Polyphasic Sleep in USA Today
February 27th, 2006 by Steve Pavlina
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In today’s (Feb 27th) edition of USA Today, you can find a feature article about sleep by Marco R. della Cava titled, “When Sleep is Just a Dream.” Marco interviewed my wife and me a few weeks ago for the article, so the last several paragraphs of the article are about 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.”
I haven’t seen the print version yet (it’s only 3:30am as I type this) [edit: just picked up a copy], and the article should be in is featured dead center on page one of today’s print edition as well as on USA Today’s web site.
USA Today supposedly has 2.2 million readers, so the offline publicity is nice, and now of course I can add the phrase, “As seen in USA Today” to my web site, my promotional materials (what promotional materials?), and my underwear. But aside from the “that’s cool” factor, I don’t expect to notice much traffic increase from this, especially since my URL wasn’t mentioned in the article. A few years ago I had a story about my games business published in the New York Times, along with a photo of my daughter and me, and the traffic boost was essentially nil.
I prefer to be interviewed about other personal development topics (purpose, productivity, self-discipline, etc) instead of polyphasic sleep, but it doesn’t surprise me that the general weirdness of polyphasic sleep would capture the interest of a journalist.
If I recall correctly, the writer found me via this blog, if not directly then certainly indirectly by way of referral. I remember telling my wife a few months ago that given the traffic growth of this site, it’s only a matter of time before all this online traffic starts spilling into the offline world. I have that same expectation of the blogosphere in general.
USA today, tomorrow the world. 
P.S. For those of you who did manage to stumble upon this site because of the USA Today article and who are curious to learn more about polyphasic sleep, here are all my previous entries on the subject (the first entry below will explain what polyphasic sleep entails):
- 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
And for something less severe (i.e. if you prefer to continue sleeping normally at night but would like to improve your sleeping habits), read:
Sleep well!
March 19th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
[…] Aan de andere kant vindt ik het experiment van Steve Pavlinas met Polyphasic Sleep ook zeer interessant. Door 6 maal daags 20 minutes te slapen krijg je veel meer ruimte op een dag. Je ritme wordt wel geheel anders dan je omgeving maar als je in de gelegenheid bent lijkt het mij een zeer interessant experiment. Zie ‘Polyphasic Sleep in USA Today‘ van Steve voor meer informatie over Polyphasic Sleep. Een echt bijzondere manier van leven. […]