
Is surviving on 20-minute naps bad for you? - TuxMulder
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32702410
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vidarh
I vary my sleep schedule a lot. I'm 40. I've given up on any hope of
_reducing_ the amount of sleep I get without bad effects. I do believe you can
_manage_ when you sleep to maximize productivity, though.

I have a 6 year old son, and I lie down for a nap when he goes to bed between
8.30 and 9pm - it's convenient timing. I tend to aim for 90 minutes. If the
alarm wakes me, it wakes me, and I'll stay up for 2-3 hours and if I feel I
have the energy I load up on caffeine and stay up all night. The next couple
of nights I'll probably sleep straight through from my nap time and never
notice the alarms, or at most wake up briefly.

The end effect for me is that I regularly get 6-8 hour long concentrated
periods at night where I feel rested and alert, and still have enough energy
to last it through the work day and early evening afterwards.

With the caveat that any deficit accumulates. If I don't "pay for it"
immediately I'll feel more and more tired as the days goes by and end up
taking a week or so of going to bed early to recover. That part was easier to
avoid when I was younger.

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bryanlarsen
I did the "uberman" sleep schedule for a few months about 10 years ago. It
works; you can definitely survive and stay surprisingly functional on a 20
minute nap every 4 hours. You do lose some cognitive ability, though.

The advice in the OP is pretty bad, though. Any nap of more than 20 minutes
will leave you feeling groggy when you wake up, especially if you're sleep
deprived, which could be catastrophic for a pilot.

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DSMan195276
That's not entire true. Getting a full sleep cycle is important - More over,
the reason you don't feel groggy after sleeping for 20 minutes is because you
didn't actually enter into the deeper levels of sleep, which are important for
actually being rested.

If you sleep for aprox. 90 minutes, a full sleep cycle, then you also won't
feel groggy.

~~~
albemuth
Isn't the theory around the uberman that in those 20 min you go straight into
deep sleep?

~~~
baby
yup, parent is talking without knowledge of uberman

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zxcvvcxz
I find a lot of irony in people's anecdotal "I did the uberman sleep schedule,
it works."

Key word: did. As in, past tense. Clearly it does not work better than the
alternatives, or you'd still be doing it. Don't mistake short-term survival
for long-term viability.

~~~
bcassedy
The article is talking long-term viability in the sense of its impact on
health and longevity. From what I've seen in comments here and experienced
myself, the reasons for abandoning uberman are largely social in nature.

Your statement that clearly it doesn't work as well as the alternative (as
relates to the article) is unfounded.

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nmkn
I found that switching to a night shift was productive. It helped me eliminate
social distractions during the day.

I would work in the wee hours when everyone's asleep, sleep all day, but then
get up for a few hours before 5pm to get errands done. With the limited
daylight and business hours it made me focus and prioritize chores and other
busy-work. Social life didn't take too bad of a hit because I got it all in
the evening before working the rest of the night and early morning.

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ffn
I think my mileage experience with uberman is on the crappy end. I did it for
2 weeks, and toward the end, I felt I was unable to focus on anything for more
than 30 seconds, and ultimately had to stop when I started seeing blood in the
toilet. To this day, I have no idea if my uberman sleep schedule actually
caused it or not, but seeing dark red in the water definitely scared me and
correlation is one hell of a incentive to stop doing something.

~~~
pil4rin
Dark red is an indicator of colorectal cancer- You should get that checked out

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xutopia
I hate when an article states a question making you expect an answer.

This article ends with exactly the same question it starts out with.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The article ends with:

The answer

\- 20-minute naps are arguably too short for a restorative nap

\- 30 minutes a time would be better, but 90 minutes allows a full sleep cycle

~~~
athenot
Interestingly, newborn babies are on a 90 minute schedule. So are the
parents...

Though to be fair, that only lasts a few months until it's 2x90 min, 3x90 min,
etc.

~~~
Someone
I haven't ever heard a parent say they felt like Superman on that schedule,
though.

~~~
vidarh
Most parents gets the bad side (waking up at night) without the good side
(napping during the day), though.

I really loved the weekends when my son was younger and would still have an
afternoon nap and we ended up napping at the same time.... But I did certainly
not enjoy when he was a baby and woke up around 4:30am full of energy and I
had to offload his mom and keep him busy until it was time for me to get ready
for work just as he decided it was nap-time again.

If I got to go down for a nap again whenever he did I think I could have quite
enjoyed it. Unfortunately I doubt work would have agreed.

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chisleu
I tried the everyman sleep schedule and made my first B+, ruining my 3 year
run of straight As as a result of a sleep-deprived test.

I was 3 weeks in and still having trouble waking, and feeling groggy most of
the time. I might try it again now that I'm out of school, but my boss will be
pissy if I'm sleepy all the time.

That said, I was amazed at how much more I got done. The sense of time
dilation comes on really fast. It starts to feel like everyone else is lazy
when you describe everything you accomplished in a day or two. I've heard that
it gets better after you adjust. We will see.

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tapatio
I tried this 9 years ago. Does not work whatsoever. It's a really stupid idea.
Cognitive abilities go down the toilet.

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Andrewbass
I used to work nights and go to school during the day so I learned really
quickly how to break my sleep into 90min cycles. This kept me functional
however, a string of successive sleep cycles let's you get a much deeper and
energizing rest, in my experience.

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fapjacks
I long had sleep problems most of my life. Like 10 or 12 hours and I would not
be rested. During tours with the Army overseas, a couple hours here and there.
It was a nightmare waking up like an asshole _every single day_. It created a
core component of the person I am. But after my 33rd birthday, I started
forcing myself to nap for 90 minutes after work, and 5 hours during the night.
It's not everyman or uberman, but it has been a miraculous change for me. Just
a straight up miracle. I should mention too that I also hit the gym pretty
hard six days a week, and so I don't think going any closer to every/uberman
would be possible.

~~~
monknomo
That's the siesta schedule, I think. It's pretty successful, but when I try
it, I get a lot of pushback from my family about being available right after
work...

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beachstartup
after having experimented with all sorts of sleep 'arrangements' in college,
10 years later i can pretty much say without a doubt i like going to bed
around midnight and getting up exactly 8 hours later.

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drtz
There have been tons of studies on sleep and how much you need is pretty well
understood: \- Most people need ~8 hrs of sleep a day. \- Any less than what
your body needs and you'll be cognitively impaired from sleep deprivation. \-
Sleep deprivation will cause health problems and early death. \- 20 minute
naps will give you a boost but never get you fully rested since you don't go
into deep or REM sleep (for which you need a full ~90 minute sleep cycle). \-
High levels of caffeine intake will disrupt sleep in most people, leading to
sleep deprivation.

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mvanvoorden
Link to the original article about Uberman:
[http://everything2.com/title/Uberman%2527s+Sleep+Schedule](http://everything2.com/title/Uberman%2527s+Sleep+Schedule)

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spiritplumber
It was definitely bad for me. I switch to "short days" when I have to build a
large number of identical things, but when I'm doing design or coding that's
even a bit creative, I need my beauty sleep.

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kaa2102
Sleep is a physiological need. Lack of food, water or sleep and the body and
mind cease to function properly before completely shutting down.

