
Polyphasic sleep takes napping to the extreme - trickle_learn
https://trickle.app/drip/24112-polyphasic-sleep-takes-napping-to-the-extreme/
======
bonniemuffin
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.

~~~
scandox
Everybody's situation is different but in our case we did sleep training
around 4 months and we had whole night sleep from then on - with a few minor
regressions and a bit more training.

My wife found letting the baby cry out very difficult so I did have to be
quite firm about it...

But my daughter is 8 now and doesn't seem the worse for it ... As far as I can
tell.

Edit: only mentioning this in case anyone is in despair and wants to try
something different.

~~~
codr7
Sleep training, so that's what they call it now.

My mom tells me it was standard practice back when I was born, they used to
say it was good for their lungs as well, but she couldn't do it either.

They will eventually shut down in self-defense to escape the terror of being
abandoned by their parents.

All I can say is it doesn't sound like a very good idea to me, no matter how
convenient.

~~~
scandox
I think "convenient" may be a mild understatement. Many parents are enduring
serious mental health issues because of their inability to sleep. I should say
that was not our case.

> They will eventually shut down in self-defense to escape the terror of being
> abandoned by their parents

Perhaps. I don't think we actually know what's going on in a baby's mind.
Children appear to be amazingly resilient and also quite logical.

But as with all such advice you have to respect your own instincts as a parent
and take cognizance of what the child's temperament is like. It's always
different.

~~~
codr7
I have two children, I get it. But no one ever promised it was going to be
easy.

Lack of sleep wouldn't be as big of a problem if we didn't force parents to
work as well as raising children. Children are our future, messing them up to
fit our messed up society is not a long term solution.

I agree about trusting your instincts, but that's not what I'm seeing. When a
child cries the typical parental instinct would be to hold them.

------
seven4
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.

~~~
ashtonkem
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
> 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?

~~~
kccqzy
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.

~~~
eru
Compare also
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siesta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siesta)

------
whymauri
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
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
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
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.

------
fny
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.

------
smabie
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.

------
lcall
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%2Fne...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=polyphasic+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com&ia=web)

~~~
sjf
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
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.

------
kren
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.

~~~
urxvtcd
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
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!

------
krater23
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.

------
jsf01
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
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.

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

~~~
elric
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
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
That's 10 hours of sleep at night? Or are you being euphemistically and are
you including time spent on sex?

~~~
viklove
7-12 (5 hours sleep) 12-2 (2 hours chatting around fire) 2-5 (3 hours sleep)

How are you doing the math here? I count 8 hours of sleep.

------
leesec
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.

~~~
smabie
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.

~~~
cardiffspaceman
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)

------
DanBC
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-
shi...](https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-
we-should-again)

~~~
corty
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.

------
regularfry
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
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.

------
jason_slack
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
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
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.

------
hellotomyrars
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.

------
fouc
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
Did you become sick from adapting to the new sleep schedule or was it just a
coincidence?

~~~
fouc
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.

------
vadyalex
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.

------
deelawn
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
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.

------
gadders
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...

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

------
driverdan
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.

------
fouric
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.

------
baylessj
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.

------
patelh
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.

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

------
tomc1985
20 minute naps? That seems like barely enough time to lose consciousness let
alone get any kind of REM sleep.

~~~
rsfern
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
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.

------
xwdv
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
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.

------
enobrev
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".

------
teddyh
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/)

------
cercatrova
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-
id...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-identified-
people-who-need-little-sleep)

------
FirefoxIsSlow
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
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
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.

