Polyphasic Sleep
October 20th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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A couple days ago, I saw a post about polyphasic sleep on LifeHack.org. Since then I’ve been emailed about this topic as well, probably because I’ve written previously about becoming an early riser.
Polyphasic sleep involves taking multiple short sleep periods throughout the day instead of getting all your sleep in one long chunk. A popular form of polyphasic sleep, the Uberman sleep schedule, suggests that you sleep 20-30 minutes six times per day, with equally spaced naps every 4 hours around the clock. This means you’re only sleeping 2-3 hours per day. I’d previously heard of polyphasic sleep, but until now I hadn’t come across practical schedules that people seem to be reporting interesting results with.
Under this sleep schedule, your sleep times might be at 2am, 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm. And each time you’d sleep for only 20-30 minutes. This is nice because the times are the same whether AM or PM, and they’re consistent from day to day as well, so you can still maintain a regular daily schedule, albeit a very different one.
How can this sleep schedule work? Supposedly it takes about a week to adjust to it. A normal sleep cycle is 90 minutes, and REM sleep occurs late in this cycle. REM is the most important phase of sleep, the one in which you experience dreams, and when deprived of REM for too long, you suffer serious negative consequences. Polyphasic sleep conditions your body to learn to enter REM sleep immediately when you begin sleeping instead of much later in the sleep cycle. So during the first week you experience sleep deprivation as your body learns to adapt to shorter sleep cycles, but after the adaptation you’ll feel fine, maybe even better than before.
It requires some discipline to successfully transition to this cycle, as well as a flexible schedule that allows it. While you’ll be sleeping a lot less, apparently it’s very important to sleep at the required times and not miss naps.
It was interesting to read some of the posts from people who’ve tried this sleep cycle. They reported higher alertness and energy, more vivid dreams and more lucid dreams, and of course lots of extra free time. I also read of failures, but in each case the person wasn’t strict about the nap schedule and overslept on occasion. A side effect of this sleep schedule is that you need to eat more, since you’re spending more time moving around. It appears that the long term health effects of this sleep pattern aren’t well known. That’s irrelevant to me though because I find that being a long-term vegan, I can’t rely much on long-term studies done on non-vegans anyway. Some say that hormones in animal products negatively affect sleep patterns, and more restful sleep is commonly reported after making dietary improvements. So long-term studies on people eating average diets wouldn’t be of much use to me personally.
The downside to this sleep schedule is that it can be inflexible. I’ve read that you can delay naps by an hour if necessary, but missing a nap can cause a rapid crash that takes a while to recover from. This means you only have about 3.5 hours of waking time between naps, 4.5 hours if you push it. So this can restrict your options a bit. Of course, you have to balance that sacrifice against the gain of many extra hours per day, every day. Interesting trade off…. It reminds me of something you’d find in The Book of Questions.
Plus it’s just plain weird. So naturally I want to try it. 
Since I work from home and have control over my schedule, I’ve decided to test polyphasic sleep to see what it’s like. I’m already good at falling asleep fast (within a few minutes), and I often have dreams during 15-20 minute naps, so I wonder if I’ve partially conditioned myself to enter REM rapidly. This test obviously requires a bit of adjustment, but I’ve managed to work things out with my wife to make it practical enough. Since I’ve read that energy and alertness plummet during the first week, I’ve kept next week’s schedule very light mentally (no meetings, speeches, or major projects). Depending on how functional and coherent I am during the adjustment period, I’ll be doing mostly domestic projects like organizing the garage — nothing involving power tools.
I’m starting this polyphasic sleep schedule today, so last night was my last night of “normal” sleep for a while. I still got up at 5am this morning, and then I’ll begin doing the naps every 4 hours starting this afternoon. I’ll use a countdown timer alarm set for 30 minutes, so I won’t oversleep. I’ve decided that my sleep times will be 1am, 5am, 9am, 1pm, 5pm, and 9pm. I aim to continue at least until Halloween… or death, whichever comes first. If it seems to be going well and I retain basic functionality, then I’ll decide whether I want to continue with it.
My main motivation for trying this is curiosity, and it seems like it would be a fun test of self-discipline. Plus it meshes nicely with my own general weirdness. Whether the experiment succeeds or fails, it should be an interesting learning experience.
Of course I’ll be sure to blog about this experience, but if I start making posts about seeing dead people, then you’ll know I’ve become delusional due to sleep deprivation. 
What would you do with an extra 30-40 hours of free time per week?
Read more about polyphasic sleep at Wikipedia.
Edit 4/14/06: For your convenience, here are links to all of my polyphasic sleep log entries in order (each link will open in a new window). This is a treasure trove of free information for anyone interested in learning about my trial of polyphasic sleep. To my knowledge these are the most detailed polyphasic sleep logs you’ll be able to find anywhere on the web.
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 1
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 2
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 3
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 4
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 5
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 6
- Polyphasic Sleep – Response to Reader Feedback
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – A Wife’s Perspective
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 7
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Days 8-11
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Days 12-18
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Days 19-20
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 21
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 22
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Days 23-24
- Polyphasic Sleep Log – Days 25-30
- Polyphasic Sleep Seinfeld Episode
- Polyphasic Sleep Update – Day 60
- Polyphasic Sleep Update – Day 90
- Polyphasic Mutants
- Polyphasic Sleep Put to Shame
- Polyphasic Sleep 2.0 (Day 120+)
- Polyphasic Sleep in USA Today
- Polyphasic Sleep: The Return to Monophasic
Sleep well!
October 25th, 2005 at 1:17 am
Bonfire of the Vanities: Week 121
When you set out to host the Bonfire of the Vanities with the goal of not turning out a version that won’t belong in next week’s Bonfire you may have just bitten off more than you can chew. At least I may have. It’s hard to comment …
October 26th, 2005 at 6:26 am
[...] Sidenote: As I was putting this together I ran across a post on Steve Pavlina’s blog today that I thought I would share with you. It seems that Steve is experimenting with something called Polyphasic sleep, where you take 6 to 8, 30 minute naps throughout the day instead of sleeping straight thru. It is an interesting concept and as I write this he is on day 5 of his trial run. [...]
November 3rd, 2005 at 1:19 am
[...] most recently, i’ve been particularly interested by his blog posts on polyphasic sleep, which he is experimenting with. i’ve always had trouble with oversleeping and i would love to try something like this. i do, however, have specific sleep recommendations from my doctor. these are due to epileptic seizures i used to have in my late teens and early twenties, which i am still on medication for. so it might not be the right time to try something like this – but then again, maybe it is. i’m not planning on rushing out and doing this right now, though. [...]
November 3rd, 2005 at 11:21 pm
[...] I find his experiments in polyphasic sleep just fascinating. Now he has gone and come up with another experiment. He intends to use the intention-manifestation model of goal achievement to generate $1 million. And he is asking people to join him. I’m in. [...]
November 14th, 2005 at 11:48 am
[...] I have been reading Steve Pavlina’s account of his polyphasic sleep experiment with great interest. Polyphasic sleep has interested a number of people as a result of an article on the subject; you can find the wikipedia explanation here. [...]
November 15th, 2005 at 9:36 am
[...] Sueño polifásico: introducción [...]
November 17th, 2005 at 8:52 am
[...] But once I came across to quite an irregular approach to sleep in Steve Pavlina’s blog. It’s called polyphasic sleep and based on the theory of REM sleep, which claims that it’s enough to have about 6 naps everyday. Every nap lasts 20-30 minutes. I’m really curious about this method but I’m not sure I’m ready to try it. But Steve has just made an experiment. And it was comletely successful. You can read about it in details in his blog: »Polyphasic Sleep »Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 1 »Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 3 »Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 4 »Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 5 »Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 7 »Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 21 »Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 22 »Polyphasic Sleep Log – Days 23-24 »Polyphasic Sleep Log – A Wife’s Perspective »Polyphasic Sleep – Response to Reader Feedback [...]
November 27th, 2005 at 9:44 pm
[...] I’m kicking off my own polyphasic sleep experiment tonight. Steve’s blog posts have really inspired me, so I’m going to attempt to document my experiment in the same sort of way. My initial plan is to post at least daily on the topic for the next week and a half, and then as things change. I’m fully expecting the next week to be crap-on-wheels, but it’s all good. I am not going to slack on this experiment, and I’ve learned from other accounts that I need to be very careful about not oversleeping. [...]
December 2nd, 2005 at 5:58 pm
[...] It’s now a full month since I switched to a vegan diet and I’m surprised at how easy it was. I’ve tried several times before to switch to a healthier diet than the one I’m used to. Usually I couldn’t handle it for more than a week. I once did a special two week green vegetable diet as an internal clean up and had lost weight even several months after that period so it was interesting. Now it’s completely different – I started this major change in habits on October 30th and what made it so easy this time is that I wasn’t trying to improve my diet or health per se but I wanted to try polyphasic sleep. I got excited by the idea of reorganizing my life patterns and questioning the very basic assumptions. Why do I sleep 8 to 9 hours every day? How come I find it hard to wake up early in the mornings? Steve Pavlina writes about the connection between diet and sleep and was very successful at switching to poly-napping that I felt extremely excited! Here was a weird enough idea for me to try on myself! At first I decided to switch to Vegetarian diet, I stopped eating meat and held for a week with that. This was the first week, then I quickly switched to the more restrictive vegan diet where no animal products are consumed – specifically: milk and eggs. How can I survive on that restricted diet?? Won’t I be missing some essential elements? what about vitamin B12 for example? I did a search on the subject and educated myself on the subject. Since this was just the first step in altering my sleep patterns, I wasn’t too concerned with cravings for meat or fish. The 30 day period past fast and I felt physical improvements, for example: my stomach shrunk and is flatter than it used to be. I didn’t even do sit-ups during this transition period. Before this dietary change, I used to feel sit-ups are fighting against a swallen stomach, what a welcome change this is. I eat raw food most of the time, this feels the best. I use a large variation of fruit and vegetables to keep this diet from being boring. I’m not fanatic about it though, I do eat some preprocessed foods that are vegetarian but not strictly vegan. I guess I need more preparation-effort-discipline to be 100% vegan. I’ve entered this strange mental state in the past few months where I am easier on myself. I’m not going to torture myself with negative-useless-if-not-outright-damaging thoughts when I stray from my previous decisions. I believe this easier mindset is a great help in actually moving forward and not quitting after a small diversion. Becoming vegan is a very unusual decision for a person like me with both parents from Argentina and a reputation of a red meat eater. I enjoyed eating red meat, chicken and fish – especially sushi. I know it will be dificult for many people who know me to accept the new me. Perhaps it is just an illusion I have, perhaps people don’t care what I eat or don’t eat. Maybe I’m carying this burden of – “What will people think of me when I tell them I’m a vegan”. I sudendly realised I have this chain olding me back which is just in my mind. I need to practice letting it go. I always thought I’m not like that. I’m not the kind of person who is preoccupied with “what will people think of me” and I used to prove this to myself in my internal discussions in my head with respect to other aspects of my life, a good example would be career choices I took which seemd to others as inconsistent but I knew there was a larger frame of reference when I did those transitions and insisted on not accepting any criticism. [...]
December 4th, 2005 at 12:06 pm
[...] Just finished reading a “fascinating series of articles”:http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ from Steve Pavlina about his adopting “polyphasic sleep”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep [...]
December 5th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
[...] I read most of the journal entries on Steve Pavlina’s site about his experiment on polyphonic sleep phasing. His story seems to be successful and he intends to continue at this point. [...]
December 5th, 2005 at 8:55 pm
Sleep update
Since sleep hacking is a popular topic, here are some updates:
I have been waking up at 5AM for many months now. The last few weeks have introduced some challenges to that schedule. I have found that when I alter the routine, I don’t feel rig…
December 6th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
Initial Post
This is a first post only to show something. It’s 1:39 AM and I’m not a polyphasic sleeper as Steve Pavlina. I just finished installing WordPress to manage this site contents and really need to sleep before starting putting content here.
…
December 7th, 2005 at 7:43 am
[...] Are you ever lacking for enough time to get everything done? Perhaps you should consider Polyphasic Sleep. The idea is that you need sleep mostly for the dreaming REM sleep. You can train youself to slip into this state much faster that “usual”. There’s a Seinfeld episode where Kramer tries this. Sleep 20-30 minutes about 6 times a day. Not everyone can make it work, but one guy says he wouldn’t go back. [link] [...]
December 14th, 2005 at 10:15 am
[...] Polyphasic sleeping is a pattern of sleeping where one takes multiple naps throughout the day, instead of sleeping once per day (monophasic sleeping). Apparently by doing this, one learns how to enter REM very rapidly, and is able to be fully energized and refreshed on only 2-3 hours of sleep per day! Based on what I’ve read, REM appears to be one of the most important stages of sleep (perhaps the only vital one), and so this pattern of sleeping appears to work for some people who have actually adopted it. One such person is a guy named Steve Pavlina, who only recently switched to polyphasic sleeping and chronicled the entire process. He did it as an experiment for 30 days or so, and ended having amazing results. See his blog for a detailed description of the experiment, and detailed notes he took throughout the 30 day period, as it will likely blow you away… [...]
December 14th, 2005 at 7:09 pm
Siesta Anyone?
Polyphasic sleeping is getting some attention over at Vincenthorn.com. This reminded me of my previous escapades into Lucid Dreaming and OBE. I remember having some weird, fun, scary, and insightful dreams during those days. But I eventually got tired of
December 16th, 2005 at 10:15 am
Polyphasic Sleep
What is Polyphasic sleep?
“Polyphasic sleep is a sleep pattern specification intended to reduce sleep time to 2–5 hours daily. This is achieved by spreading out sleep into short naps of around 20–45 minutes throughout the day. This is supp…
December 17th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
[...] So, I’m going to try polyphasic sleep and see what it’s like. This is an ideal time because it’s just the start of a long break, so I’ll have plenty of time to adapt before school starts up again (if I decide to keep it up at all). I’m starting on Monday. I would start today or tomorrow, but I have one last final on Monday and I don’t feel like being dead for it. So after I finish up the final, I’ll begin. [...]
December 29th, 2005 at 9:40 am
[...] I know I told you that Polyphasic sleep is chic, but my friend Lyon thinks it way more chic then I do. He was so fascinated reading Steve Pavlina’s account of his polyphasic experiment that he decided to take on the experiment himself, and is now past day 2. From what I’ve read the first week or so are the hardest part, but Lyon seems incredibly committed: My new plan is to continue with the naps every 3.5 hours during the day, and add an extra nap in during that hard stretch from 2-6 AM. As I no longer have my personal wake up partner, I’m going to have to stage back up alarms in the event I do not awake. For whatever strange combinations of reasons, I am deeply committed to seeing this experiment all the way through to the end. Failure does not exist to me. Best of luck my friend! « It’s a Fakhoury Christmas [...]
January 4th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
[...] Sleep for 30 mins every 4 hours and you are good to go. This guys website is a diary of his experience which seems to have been so good he now lives this way. Here is an entry on simply becoming an early riser. [...]
January 6th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
[...] I’ve been turned on to self improvement for many years - intellectually, financially, emotionally. My wife, Carol (God bless her!), often thinks I’m crazy but I sure need her to keep me grounded. Since she’s known me, I’ve gone through a few career choices and way more possibilities. I’ll be grateful to her for my whole life. When I read Steve Pavalina’s blog post on polyphasic sleep, I was fascinated. For one reason, I’ve often thought that sleep was overrated and underproductive. In college I could back that up with proof (sort of) but as recently as three weeks ago, I was reminded that without it, I get sick, unpleasant, and uncomfortable in general. Anyway, the more I read about Steve Pavalina, the more motivated I’ve become to be more of myself. That polyphasic sleep is really cool, though [...]
January 6th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Polynapping
Steve Pavlina har försökt att anpassa sig till polyfasisk sömn och faktiskt lyckats. Istället för att göra allt sovandet i ett enda svep under natten, som kallas monofasisk sömn, tar han tupplurar, 6-7 om dygnet. Dessa tupplurar är dessutom in…
January 11th, 2006 at 4:17 am
[...] Motivation. This is crucial for your success. If one attempts polyphasic sleeping for the wrong reasons, I believe your subconcious will catch that and just won’t let you wake up. There are no more than two blogs I’ve seen of people who have really succeeded, and they both claim to have undertaken this as an experiment with their own lives. One blog I’ve seen features someone who has had tremendous problems with oversleep. I would say the reasons for this are that he seems to be trying polyphasic sleep to be able to brag about it to his friends (read for yourself, see this entry) and be “hardcore”. [...]
January 11th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
[...] A few of my favorite blogs about sleep deprivation are: – Steve Pavlina.com. Wild success with polyphasic sleep, you really have to admire the self discipline of this man. – Sean on Polyphasic Sleeping. Success with polyphasic sleeping and some interesting thoughts about sleep deprivation. – Better Than Your Boyfriend. Another, very often funny, polyphasic sleeping success story. [...]
January 12th, 2006 at 3:05 am
[...] Via een comment op Michel’s blog ben ik nog eens terechtgekomen op Steve Pavlina’s blog. Ik was er lang geleden al eens opgestoten tijdens het surfen, en vond het toen allemaal al fijn interessant. Nu was er een heel stuk bijgekomen over meerfasig slapen (Polyphasic sleep). Machtig interessant om te lezen, moet ik zeggen. [...]
January 13th, 2006 at 12:12 am
[...] So I think I’m going to try this article out over the summer. It basically says that you can surivive perfectly fine with 3 to 4 hours of sleep each day. This is achieved simply by sleeping in equal intervals throughout the day. [...]
January 13th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
[...] Linkit.here [...]
January 13th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
[...] I just caught a post on digg.com about polyphasic sleeping. It’s truly an interesting notion, you sleep only 20-30 minutes 6 or more times a day. This results in only 3-4 hours of sleep each day. The post linked to this site where Steve Pavlina successfully made the transition from monophasic to polyphasic sleeping. What does this have to do with technology or Apple computers? Well, what would you do with 20 hours awake each day? [...]
January 13th, 2006 at 8:33 pm
[...] Polyphasic Sleep Interesting read… i have yet to finish it. (tags: blog geeky) [...]
January 13th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
[...] Looks like I’m heading off to the Cincinnati Outdoors and Boat show tomorrow afternoon, so the site may not get it’s almost daily update. :/ In other news, I found out what I’m trying this summer: Polyphasic Sleep with the uberman sleep schedule. Permalink | Del.icio.us | Digg | Slashdot [...]
January 14th, 2006 at 1:47 am
[...] And if you really want to take sleep to the next level (less than 3 hours per day), read: Polyphasic Sleep [...]
January 14th, 2006 at 4:44 am
[...] I just read a very interesting journal log about polyphasic sleep. A polyphasic sleep schedule is one in which in place of sleeping 7-8 hours at night everyday, you take 20-30 minute naps 6 times daily, totaling to be only 2-3 hours of sleep per day. Such a sleep pattern would result in an extra 30-40 hours of free time per week. Wierd? Endubitably, but interesting none the less. Read more about it at Steve Pavlina.com. [...]
January 14th, 2006 at 6:16 am
[...] Polyphasic Sleep Published January 15th, 2006 Ah, the things I would do with 5 extra hours per day! Must find a few weeks next year to try this. [...]
January 14th, 2006 at 10:11 am
[...] Another fellow, Steve Pavlina, has been trying the method as well. He has some good observations. His blog about his experiance is a very interesting read. [...]
January 14th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
[...] Polyphasic Sleep (tags: sleep time tips productivity lifehacks health howto polyphasic) [...]
January 15th, 2006 at 2:13 am
[...] Polyphasic sömn innebör att man tar ett flertal korta sömnstunder under hela dagen istället för att man får hela sömnbehovet täckt under natten. Steve Pavlina har blivit intresserad av detta och har genomfört en ambitiös test för att se om det funkar. Han har i sin post beskrivit upplägget och vilket resultat han fick. Under this sleep schedule, your sleep times might be at 2am, 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm. And each time you’d sleep for only 20-30 minutes. This is nice because the times are the same whether AM or PM, and they’re consistent from day to day as well, so you can still maintain a regular daily schedule, albeit a very different one. Steve loggade varje dag och det kan vara en intressant läsning. Han summerar sitt försök med: “This experiment did in fact succeed in a big way and lead to me deciding to adopt this method of sleep indefinitely” [...]
January 16th, 2006 at 11:20 am
[...] So in the interest of my own experimentation, I’ve decided to try out this polyphasic sleep nonsense. I already have a strange schedule to begin with, and some later-than-usual classes this semester are probably going to make it a little stranger. I figure that by destroying the barrier between night and day, I’ll be able to put some normalcy behind the abrupt shifts from getting back home at 9:20PM on Wednesday and suddenly having to get up at 5:40AM the next morning. [...]
January 16th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
[...] Steve Pavlina ha hecho el experimento de manera satisfactoria desde noviembre del año pasado, manteniendo el esquema durmiendo solo 2 horas al dia!!! … hasta hoy en dia [...]
January 17th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
[...] Polyphasic sleep is a system that involves taking several short naps each day instead of sleeping for eight hours each night (which is known as monophasic sleep). Like most things, I first heard about polyphasic sleep via a link on the web — this one led to http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/”>Steve Pavlina’s website. Steve opted to try polyphasic sleep for 30 days. He enjoyed the experience so much that he is still living that way. [...]
January 17th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
[...] Like the title says, I’ve recently been reading Steve Pavlin, among others. Pavlin is a slightly crazy, self-employed entrepreneur whose posts on polyphasic sleeping inspired me to at least attempt to wake up earlier. Though not all of us have schedules that allow for 30 minute naps every six hours, I can’t see any reason for not becoming an early riser. To that end, I’ve given up caffeine and begun waking myself up earlier. I’m looking forward to seeing permanent results. Finally, though I don’t necessarily agree with his ideas on intention-manifestation, I can at least incorporate his relaxed attitude into my life, which is why I’ve refrained from attempting yet another political blog and instead I’m posting whatever crosses my mind, which may or may be anything political. Call it a blog, or an online journal, it doesn’t matter to me. [...]
January 17th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
[...] Schedule « Xoogler Argues Against Arabic Published 0 minutes ago –> » I admit, I got a little burned out at work today (8 hours in front of the monitor, no lunch, pretty tough). So, I took a break and read a bit about polyphasic sleep on Steve Pavlina’s blog. I then dug around more and more and read some wikis and all sorts of articles. I’ve decided to embark on Glen Rhodes’ bi-phasic sleep pattern and see how it works for me. I’ve never been much for sleeping a lot, but I’ve never really understood why I’m tired one day and just fine another. I’m looking into how I can schedule a routine 90-minute nap every day and then get 6 hours of sleep every night. The sleep cycles seem to make sense. If I get up at 6:30 every morning I could probably get a lot done in a day. Look out breakfast, I’m making a come-back.. [...]
January 19th, 2006 at 1:47 am
[...] I decided to go with Glen Rhodes’ approach and sleep twice a day – 3 hours at night, and 90 minutes during the day. The 20-minutes-every-4-hours thing – well, I’m in the military, and so I have a regular 8-10 hour shift job, meaning I can’t do it. But I CAN do the other one, and if I succeed, I’ll gain an average of 4.5 extra waking hours a day, or 31.5 extra hours a week, or 1,638 hours a year. Holy cow. [...]
January 19th, 2006 at 7:24 am
[...] I read this at steve pavlina’s blog . He mentions a lot about Polyphasic Sleep. I thinks it is interesting because it involves my favourite hobby (sleeping).Actually Polyphasic Sleep involves short period of times but with higher sleeping frequency. It means you have to take multiple short sleep period rather than take a nap for the whole day. [...]
January 19th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
[...] Polyphasic Sleep:http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ [...]
January 19th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
[...] Having read the entire 30 day journal of Steve Pavlina and being in a position already where taking a quick 20 minute afternoon nap wouldn’t conflict with work, I decided to give this a try. I’m 24 hours in and taking a look at what I’m in store for in the next while. [...]
January 20th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
[...] Yeah, I also have tried to sleep less yet with full of energy like Steve Pavlina’s polyphasic sleep method. But truly, I don’t like to have a less sleep in that way. I know that certain part of body needs to be rested and that’s not the way we rest our body. I believe 30 minutes is not enough for our body to rest even though you take a sleep every 4 hours. [...]
January 21st, 2006 at 2:37 am
[...] Firstly is information. At this point a good roadmap is invaluable, greatly reducing the time it would take to experiment with this through trial and error. And as much as it is my goal that this guide and the entire array of posts on solegoal.com I’ve done on the subject will help you, there is probably no better resource then Steve’s lengthy blog entries on the subject. [...]
January 24th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
[...] Si buscamos por la red hay un blog en español que cuenta sus experiencias con el sueño polifásico: Edevi, pero se ha quedado en el día 4, señal no muy buena. También existe en el blog de Steve Pavlina una introduccion al Sueño polifásico, así como una crónica de su adaptación, que este si lo ha conseguido. Y si sois de los que nunca descansais correctamente por la noche, pasaros por el blog de Javi Moya que os da un par de consejitos. [...]
January 24th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
[...] Inspired by this article which I found once while browsing Delicious’s Popular page, This week my roomate and I are adopting a polyphasic sleep cycle. After doing some research and checking a number of online documents. We decided to adopt a cycle which includes a 30 minute sleep session every 4 hours. This page will be dedicated to documenting my journey through this little project. (Its listed as the Polyphasic page on the right if you feel like going now.) If this one fails, there are a number of variations I think I will try but this version seems to be the most used and the most successful. [...]
January 24th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
[...] First off I get a lot of offline questions about my role here at Erati, and with BlogMedia. So let’s set the snarkiness down for just a moment and talk about what goes on inside my brain. And a little about my day to day operations. My plans for world domination, and eventual control of the universe. Oh ok, just the blogosphere. No truly its the universe. Personally I am involved with blog networks for the enjoyment in it. And to take a crash course in starting my own business. Life is full of mistakes, and lessons to be learned. One thing I learned is never go into a bar, with a crate of dynamite strapped to a camels back. It’s just not recommended. Currently I wish I could devote myself full time to just this here blogging stuff, but bills have to be paid, fun has to be had, and Girlspoke needs attention, campaigning to make sure they damn well win that bloggy. Go vote everyone. . Because I’m actually going to be at SXSW so it would be badass to help accept that award as part of the whole Spoke Empire. Here’s an average day in the life of a blog executive. Well mine anyways. I wake up after 20 minutes of sleep, and work for a few hours, sleep again for a few more. Then sleep again. I then get back to work. And sleep some more. Do you see the pattern. It’s called Polyphasic Sleep. It’s the only way to get things done. I then fire up the whole old RSS Reader, and churn around looking for good content. I also spend 10% of my day thinking of ways to create new stuff that will be better than anything anyone else on the universe is doing. I then implement about 1% of that into a massive wordpress I run on my desktop. My desktop blog is about 100,000 pages and gets about a trillion mindviews a day by me trying to remember something. This is truly the best use of a wordpress IMO. I f you need help setting up your own Desktop Wordpress check out UrbanGiraffe for help with this. Recently Dave Winer was talking about Web Servers running on your PC . Which is something I’ve been doing for awhile. It makes my life so much easier. I can blog schtuff to myself. Even have delicious links embedded on my desktop blog. I can talk all the trash I want and only I get to read it. I don’t even have to spell check. I can even use Wordpress to manage my budget. And create a portal that aggregates all the site I enjoy reading in a way that I like and not the way anybody else wants me too. I’ve also begun experimenting with AirWRX a portable app server that rocks my world. Yes they have a blog too. And people wonder why I don’t accomplish anything during the day. To much experimenting with prototype software projects. [...]
January 27th, 2006 at 8:30 am
Polyphasic Sleep Experiment
Thirteen days ago I started experimenting with polyphasic sleep after reading a series of articles on Steve Pavlina’s website. I made the decision to do the experiment myself, with a little less than a week between making the decision and actuall…
January 29th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
[...] I saw this article and it got me thinking about the whole idea: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep [...]
January 30th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
[...] The thought of having an extra 40 hours in the week is very stress relieving. My current external inspiration for this is a recent convert to polyphasic sleeping, Steve Pavlina. [...]
February 9th, 2006 at 2:20 am
[...] http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ [...]
February 13th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
[...] Of course, if that doesn’t suit you, Steve Paulina began talking about the uberman sleep schedule of polyphasic sleep. That’s where you sleep for 20 minutes at six different times a day–no more daytime and nighttime. One long day with lots of little naps–sort of like being a human laptop. [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 6:42 am
[...] I’ve just discovered Steve Pavlina’s blog. I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before! It seems to be filled with lots of interesting life hacks. I’d love to be able to try polyphasic sleep, but I think my schedule to begin with isn’t really compatible, especially as I’m going back to the office in Bristol for two days a week, starting next week (I don’t really want to, after last year, but I need the money…). But anyway, I think I’m going to try cutting down on sleep, or at least getting out of bed earlier. He manged it at 5am, but he is a non-caffeine drinking vegan… Maybe they have superpowers. One of the things I was thinking about doing this year, though not overly seriously, was cutting out sugar and caffeine. In the last 3 months I’ve cut down on my sugar intake (apart from bacon, eggs, pancakes and maple syrup! yum…), though not completely. And all week I’ve gone from coffee to tea as my coffee machine is broken
I’m always on the lookout on how to improve my life though. [...]
February 15th, 2006 at 4:58 am
[...] Well, it’s kinda just hit me. On Monday night I promised I would join a friend in his attempts at Polyphasic Sleep. You can read about some others who have tried it here and here. [...]
February 15th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
[...] In contrast, experiments with dogs as well as polyphasic sleepers have shown that it is not sleep that we need, but REM dreams. Dogs have died when prevented from dreaming, but not when prevented from sleeping. Polyphasic sleepers get by fine with 3 hours a day of mostly dream sleep. However, there is a guy in vietnam who has been without any sleep for 30 years! He is active and in good health. Is he lucky genetically? Or is it something he learned? This means that not sleeping does not necessarily lead to death or bad health. We just need to figure out how to get rid of sleeping. [...]
February 16th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
[...] Nachdem ich ja in den Semesterferien einiges vorhabe, kommt natürlich die Frage auf, woher denn die Zeit für das alles kommen soll. Nun, ich beschäftige mich in letzter Zeit sehr intensiv mit Zeitmanagment und Lebensorganisation. Ich habe schon einige Bücher gelesen und im Web findet man natürlich auch eine Menge Quellen der Inspiration. So stolperte ich über einen Artikel über polyphasischen Schlaf bei lifehack.org. Anfangs hielt ich die ganze Sache für extrem verrückt, aber nach dem ich ein 90 Tage umfassendes Erfahrungsbericht auf Steve Pavlinas Blog gelesen hatte, konnte ich mir das ganze schon besser vorstellen. Und hey, das ganze nennt sich „Uberman’s Sleep Schedule„, das muss ich doch schon allein wegen dem Freak-Faktor probieren, oder? [...]
February 17th, 2006 at 1:37 am
[...] I realized I was being a bit unfair to myself yesterday. My routines were working better before I adopted polyphasic sleeping. Losing track of exactly when it’s bedtime and morning time makes bedtime and morning routines a little slippery. [...]
February 17th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
[...] Recently I was reading a lot about learning methods and how sleep effects the learning process. Many people claim that free sleep is the best way of sleeping for optimal learning progress and memory retention. I am a big fan of the learning software Supermemo whoes author did quite a lot of research on sleep and also suggests this method. I have tried free sleep for about a month and must say that I felt indeed very alert during that time. The problem was that I was sleeping really long and that did not change after weeks. My wakeup-time varied +-2 hours each day, which made it very difficult to stick to my morning-routine. After reading How to Become an Early Riser on Steve Pavlina’s Blog I tried his suggestion to get up at a fixed time and go to bed when sleepy. That worked quite well for me. He later blogged about his polyphasic sleep experiment to which he adapted very successfully. I was curious about it and did some research on the net. There are very different opinions about it. Some people say they adapted to it and feel alert and energetic. Others say it is not even possible to stay on this schedule for more than a short time. So I just decided to give it a try by myself I will use the Uberman schedule which consists of six 20-30minutes naps in 24h. My nap schedule: [...]
February 18th, 2006 at 3:56 am
[...] Ein anderer und offenbar ganz natrlicher Ansatzpunkt um mit weniger Schlaf auszukommen ist das so genannte Polyphasic Sleeping. Dabei schlft man sechs Mal am Tag fr etwa 20-30 Minuten. Das wrde bedeuten man schlft gerade mal 2-3 Stunden am Tag. Steve Pavlina hat genau das ausprobiert und whrend dessen ausfhrlich darber berichtet. [...]
February 21st, 2006 at 12:11 am
[...] I love life, I really wish I could fit more of it in somehow. Well, without going to extremes. I really like sleep too. [...]
February 25th, 2006 at 12:17 am
[...] Well, I cleared every darn thing off the shelf unit, from behind and beside it, and moved it (okay, I admit to giving it a kick) over so it’s tight in the corner and standing straight as a soldier. And now? Now the door opens all the way. The bedroom doorway feels wide enough for me to drive a truck through it! I am loving that, especially when you consider that I’ve been going in and out of the bedroom every four hours for a half hour nap since adopting polyphasic sleeping the day after Christmas. [...]
February 25th, 2006 at 4:41 am
[...] Polyphasic sleep is just that, you sleep 20-30 minutes every four hours. Steve Pavlina converted from 8/night to polyphasic and lived to blog about it. [...]
February 26th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
[...] I read an online day-to-day account of someone who’s tried it: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ [...]
February 27th, 2006 at 3:53 am
[...] In today’s (Feb 27th) issue of USA Today, you can find a feature article about sleep by Marco R. della Cava. Marco interviewed my wife and me a few weeks ago for the article, so my the last several paragraphs of the article are about me and my polyphasic sleeping pattern. The article ends with a quote from my wife, Erin: ”I don’t think I’ll be trying this. I really like my sleep.” [...]
February 27th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
[...] This page caught my interest. It would be really cool to have 22 hours per day at my disposal and on top of that feel energetic. [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 12:43 am
[...] I caught the bug that leveled my husband for two days, and I congratulated myself on staying vertical and working. I noticed that after he slept pretty much round the clock one day, he was on the mend, so I abandoned my polyphasic sleep for one night to cure myself. Ha! Fat chance. Nine hours later I woke with a 100.8 degree temperature, sore throat, achey all over, runny nose and cough. Slammed me good. I slept 7 1/2 hours the next night and work up this morning with a 99.7 degree temperature. [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 5:40 am
[...] After reading Steve Pavlina’s Polyphasic Sleep Logs all weekend, I’ve decided unambiguously that this is something that I want to do. In preparation, and in following Steve’s advice, I’ve started adapting to an early riser sleep pattern first. Last night during the New Moon as I began this pre-adjustment period, I set my alarm for the first time to wake up everyday at 6am. I was in such eager anticipation for the alarm to go off that I woke up a couple times during the night to see what time it was. In any case, my eyes popped open at 5:50 am, and I could remember my dream vividly: [...]
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:09 pm
[...] Стив пишет о мотивации, управлении своим временем, ставит над собой интересные эксперименты (например, полифазный сон). Однако я знаю много людей, которые не читают его из-за плохого знания английского языка и большого размера статей (этого не отнимешь — Стив пишет обстоятельно). [...]
March 6th, 2006 at 2:44 am
[...] check out this crazy labrat. Of course, I’m tempted enough to try it on meself. I cannot tell you how useful an extra 20 hours will be for me. [...]
March 6th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
[...] The concept of Polyphasic sleep is nothing new. It is rumored that several prominent historical figures (creative geniuses, most) engaged in some form of multi-phase sleep. I first learned of it by reading Steve Pavlina’s chronicle of his transition into polyphasic sleep. Initially, I wrote the concept off as nice in theory and achievable by a disciplined few. I have always had considerable difficulty in maintaining a ‘normal’ sleep schedule of any regularity. A change in this order would present quite a personal challenge. [...]
March 11th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
[...] Guy only sleeps for 2 hours a day, and anyone can technically do this. [...]
March 13th, 2006 at 10:21 am
[...] I have done a lot of thinking about sleep because I am a night person but I need to be more of an early riser for work. I read an article on how to become an early riser and it has really helped me. The gist of it is that your body knows how much sleep you need so setting a bed time is not necessarily a good idea. However, you need to wake up at a consistent hour and your body will figure things out. We have already talked about taking the best nap but there is another interesting concept out there called Polyphasic sleep. The idea is that you take short 15-45 minute naps every 2 hours. The end result is that you only have to sleep about 3-5 hours a day. Imagine the productivity. Many great people have been rumored to do this such as DaVinci and Bruce Lee, but no confirmed long term cases have been proved. Steve Palina and Nick Busey are a couple of people attempting it and keeping a blog of their progress. I know most people’s current job would not accommodate those hours. It is an interesting read if nothing else. So everyone read up and have a good night’s sleep! [...]
March 15th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
[...] A few of my favorite blogs about sleep deprivation are: – Steve Pavlina.com. Wild success with polyphasic sleep, you really have to admire the self discipline of this man. – Sean on Polyphasic Sleeping. Success with polyphasic sleeping and some interesting thoughts about sleep deprivation. – Better Than Your Boyfriend. Another, very often funny, polyphasic sleeping success story. [...]
March 16th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
[...] Zo weinig inspiratie. Dat klinkt raar en dat is het waarschijnlijk ook, want het is laat. Daarom wat links naar coole sites zoals del.icio.us voor je bookmarks (mijn username is robinberghuys, dus kijk maar wat ik heb toegevoegd); upcoming.org voor events en polyphasic sleep: een verslag van iemand die 2 tot 5 uur per dag slaapt, al 60 dagen lang. [...]
March 20th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
[...] Polyphasic sleep is a sleep schedule where 20 minute naps are taken every 4 hours. So you take six 20 minute naps each day, for a total of 2 hours of sleep. This will give you 22 awake hours each day, compare to the 16 awake hours of a monophasic (one sleep period for 8 hours) sleep schedule. Sounds pretty crazy, huh? Well it has been done before. Two of the biggest successes are Steve Pavlina and Paul Crow (Sole Goal). Steve has been going for 120+ days and claims to have more energy and be more alert than when he was sleeping monophasically. Paul has been going for 60+ days and also many health benefits including being happier, healthier, and gaining 24 pounds of muscle! But most people never reach this level of success. [...]
March 22nd, 2006 at 8:49 am
[...] Note: Steve is now a polyphasic sleeper, but I don’t see myself going that far anytime soon! [...]
March 22nd, 2006 at 4:57 pm
[...] I found out about some different home-brew therapies for this kind of thing. One that really caught my attention is polyphasic sleep patterns. Basically, it forces you to think of sleeping like a good eating pattern. [...]
March 23rd, 2006 at 1:31 am
[...] Productivity: I’ve begun going back to a polyphasic sleep cycle. Being single makes for the ability to adapt to abnormal sleep patterns. [...]
March 23rd, 2006 at 11:22 am
[...] And for my friend who is on a polyphasic sleeping schedule (which Steve Pavlina has also converted to), the news is just as good, “The Cancer Prevention Study II even showed that people with serious insomnia or who only get 3.5 hours of sleep per night, live longer than people who get more than 7.5 hours.” (Perhaps I’ll try it someday when my life settles down a bit.) [...]
March 24th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
[...] A fascinating experiment in polyphasic sleep can be read here. To quote wikipedia: [...]
March 25th, 2006 at 4:13 am
[...] Experiment with polyphasic sleep – Polyphasic sleep is a sleeping pattern that proposes to reduce sleep down to 2-5 hours a day. I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t speak to its validity but you back to Steve’s blog again for some great information on this unusual but potentially effective sleeping method. [...]
March 25th, 2006 at 8:28 am
[...] http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ [...]
March 25th, 2006 at 10:58 am
[...] Çok safhalı uyku diye çevirdiğim Polyphasic uyku düzeni hakkında son okuduğum yazıdan cesaretle ben de bu işe girmeye niyetlendim. Dünden beri okumaktayım. Bir hafta kadar bir sürenin adaptasyon için yeterli olduğunu öğrendiğimde, bu zamana kadar kendi üzerimde yaptığım deneylere bir yenisini de uykuyla ilgili yapmaya karar verdim. [...]
March 25th, 2006 at 11:48 am
[...] Tie kas mani pazīst, zina, ka guļu maz. Dažkārt 2h -4h diennaktī man ir pilnīgi pietiekami. Kopš sevi atceros, esmu gājis gulēt ļoti vēli – būtībā no rīta. Pulksten 4os naktī – tā ir ikdiena. Ceļos parasti 7os vai 8os un patiešām jūtos labi. Iespējams, ka tā ir vairāku gadu pieredze vai tikai ieradums. Neko speciālu nedaru, nekādas speciālas tējas nelietoju. Vienkārši eju gulēt tikai tad, kad jūtos patiešām noguris un slēdzos ārā. Iemiegu parasti ne ilgāk kā vienas minūtes laikā un pamošanās man parasti nesagādā lielas problēmas. Rakstu šo, jo tikko Steve Pavlina blogā izlasīju padomus, kā gulēt 2-5h diennaktī un justies labi. Tāpat arī Jāņa(Jon) zaadz blogā var izlasīt, kā tikt pie 36h diennaktī. Padomi ir ļoti interesanti, kaut arī universālas receptes droši vien nav. Ir tikai tehnikas, piemēram, tāda kā polifāziskā gulēšana (par tām var lasīt gan Wikipedia, gan Steve Pavlina blogā, ar kuras palīdzību var iztikt ar 2-5h diennaktī. Bet kā jau teicu – pats nevienu metodi nelietoju – man tas ir vienkārši ieradums jau vairāk kā 20it gadus. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. RSS 2.0 [...]
March 25th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
[...] Tie kas mani pazīst, zina, ka guļu maz. Dažkārt 2h -4h diennaktī man ir pilnīgi pietiekami. Kopš sevi atceros, esmu gājis gulēt ļoti vēli – būtībā no rīta. Pulksten 4os naktī – tā ir ikdiena. Ceļos parasti 7os vai 8os un patiešām jūtos labi. Iespējams, ka tā ir vairāku gadu pieredze vai tikai ieradums. Neko speciālu nedaru, nekādas speciālas tējas nelietoju. Vienkārši eju gulēt tikai tad, kad jūtos patiešām noguris un slēdzos ārā. Iemiegu parasti ne ilgāk kā vienas minūtes laikā un pamošanās man parasti nesagādā lielas problēmas. Rakstu šo, jo tikko Steve Pavlina blogā izlasīju padomus, kā gulēt 2-5h diennaktī un justies labi. Tāpat arī Jāņa(Jon) zaadz blogā var izlasīt, kā tikt pie 36h diennaktī. Padomi ir ļoti interesanti, kaut arī universālas receptes droši vien nav. Ir tikai tehnikas, piemēram, tāda kā polifāziskā gulēšana (par tām var lasīt gan Wikipedia, gan Steve Pavlina blogā, ar kuras palīdzību var iztikt ar 2-5h diennaktī. Bet kā jau teicu – pats nevienu metodi nelietoju – man tas ir vienkārši ieradums jau vairāk kā 20it gadus. [...]
March 25th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Day 0
Well, if all goes well I’m getting ready for my last full nights sleep. It kinda feels like graduating high school: I’m glad to be moving on, but nostalgic about the good times
I still have to run to the store tonight to grab a few egg timers. …
March 26th, 2006 at 4:23 am
[...] I felt just fine after nap 17. No ups, no downs… just a smooth SSS of 3.5 the whole time. I played some Warcraft 3 shortly after waking up, which brought me to a level of alertness, then I read a bunch of posts about polyphasic from others. It seems that Tynan, who had converted to a polyphasic lifestyle successfully for about 4.5 months screwed up a lot more than I did. It seems that most of us have to learn from our mistakes, so while Steve Pavlina converted with virtually no mess-ups, others have to make some mistakes. It is however a very inspiring account since it makes the whole process seem so simple and easy. [...]
March 26th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
[...] Experimentar con el sueño polifásico: El sueño polifásico, es un tipo de sueño que propone reducir las horas gastadas en este, a tan solo 2–5 horas diarias. Básicamente, se logra haciendo pequeñas siestas de 20–45 minutos durante el día, olvidándonos completamente de un único sueño de 8 horas. El método utiliza mecanismos humanos naturales, que maximizan nuestro estado alerta, cuando el sueño necesita ser minimizado. Sin embargo, requiere un rígido horario, que lo hace imposible de alcanzar para la mayoría. Funciona bien para quienes tienen actividades que nos les permite largos periodos de sueño. Todavía no lo he intentado, así que no puedo hablar de su validez, pero si vuelven al blog de Steve nuevamente, podrán encontrar aún más información sobre este método inusual, pero potencialmente efectivo [...]
March 26th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
[...] Polyphasic Sleep (tags: sleep lifehacks) // Used for showing and hiding user information in the comment form function ShowUtils() { document.getElementById(”authorinfo”).style.display = “”; document.getElementById(”showinfo”).style.display = “none”; document.getElementById(”hideinfo”).style.display = “”; } function HideUtils() { document.getElementById(”authorinfo”).style.display = “none”; document.getElementById(”showinfo”).style.display = “”; document.getElementById(”hideinfo”).style.display = “none”; } [...]
March 28th, 2006 at 4:30 am
[...] I had only one problem with the whole leek-soup weekend and I think it had to do with being a polyphasic sleeper: I about froze to death the last half of the first day. While adapting to polyphasic sleep, my temperature was lower than normal. After a month or so, I felt better. This leek soup fast brought back the chilly insides feeling, but I have to admit I messed up my nap times. I didn’t get any on time and I even skipped one, so I might have gotten cold anyway. [...]
March 28th, 2006 at 7:02 am
[...] Experiment with polyphasic sleep – Polyphasic sleep is a sleeping pattern that proposes to reduce sleep down to 2-5 hours a day. I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t speak to its validity but you back to Steve’s blog again for some great information on this unusual but potentially effective sleeping method. [...]
March 28th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
[...] At first, I would like to thank Steve Pavlina. His blog is a great source of incentive and was directly responsable for me overcoming procrastination and get my hands dirt. I am not a poliphasic sleeper like him and have three companies to run. If you are one of his readers, please don’t expect the same kind of frequency for new articles. His blog is a really great source for anyone interested in personal development. [...]
March 28th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
[...] Marshall has turned me on to polyphasic sleep. Has anybody out there tried it? [...]
March 29th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
[...] Anyway during this evening’s screen-staring-fest (mostly via links in the sidebar), I was wandering around various blogs and came across an account of polyphasic sleep, which I had never heard of before. I like it but I think you need to be wholly self-employed to get into that shit. It was linked from an article about how to become an early riser, which I need. Part of the strategy is to go to bed when you’re sleepy. I am never sleepy before 2am, there are just so many things out there (on the internet and on tv) that are more interesting than sleep. However, I think a bit of self-discipline (another thing I suck at) probably helps with the adoption of new habits so I’m off to have a shower now. Cat: Uncategorized | Time: 10:08 pm (UTC+8) Comments » [...]
April 2nd, 2006 at 12:27 pm
[...] Experiment with polyphasic sleep – Polyphasic sleep is a sleeping pattern that proposes to reduce sleep down to 2-5 hours a day. I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t speak to its validity but you back to Steve’s blog again for some great information on this unusual but potentially effective sleeping method. [...]
April 7th, 2006 at 4:03 am
[...] After reading about Steve Pavlina’s experience, and working up the moxy to commit to it, I started this very morning. [...]
April 9th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
[...] Polyphasic Sleep [...]
April 11th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
[...] Most people right now are trying the Uberman schedule, which consists of 20 minutes naps every 4 hours. From what I could gather it is really important not to oversleep. As it can upset the whole schedule. But, according to Steve Pavlina, who suceeded quite effortlessly, you can fit more naps (i.e. a nap every 2 hours, instead of 4) if you feel really tired. And at the beginning you are bound to feel tired. The importance is that each nap does not last more than a REM cycle. Of course naps should not be so close together to feel like a long sleep with interruptions. [...]
April 12th, 2006 at 9:10 am
[...] After doing polyphasic sleep for about 5-1/2 months, I finally decided to switch back to monophasic. I made the decision about 10 days ago and have already returned to Bearsville. I went back to my previous pattern of being an early riser. So now I sleep about 6.5 hours a night and wake up with an alarm at 5am every morning. [...]
April 12th, 2006 at 9:58 am
[...] as daytime hours when you live in a monophasic world. No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTMLallowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> [...]
April 12th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
[...] Polyphasic SleepIf you are one of his readers, please don t expect the same kind of frequency for new articles. His blog is a really great source for anyone interested in personal development. [...]
April 14th, 2006 at 3:58 am
[...] Попробуйте многофазный сон. Многофазный сон — это система, позволяющая сократить количество часов для сна до 2—5 в сутки. Я сам не могу подтвердить это (не пробовал лично), но в блоге Стива есть подробная информация об этом необычном и потенциально эффективном методе сна. [...]
April 14th, 2006 at 9:18 am
[...] This dude tried a “polyphasic sleep” schedule, which means that instead of sleeping seven hours a night, he would take a 30-minute nap every four hours. He did this for months. But now he’s going back to the seven-hour, “monophasic” schedule. Here are his reasons why. Tags [...]
April 14th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
[...] I’ve decided to keep a log of my alertness levels and notes, as something people who might want to attempt this can look at. For now, you should look at this – http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ [...]
April 18th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
[...] This sorta reminds me of my old work schedule and sleeping while commuting and between classes … but I don’t see how it would work for a person who goes to the kind of church where members have to be awake all day. Emeth Hesed | Category: General | [...]
April 23rd, 2006 at 4:55 pm
[...] I got the idea from Steve Pavlina. He slept on this schedule for 5 and a half months before he went back to monophasic sleep. [...]
April 24th, 2006 at 10:29 am
[...] stevepavlina.com: Esta história de dormir de forma polifásica é muito interessante, mas acho que nem tenho coragem de tentar… [...]
April 25th, 2006 at 4:27 am
[...] I’m confident that once you establish this habit, you’ll absolutely love it. I consider this to be one my most productive habits. It saves me hundreds of hours a year, and it keeps paying dividends day after day. I also found this habit extremely valuable during my polyphasic sleep experiment. [...]
April 29th, 2006 at 1:22 am
[...] 体验小睡（polyphasic sleep）：小睡是一种将一天的睡眠降低到2至5小时的方法。我没有尝试过所以不知道是否可行，不过你可以再去Steve的blog看看这种不寻常的却又有潜在效果的睡眠方法。 [...]
April 30th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
[...] Lukas pointed me to Steve Pavlina’s fascinating experiment with polyphasic sleep, in which you sleep for 20-30 minutes every four hours. [...]
May 1st, 2006 at 10:45 pm
[...] Hacking your body is old news, but hacking your mind is always fresh. Topics of conversation, like email forwards, seem to spread virally, and one of the topics that dominated conversation at SXSW was sleep. Polyphasic sleep to be exact. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to the stage of wanting to take 6 naps a day, but it’s definitely an interesting way to tweak the conventional human experience. [...]
May 3rd, 2006 at 10:55 pm
[...] After reading Steve Pavlina’s experiment with Polyphasic sleep I decided to try the experiment myself. After reading Steve’s complete documentation and a few others, I decided to go with a 30 minute nap every 3.5 hours. This would break down to 3 hours of sleep a day. I’ve chosen my nap times as 12, 4, 8, 12, 4, 8 as this seems to be what will work best for my schedule. [...]
May 4th, 2006 at 12:33 am
[...] It all started with a look at Steve Pavlina’s blog post on how to get up right away. "Wow," I thought. "This guy’s got something. I need to start doing that." And then…I noticed a link at the bottom of the page. [...]
May 8th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
[...] The Circadian Rhythm Scientists have known for a long time that humans have a built-in twenty-five hour body clock. I’m not sure anyone has developed a satisfactory explanation for why this is the case, but it is. This explains why it’s so easy for most of us to stay up late. (It’s also the reason some people experiment with polyphasic sleep.) [...]
May 14th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
[...] I was astounded to learn that the torn lens was a blessing. At the examination, I discovered that all my little polyphasic half-hour naps while wearing my lenses had caused the growth of new blood vessels trying like crazy to get oxygen to my corneas. I’d considered removing the contacts for each nap for about a nanosecond. I couldn’t be bothered, and didn’t want to handle the contacts so many times every day. [...]
May 15th, 2006 at 2:49 am
[...] С завтрашнего дня, я планирую провести эксперимент, подобный тому, что провел недавно на себе Стив Павлина (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/). Не смотря на то, что Стив Павлина перестал в конце концов практиковать такой стиль жизни, мне все же интересно испытать данный способ спать на себе. Кто знает, может в мой стиль жизни такой сон лучше впишется, а может и нет. Замечу, что Стив Павлина прекратил не из-за плохого самочувствия или причин здоровья – чувствовал он себя превосходн – лишь потому, что чувствовал себя дискомфортно среди людей, которые не практикуют подобный стиль сна. По подобной причине я в свое время прекратил сыроедение. Но по-большому счету это не важно. Важно то, что я хочу на своем опыте ощутить, что такое вообще возможно. А также я хочу тем самым значительно увеличить личную эффективность хотя бы на время эксперимента. Члены моей команды согласились меня всячески поддерживать в этом начинании, за что я им заранее искренне благодарен. Как и Стив Павлина я планирую писать отчет о каждом дне эксперимента до тех пор, когда не перестану наблюдать каких-либо значительных изменений в моем состоянии, связанных с экспериментом. 0 [...]
May 15th, 2006 at 3:00 am
[...] С завтрашнего дня, я планирую провести эксперимент, подобный тому, что провел недавно на себе Стив Павлина (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/). Для тех, кто не знает английский, поясню, что такое многофазовый сон… [...]
May 17th, 2006 at 5:27 am
[...] I think it’s because I was reading Steve Pavlina’s blog. Although he is a vegetarian, that’s not what motivated me… at least not directly. For about five and a half months, Steve changed his sleeping pattern to polyphasic. While most of us have a monophasic sleep cycle in which we have a long, unbroken sleep each night. A polyphasic sleeper will take many shorter naps throughout the day. It seems that most people have difficulty adapting to this type of pattern, but those that do generally report having higher energy each day and needing less sleep. [...]
May 20th, 2006 at 1:36 am
[...] Polyphasic Sleep Steve Pavlina e il sonno polifasico: un diario con le esperienze e le considerazioni sull’approccio e la realizzazione ed il metodo che io personalmente seguo. [...]
May 21st, 2006 at 4:50 am
[...] С завтрашнего дня, я планирую провести эксперимент, подобный тому, что провел недавно на себе Стив Павлина (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/). Для тех, кто не знает английский, поясню, что такое многофазовый сон… [...]
May 21st, 2006 at 3:48 pm
[...] http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ [...]
May 21st, 2006 at 3:55 pm
[...] http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ [...]
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
[...] A couple of months back I stumbled across Steve Pavlina’s blog while looking for some of his articles on game development and the business of shareware. I saw his entries regarding his polyphasic sleep experiment and was very intrigued. I had seen some references to polyphasic sleep on the web in the past, but hadn’t read much about it. I ended up reading almost all of Steve’s polyphasic sleep posts and decided I wanted to try it myself. [...]
May 25th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
[...] Recently, quite a few web journals have popped up documenting attempts to polyphase, the most notable perhaps being this one, written with clarity and objectivity by a natural experimenter who successfully implemented the schedule for about 5½ months. Others who have made it through the supposedly hellish adjustment period have reported similar successes. The main obstacle to adopting the schedule seems to be the initial sleep deprivation required to upset the monophasic tendency. A lack of engaging nighttime activities can be your downfall if you’re prone to fall asleep out of boredom. Longterm, the schedule seems to be difficult to maintain because it clashes with the overwhelming majority of societal patterns. If you frequently participate in activities that require 4 hours of dedicated time or more, without any possibility of breaks or intermission, then the Uberman schedule falls apart; strict adherence to the schedule seems to be very important, though I don’t know the extent to which this can be stretched. There are also several suggestions from successful polyphasists regarding diet and nutrition. You have to eat more than you would on a monophasic schedule, since your body is active for a greater percentage of time, thus requiring more energy. Heavy, difficult to digest foods are advised against, and caffeine is obviously problematic. [...]
May 26th, 2006 at 3:52 am
[...] Polyphasic sleep is a way of sleeping in short naps instead of long periods of time at night. The method is to sleep for 15 minutes every 4 hours instead of sleeping at night. The theory is that if your body learns that it will only be sleeping for 15 minutes, it will go to REM sleep very quickly and you will get enough sleep. Polyphasic sleep is kind of the holy grail of relentless productivity. It should give about an extra 40 hours a week of productive time. I’ve been thinking about this for several months, ever since Steve Pavlina tried this as an experiment. It was successful, and he was a polyphasic sleeper for several months. He loved it at first, then he started to realize that it was such a different way of life that it needed some psychological adjustment, then he decided that he really didn’t like that he was alone during the time that he was awake when no one else was and that he had to sleep for an hour during the time when his family was awake. It’s vexing that he had the world on his pillow and then gave it up, but that’s a good reason, and Steve wins a blue ribbon in relentless productivity for all kinds of reasons (his site is great), so I certainly can’t judge him. My summary is coarse, especially since he wrote up a journal and many essays on the subject on his site. It’s pretty cool reading. He did not quit for health reasons or because he had any diminishment in his mental faculties. Well, it’s time for relentlessproductivity to be relentless. I’m trying polyphasic sleeping starting now. I’ll update the blog periodically with how things are going. It should be interesting, and in the middle of my first night of it, I have gotten a lot done, which is exciting. If you want to read more about polyphasic sleeping, here is a link [...]
May 26th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
[...] Ich überlege auch schon, ob ich ab dem Herbst mal das polyphasische Schlafen anfangen sollte, dann käme ich auf 2-3 Stunden Schlaf pro 24h — von Tag sollte man dann nicht mehr sprechen [...]
May 27th, 2006 at 12:36 am
[...] Having no end to a day has some interesting side-effects. For one, I don’t know when I should wash my face, brush my teeth, and do all of those “get ready for bed” things. By the same token, taking a shower can happen at any time during the day. Also, since I basically change out of my clothes for each nap, my outfits may be worn for just a few hours or for a day and a half, mostly depending on when I take a shower or leave the house. Also, as far as work goes, there’s no feeling of finishing up for the day. It could just be continuous. Steve Pavlina puts it well, “Because I can work 20 hours a day, I often succumb to the temptation to do so. There’s always “one more task” to be done. And with no lengthy nighttime sleep period to force a reboot, when I get into ‘work mode,’ I find it hard to stop. It no longer makes any sense for me to say, ‘Well, I’m done for the day. I’ll pick this up again tomorrow.’ There is no tomorrow.” [...]
May 27th, 2006 at 12:43 am
[...] I realized tonight that part of this polyphasic sleeping experiment will be a lesson in short-term vs. long-term satisfaction. When you’re lying in bed after having woken up from a nap, it sure feels good to stay right where you are. But, if you drift back off to sleep, which happens pretty regularly if you stay in bed more than 10 minutes after waking up, you feel lousy for the entire next cycle. Thankfully, I’m at a point where if I have a good 30-minute-and-no-longer nap after a couple of hours of oversleeping, I’m almost as good as new. My napping experience today was interesting. I think I’m rounding the adjustment period bend. I don’t actually fall asleep each time I lie down for a nap. Sometimes, I am in a semi-meditative state – conscious of what’s going on around me, but absolutely still and relaxed. I find that I still feel rested even if I only get to this point of relaxation. But, when I do fall asleep, I feel like I’ve slept a good long time. I’m not remembering dreams, but I think I’m having them about half the time. I’m very relieved that the naps are feeling longer, since I’m still mourning the loss of my long stretch of unconsciousness each night. Steve Pavlina mentioned this in his log on day 30, but I’m glad it doesn’t take 30 days to get to that point.Boredom is an issue too. This is part of the reason we’re writing this blog. I know I could work, but that can get to be too much very quickly. During this adjustment period, I’m treating the nights in a “just get through it” way, not trying to be productive, just trying to stay awake. We’ve done things like take walks, go on a Kripsy Kreme run, go to Wal-Mart to buy vacuum bags at 4am, watch movies and tv, read (though carefully, since this has a tendency to make me sleepy), and, occasionally, work. I’d like to sit down and think of more creative things to do with all of this extra time, but right now I usually just opt for television. [...]
May 27th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
[...] But, Josh, let me tell you, is persistent. After reading about this thing called Polyphasic sleeping for a while and finally stumbling onto a blog of a guy who had great success with it (Steve Pavlina), he decided to try. In fact, with little warning to me at all, on the night of May 21st, he announced that he wouldn’t be going to bed that night. He would become a polyphaser right then and there. I wasn’t quite ready for the switch, I was very comfortable with my sleeping pattern – bed by 2am, up around 11am, what’s not to love? But, the wasted hours have been pressing on me. I admitted to Josh that it would be nice to have mornings again and not to sleep half the day away. (Isn’t that what my parents always admonished me about in high school?) [...]
May 28th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
[...] i think the most obvious aspect of recovery is sleep. most people claim to understand the importance of quality sleep, yet most people don’t seem to get enough of it. dr joe mercola has some tips for improving your quality of sleep, and steve pavlina wrote a series of articles about polyphasic sleep, which some people may find interesting too. incidentally, i’ve had a good deal of success with biphasic and triphasic sleep patterns in the past. [...]
May 29th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
[...] And if you’re feeling REALLY adventurous check out Polyphasic Sleep. [...]
June 1st, 2006 at 8:26 pm
[...] 体验小睡（polyphasic sleep）：小睡是一种将一天的睡眠降低到2至5小时的方法。我没有尝试过所以不知道是否可行，不过你可以再去Steve的blog看看这种不寻常的却又有潜在效果的睡眠方法。 [...]
June 6th, 2006 at 5:54 am
[...] Wondering why I’m attempting this at all? Here’s what I read about polyphasic sleep that first got me interested. [...]
June 7th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
[...] I’m experimenting with Polyphasic Sleeping after I read Steve Pavlina’s site [...]
June 8th, 2006 at 9:49 am
[...] This subject is generally ignored in the scientific world, dismissing successful cases such as Steve Pavlina’s, and many others as them as ‘”fooling themselves it works, because they really want it to”. But anyway, let’s cut the crap and skip to the argument: [...]
June 13th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
[...] Note, a quick search on Google pointed me to an excellent blog run by Steve Pavlina. In his blog, he discusses his approach to being an early riser in two posts (part one and two) which are interesting reads. He has also tried Polyphasic sleep with some success. Polyphasic sleep deals with taking short sleep periods throughout the day at regular intervals instead of the big 8 hour chunk at the end of each day. [...]
July 10th, 2006 at 5:00 am
[...] I was reading the other day about advertising using Google’s Adsense and stumbled across a blogsite about personal growth called StevePavlina.com. It has a log of his experiment with polyphasic sleep, that is, when you sleep for only 30 minutes at a time, approximately every 4 hours. With this kind of sleep-schedule you only end up sleeping for about 3-4 hours a day. His log chronicles the challenges he faced but also his success he eventually attained in adapting his lifestyle to this kind of sleep pattern. It’s fascinating and I think I’m going to try it myself. I should mention that Steve was able to maintain this lifestyle for 5 1/2 months with no apparent negative physical or mental side-effects. The main theory for polyphasic sleep is that one receives the most benefit from the REM period of sleep. REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement and occurs at the end of our sleep cycle. We experience increasing durations of REM sleep as the night progresses. Our sleep cycles usually last about 90 minutes and we progress from Level 1,2,3,4 and then REM at the end of the cycle. A person usually experiences 5 sleep cycles in one night with the last cycle having the longest REM period. [...]
July 11th, 2006 at 3:51 am
[...] A day by day blog of polyphasic sleep [...]
July 23rd, 2006 at 7:53 am
[...] I’ve been meaning to try Polyphasic Sleeping ever since I began reading on it some months ago. The idea is that you split your regular sleep in ~6 naps of ~20-30mins, in a strict cycle. Basically one won’t be awake for more than 3.5 hours at a time and it’s a very inflexible system. Missing naps or oversleeping can cause a crash and sleep deprivation. The reward if all turns out well ? Much, much more time and reported more alertness and vivid dreams as reported on Steve Pavlina’s blog. From there on I visited several more resources and I guess I’m ready to begin. [...]
July 28th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
[...] The next block was hard as well. I fell asleep twice for about 10 minutes each. It’s a miracle I managed to snap out of it. Also, I experienced the sensitivity to cold that Steve Pavlina spoke of in his polyphasic sleep logs. (By the way, I highly recommend you read his complete polysleep logs. They were what inspired me to try this in the first place.) Even though it wasn’t very cold out, I had to use a big blanket whilst sitting at the monitor. I’m normally a night person: I go to sleep at sunrise, and wake up in the afternoon. Therefore, the hours that I’m battling to stay awake through are the daytime hours. So I was shivering during the late morning, in the midst of summer. It must be a lot harder to attempt Uberman polysleep if the hours you’re unaccustomed to being awake are the night hours, when the house is quiet, everyone is asleep, and it’s freezing outside. Waking up during these hours is very unpleasant. Almost scary. If you’re going to attempt the Uberman, I highly recommend you do this during the summer months. [...]
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:56 am
[...] How to Become an Early Riser is an excellent article written by productivity Guru Steve Pavlina. If like me you have trouble beating the early bird then it’s well worth checking out this article. Pavlina’s work includes research on ‘Polyphasic sleep’, ‘How to give up Coffee‘ and even the ‘Meaning of Life‘. [...]
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:30 pm
[...] I’ve gone through Steve Pavlina’s polyphasic sleep related blog entries and I think they are just amazing. He himself refers to them as a “treasure trove” and he has earned right to do so! [...]
August 8th, 2006 at 11:40 am
[...] A few of my best friends are in Japan, doing their higher studies. One of them has come back on vacation, and while talking to him I was amazed to hear about the insane hours he’s working there. Apparently he gets two hours of sleep before heading off to work on the night shift at a restaurant, and then comes back to have one more hour of sleep before going to uni the next day. I never thought the human body could endure such torment, seeing how I get dizzy after a couple of days of sleep deprivation. I mean, it’s not like my friend is using polyphasic sleep, but here he was, fit as a fiddle, and yet sleeping only three hours a day. [...]
August 14th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
[...] Эксперимент – это вырабатывание привычки, которая потенциально может стать существенным прорывов в развитии. Это попытка сделать с собой то, на что нормальные люди не идут. Хороший пример эксперимента – полифазный сон (когда человек спит 20-30 минут каждые 4 часа в течении суток, всего 2-3 часа в сутки). Что является вызовом для одного человека, может быть привычным образом жизни для другого, поэтому эксперимент сугубо индивидуальное понятие. Эксперимент – это попытка сделать жизнь лучше. [...]
August 15th, 2006 at 7:27 am
[...] Yet this has still not freed all the time I would like to free. So I am in the midst of learning to become an early riser. It’s going well to this point. I am using the methods presented by Steve Pavlina, who from all indications is a very eccentric individual. (To get an idea, he also did a six-month self-study on polyphasic sleep.) At least in this case what he says makes sense. The result is that I work on my personal projects in the morning before work, go to work, and then the evening and night are discretionary time. [...]
August 29th, 2006 at 1:31 am
[...] Steve Pavlina posted on his experiences of living a polyphasic lifestyle for over just over 5 months. [...]
August 31st, 2006 at 2:09 am
[...] Anyway, There seems to be lots of people trying it though, so hmm.. I’m intrigued.. Maybe I’ll give it a try… [...]
August 31st, 2006 at 5:31 am
[...] Instead of a straight-shot 6-8 hours of sleep, Polyphasic sleep involves taking multiple short sleep periods throughout the day. Each sleep period being 20-30 minutes long. According to Wikipedia, Polyphasic sleep pattern is intended to reduce sleep time to 2–5 hours daily. This article suggests that it will take a week to get used to. During the first week you may experience sleep deprivation; but after that your body will get used to it. So what are the benefits. Well, some people are reporting: more energy throughout the day, higher alertness, more vivid and lucid dreams and more time to do other things throughout the day. Eating more has been reported as a side effect of Polyphasic sleep. The increased eating pattern is caused by you sleeping less and spending more energy throughout the day. So, what about work schedules? Well, maybe its feasible for people who work from home (or don’t work at all). The article indicates that the long term health effects of this sleep pattern aren’t well known. [...]
September 28th, 2006 at 7:20 am
[...] Experiment with polyphasic sleep – Polyphasic sleep is a sleeping pattern that proposes to reduce sleep down to 2-5 hours a day. I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t speak to its validity but you back to Steve’s blog again for some great information on this unusual but potentially effective sleeping method. [...]
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:39 pm
[...] Polyphasic Sleep [...]
October 11th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
[...] Steve Pavlina [...]
October 26th, 2006 at 11:26 am
[...] I found Steve Pavlina on accident. I believe it was his journal on polyphasic sleep that first introduced him to me, but once there, I found so much more. The other day, as I searched for ways that I might reduce my debt, I stumbled onto his Million Dollar Experiment. Intrigued, I read more and found it to be based on another article, Cause-Effect versus Intention Manifestation. [...]
November 14th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
[...] Steve Pavlina maintains a very popular blog about personal development. My first encounter with him and his content were his polyphasic sleep experiment chronicles. His more recent and ongoing project is the Million Dollar Experiment. [...]
December 1st, 2006 at 12:41 pm
[...] But technology is not just objects and theories. They are also actions. When babies are born, they are, by instinct, polyphasic sleepers. They do of course, sleep much longer (16 hours, compared to an average polyphasic’s 3), but the actions are there. Take into consideration also that babies, out of the womb, are experiencing heavy mental and physical growth compared to the rest of their lives. It only makes sense that they would require more sleep, despite what schedule they are on. Steve Pavlina stated, "…it’s possible that a more polyphasic pattern could feel natural and normal in the absence of social conditioning." [...]
December 1st, 2006 at 5:01 pm
[...] To stay healthy I will take daily naps. This way I can stay up late every night if I have to. I will experiment with different napping durations and schedules until I find what works. (I have even been tempted to try polyphasic sleep.) [...]
January 5th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
[...] Okay so a long while back my friend Michael Burns mentioned something about polyphasic sleep. I subsequently did a little research and found an interesting blog about some guy who lived doing polyphasic sleep for several months. For the uninitiated, polyphasic sleep, as opposed to the standard monophasic sleep, is a method to create MUCH more time in your day. In standard monophasic sleep you sleep once per day and have several REM(rapid eye movement[the restorative and useful part of sleep]) cycles during that period. In polyphasic sleep every 4-5 hours you take a 15-30 minutes “nap.” Once acclimated to this sleep style your body goes instantly into a REM cycle when you fall asleep, as opposed to different kind of sleep for a while and then having REM cycles like in regular sleep. The result is you end up sleeping between 1.5-3 hours per day rather than the usual 8 hours or so, with no loss to energy. [...]
January 17th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
[...] I just read one of the most fascinating series of blog entries that I think I’ve ever come across. Written over a six month period, they recount the experiences of a blogger shifting from monophasic sleep (what you and I do – sleep at night) into polyphasic sleep (napping every four hours or so for less than 30 minutes). [...]
January 29th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
[...] So when Matt posted his articles a week or so ago about the guy with no job, I did some exploring on his website. I found this series of articles where the guy experimented with polyphasic sleep. Polyphasic sleep is where you basically take 6 naps a day for 20-30 minutes for a total of 2-3 hours of sleep per day. The articles explain the theory behind all this and he keeps a log of his whole experience. Check it out. It is pretty neat. Matt and I may give it a try when we get to Tennessee. [...]
February 4th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Early to bed, early to rise
Bert Webb has written a provocative yet simple post arguing that starting earlier is better than working late. I could not agree with him more. Now, if only I could get it to stick. When I was a wee lad, getting up early was a regular part of my day. M…
February 20th, 2007 at 8:21 am
[...] Wake up daily at 5:00am. Waking up at 5:00am will allow me to exercise, have a small breakfast, get ready at a leisurely pace and get to the bus each day. I plan on using the technique outlined by Steve Pavlina, this guy is a bit out there, but seems to know what he is talking about when it comes to goals. [...]
March 27th, 2007 at 9:39 am
[...] It’s been nearly a year since I terminated my polyphasic sleep experiment. If you didn’t follow that experiment, for 5-1/2 months (Oct 2005 – Apr 2006) I followed a pattern of sleeping about 20 minutes once every four hours around the clock – 6 naps every 24 hours, about 2 hours of sleep per day. I blogged about it as I went along, and you can find the links to all those log entries by following the link above. [...]
April 7th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
[...] I’ve read a number of blogs and articles about going polyphasic, and I prefer the journals of people who have made the switch – primarily Steve Pavlina’s blog (his entire experience is listed here), as well as The Mindset and a handful of others. After giving it some thought, I’ve decided to go with the so-called “Everyman” (multiple 20-minute naps during the day and a significantly shortened length of sleep at night) instead of the significantly more hardcore “Uberman” (20-minute naps every 4 hours, 6 times a day). There are a couple of reasons for this: The Everyman allows for a more flexible schedule. As well documented by Steve Pavlina and others, the Uberman requires strict adherence to the nap schedule, and skipping or even moving a nap by more than a half-hour can result in feeling tired for up to 24 hours. In contrast, the Everyman schedule allows a slightly more flexible nap schedule.Call me a skeptic, but eliminating deep sleep overnight altogether seems a little risky. While plenty of people have done it, without any (observed) long-term effects, I’m still hesitant to try it. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I settle in to the schedule.The adjustment period to Uberman appears to be brutal, leaving you feeling sleep-deprived for up to 2 weeks. Although there’s definitely adjustment into Everyman, and the transition period might be longer, it will be easier on the body and mind since I’m still getting good sleep at night while my body learns to take advantage of the naps. [...]
April 24th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
[...] The starting point was Steve Pavlina’s blog. I discovered a link to his blog on the How to learn any language forum. Steve was conducting an experiment on polyphasic sleeping. I liked these articles so much that I began to read the other articles on his blog. [...]
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:19 am
[...] Polyphasic. Six naps a day keeps your laziness at bay. You can catch up on sleep when you’re dead. See Polyphasic Sleep for details. [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 10:37 am
[...] 4th, 2006 · No Comments That’s Steve Pavlina’s blog subtitle. I think that says it all. I’ve beenchecking out his site for a couple of months now off and on, through other places. He’s got some good advice on a bunch of things including Polyphasic Sleep, How to Win an Argument and How to Become an Early Riser. Basically, some good advice on how to increase productivity, improve time-management and become more disciplined overall. If nothing else, it definitely makes for an interesting read if you’re into self-improvement. [...]
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:32 am
[...] Brandon Wehn, a new engineer here at Pwop Studios, and I have started an experiment in triphasic sleep. It’s not a new idea. Most people have one sleep cycle of 6 to 10 hours, and that would be monophasic (one phase). Polyphasic means more than one phase per 24-period, and triphasic specifically means 3 phases per 24 hour period. Basically, I am sleeping for 90 minutes three times daily, once every 6.5 hours. The idea is that the average sleep cycle is 90 minutes. If you train your body to this new schedule, which apparently can take from one to two weeks, it learns to use those 90 minutes to get into a REM sleep cycle right away. The first sleep cycle we normally get tends to be the deepest, with the most REM- that precious time when the brain supposedly sorts out your input stimulus from the last waking period. Steve Pavlina famously documented an experiment he did with polyphasic sleep, in which he slept 20 to 30 minutes every 3.5 hours six times a day. That seems to be a bit over the top, basically compressing a natural 90 minute sleep cycle into 30 minutes. Its a fascinating read. Ultimately he went back to normalcy not for the reasons you’d expect. It worked for him except for the fact that the rest of the world didn’t sleep like him, and he basically got lonely having so much free time at night. My schedule is currently 2:30 to 4:00 AM, 10:30 AM to Noon, and 6:30 to 8:00 PM. I started yesterday at 2:30 AM after being up since 11 AM that day. I recently completed my fourth sleep cycle with success. I do feel groggy after the early morning cycle, but I’m hoping that will correct itself in a couple weeks as my body learns to adapt. If after 2 and a half weeks I am still a wreck, I’ll go back to my usual sleep schedule. For now, Brandon and I are getting a lot done at the studio, and a lot needs to be done in order to get the new space fully online (expect a long post on that project soon). Do you have experience with this kind of sleep schedule? I’d like to hear your story. polyphasic sleep Thursday, 23 August 2007 11:32:43 (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0] | Related Posts: [...]
October 11th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
[...] Recently I competed in Toastmasters International’s annual humor speech contest. I wrote and delivered a speech titled “39-1/2 Winks,” which was based on my polyphasic sleep experiment. [...]
November 30th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
[...] I consider myself a skeptic, and until a few weeks ago, I had polyphasic sleep filed away in the “bogus” section of my mind with all the various conspiracy theories and urban legends. That is, until I found a post about it on Steve Pavlina’s personal development blog. Steve is a very intelligent guy and for me, his post was the first positive review of this sleep schedule that came from what I considered a respectable source. I decided to give it some honest consideration. Internet Research [...]
December 29th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
[...] Some people have also written to explain that after testing a change for 30 days, they realized it wasn’t right for them, but they were glad to learn this from direct experience. This was especially common among people who tested different sleep patterns, like biphasic or polyphasic sleep or simply waking up early. Even when the 30-day trial ends with a return to old habits, the trial can still be beneficial. Usually people are grateful for what they learned, even if it doesn’t work out as expected. [...]
December 30th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
[...] It is rather illustrative to share my experiences with this approach so far as I have been at it for three weeks now. I decided that my wake time would be 5 AM every morning. The first few nights, I was naturally not even tired until after midnight. I just stayed up and did various activities until I felt sleepy. My alarm would go off at 5 AM and I would force myself to get out of bed. The sooner I physically got out of bed the better. I tried not to even think about it as my sleepy mind would have reasoned someway to justify going back to sleep (perhaps something like this: "I am so very tired, hmmm, why don’t I sleep some more? Yes, excellent suggestion!"). While it was difficult to get up, I found that as the first week went on, I was becoming sleepy earlier in the evening, and as I started going to bed a little earlier each night, I started to get more sleep naturally as a result. After two weeks, I was waking slightly before the alarm went off! In the whole three weeks so far, I have had 3 lapses where I went back to sleep after my alarm went off at 5 AM, and I can attribute every one of those to excessive socializing over the Holidays, so I don’t feel like they have been total failures. Anyway, read Steve’s post and give it a try. He also covers polyphasic sleep, which I won’t be trying because it sounds silly. Ultimately, you should be able to stay awake for 30 years at a time. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
December 31st, 2007 at 8:52 am
[...] Most likely I’ll do something similar to what I did with the polyphasic sleep experiment from 2005, posting new entries as long as I have something meaningful to share. That might take the form of daily entries for the first week or so and less frequent updates through the rest of the 30 days. [...]
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
[...] Steve’s been into many other innovative or even, in some folk’s view, "whacky" experiments … I was particularly taken by his series on polyphasic sleep … but the point is not what Steve tries out, the point is he does it to learn and he writes about it, with conviction and passion … and thus people read. [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
[...] In the morning I had periods of mild anxiety followed by stretches where I felt very serene. I found it a bit hard to concentrate today. I was physically energetic but mentally foggy. It reminds me of my polyphasic sleep adaptation period in some ways. [...]
January 18th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
[...] Now that I’ve seemed to reach a point of basic stability on this diet, for the remaining 12 days I’ll be thinking about whether this is the kind of long-term lifestyle change I’d want to make. I’ve been thinking about my polyphasic sleep trial from 2005-2006. It lasted 5-1/2 months before I finally returned to normal monophasic sleep, the main problem being that I felt too much out of sync with the rest of the world. I anticipate I might have a similar problem maintaining this high-fruit raw diet in the long run. It’s not merely a different way of eating — it’s a rather different way of living. Discuss this post in the Steve Pavlina forum. If you find this site helpful, please leave a donation for Steve so you can enjoy the spirit of giving too. [...]
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:48 pm
[...] After more than 3 weeks on this diet, eating this way is still not easy. It’s taking a lot of self-discipline for me to keep pushing through the resistance I’m feeling. Going vegetarian and then vegan was an absolute breeze. I find this raw food trial more challenging than adapting to polyphasic sleep. [...]
August 6th, 2008 at 6:16 am
[...] is similar to the problem I faced during my polyphasic sleep experiment. After 5-1/2 months on polyphasic sleep, I returned to monophasic sleep because I [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 7:52 am
[...] sleep in one chunk of my usual 6-7 hours but break it up into naps. You can read more about this in StevePavlina’s blog about polyphasic sleep. My previous tries were unsuccessful because I was not disciplined enough. [...]
August 14th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
[...] while reading Steve Pavlina’s blog, I stumbled across the concept of polyphasic sleep and was instantly hooked. What attracts me most [...]
August 18th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
[...] this nap I had a vivid dream (I still dream even during short naps ever since my polyphasic sleep experimentation), and suddenly in the middle of the dream, Ron appeared to me. I wasn’t lucid [...]
August 21st, 2008 at 11:37 pm
[...] sleep about 2-5 hours out of every 24, spread out in a series of naps. (I first learned about it here at Steve Pavlina’s blog; he has tons of information on it if you’re curious.) I had tried this sleep pattern a [...]
October 25th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
[...] about to conduct a new personal experiment that’s likely to put my polyphasic sleep and raw food diet trials to shame. Starting today, I’m kicking off a 92-day juice [...]
October 28th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
[...] reference experiences of previous successes to draw upon, like becoming an early riser, adapting to polyphasic sleep, and eating an all raw diet. I just take a deep breath and say to myself, “Only 88 days to [...]
October 30th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
[...] You can also check out Steve Pavlina’s blog over at stevepavlina.com, where you will find him currently engaged in a trial of a juice fast! Fascinating stuff, and some good juice recipes to boot. Yummy. Check out his blog archives for other fascinating trials he’s conducted on various ways of living/improving, such as polyphasic sleep. [...]