

Hacking Your Week: The 28 Hour Day - benofsky
http://www.limedaring.com/hacking-your-week-the-28-hour-day/

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simonjoe
I've used this sleep schedule before. It's extremely liberating, if only a
little lonely at the beginning of each week.

It's not hard to switch back and forth as long as you use one of the bedtimes
that's normal for both schedules and just wake up with an alarm when you're
supposed to on the new one.

The best thing about it was that I was actually tired (on the 20/8 variation)
when it was time to go to bed, and I usually woke up a few minutes before my
alarm starting on about the third day. These two phenomena never happen with
any variation on a 24 hour day that I've tried. I was more productive (got my
normal work done; started cycling regularly again; wrote more; and was
averaging 2-3 books per week) and happier. I can't think of anything bad to
say about it except that the last few hours of each "day" are a bit sluggish.
I'm convinced that helped me sleep.

The only reason that I went off it was because my girlfriend has a fairly
restrictive (yet changing) schedule. I was looking at not seeing her at all
for a week if I continued it.

I should say that if I just go to bed when I'm tired, my body defaults to
something pretty close to a 28-hour day regardless of light levels and the
other people I've known to try it had negative experiences.

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bryanlarsen
Yes, my experience was very similar. The nice thing about the schedule was
that going to bed and waking up were very easy and natural, so it was easy to
switch to the schedule. I went off of it when I went back to school and
couldn't make it work. I would have liked to have the girlfriend excuse. :)

One really nice aspect of the system is that I was fully awake on
Friday/Saturday night. I was learning how to dance at the time, being awake
made that a lot easier.

On another note: this was a schedule I followed when I was in my early
twenties. Now that I'm in my late 30's, following a conventional schedule is a
LOT easier -- I'd never be able do this now.

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simonjoe
Maybe that'll happen to me eventually. It wasn't a 28-hour cycle, certainly,
but I've been on the overdrive until crash sleep schedule basically since I
was born.

I don't see any end in sight. I have to stay up for almost 48 hours every few
weeks when I actually have commitments (like a job) in the morning as a reset.
It's annoying.

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pmichaud
I did this without really planning it during my break between high school and
college. I really enjoyed it, but it's not really practical if you have a
"normal" family life.

It's kind of analogous to a lot of good software ideas, that would be amazing
if only everything else were compatible.

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robryan
The thing I don't like about alternate sleeping schedules is they usually
include, as this one does, a warning to stick to it and go to bed at the set
hours even if your not tired.

Personally if I was going to embark on this I wouldn't be very formal about
the timing and just sleep when I got tired. I guess another thing that makes a
big difference is if you have somewhere to sleep that you can make mostly dark
during the day or will you frequently be going to sleep in a light room.

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corprew
I had an officemate back in the mid 90s who was on this schedule for several
years (he was a researcher able to set his own schedule for office time) and
it worked quite well for him. He seemed to enjoy it and talked at length about
how it was closer to the natural circadian cycle for people (which is a claim
I don't know about.)

He did great work during that period; obviously this is just another anecdote
but there you go.

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duck
What happens the following week? To me that would be the tough part - the
change back to normal.

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limedaring
It should be normal, which is the best part. The latter part of the experiment
gets harder since you get more tired, so when it comes to going to bed in the
normal 24 hour time, you should fall asleep like normal.

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jacquesm
Interesting project! There seems to be a typo in your graphic, 'R' for
Thursday ?

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rsaarelm
'T' is already in use. I suppose 'R' is a replacement that makes phonetic
sense.

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user24
It's really massively non-standard though.

I'd go for M/T/W/Th/F/Sa/Su

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simonjoe
Obviously, you never went to college.

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albemuth
...in the US

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limedaring
Yeah, the "R" is indeed from my college days in the US. :P

