something more techie than wood - some sort of composite material to make the canopy light and moder looking. Maybe like a large oval shape.
  - philwelch 17y ago

hendler 17y ago

great submission. Thanks. I really like hearing about this kind of hacking vs using something like provigil. My experience has been that I can function with less sleep (4-5 hours with 1/2 hour nap), but less optimally, eventually. The naps can often be very refreshing, and sustaining even, but eventually it's not enough. At least for me. I've done these sleep patterns for about 6 months at a time - with longer sleep once a week. Exercise (more precisely, blood flow to the brain) makes a big difference for me. Staying vertical in a chair for 12 hours a day with no exercise or nap vs 16 hours a day with exercise break/nap feels comparable.

albemuth 17y ago

Didn't Kramer try this and fail?