[Ati]

Great stuff here as usual !

Originally Posted by Scott Bird

Ati,

How old is your daughter? Are you bringing her up with biphasic sleeping habits?

Ha ha, I think I'm on day 19 now biphasically. I think the last time my daughter and I interacted in regards to sleep was about 22 years ago when SHE had ME on a (probably uberman ) polyphasic schedule, given the fact that she had recently opened her eyes to this world for the first time , and so had to alternate having a look around with taking frequent breaks to rest and review what she had seen, or something....

Originally Posted by copla

.... It really is fascinating how having a regular nap feels like you have a second day... one waking it feels like a 6 1/2 hour mini-day, and the shortness of it encourages the utilization of every single minute, even moreso than the rest of the day.

Isn't that a fact? I was just telling my family this. I think if a person is naturally an early bird like some of us are.. I really love the mornings , it's especially nice because you get two per day!!

Originally Posted by copla

Thanks for the welcome Ati, and it's great to hear you're seeing such great results as well! It's hard to see why more people don't try out biphasic sleep, it doesn't seem to have much of any downside thus far, though I guess as months progress some might arise... hopefully not though.

I don't see any real downsides (at day 19 or so... ) I do see very fascinating questions, though .... as do others here..

Originally Posted by copla

Now that you mention it in terms of sleep efficiency, I couldn't agree more... even on as little sleep as I'm getting I feel well-rested all the time, aside from the bit of time immediately prior to the nap. Out of curiosity, did you try a 3/1.5 split before going to a 4.5/1.5 split? I'm wondering if I'm just lucking out that my body can handle the 3/1.5, or if it'll just hit me like a brick after a few more weeks.

No I just did the 4.5/1.5, starting with a 1.5 nap one day after stumbling onto this thread... and it went great from the first day in terms of overall feeling good....in spite of multiple variances.

I think one gets closer and closer to really listening to individual physiology here. It may be that you naturally are good at 3/1.5, or that you'll need more.. I'd think if you need more, your body would tell you so. AND I think that no matter how many actual hours you need, that may be totally unconnected to how much you actually accomplish in a day....or any other practical aspects that might be gained here. Feeling good and well rested is the biggee, methinks..

Originally Posted by copla

As a sidenote, I have to say, this forum is amazing- it's such an incredible opportunity to be able to discuss things like biphasic sleep on a forum dedicated to personal development, with topics abounding about everything from life philosophy to finances to lucid dreaming. Just mind-boggling to think of all the events that had to transpire to bring about this, from the technology underpinning the internet, to all the events in Steve's life that lead him to his path of personal development, and eventually founding this forum, and then in the lives of all us to lead us here.

Yah, me too

Originally Posted by Scott Bird

Hi Andrew.

Getting started doesn't have to be terribly complicated - try starting with a 1.5/4.5 hour split. Once your body's happy with that (it'll probably take a week or so to get used to it) it's easy to adjust it if you need to. The best times for me are :

90 minute nap starting around 7pm
4.5 hour core sleep starting around 2am

and this works well, but it just depends on your schedule.

Try and stick to whatever schedule you set for yourself, but don't beat yourself up if you oversleep or change the nap time one day because you're out somewhere. Keeping to a regular schedule just makes it a little bit easier for your body to get used to the change.

If you can, keep a note of the basic things (times, how tired/refreshed you felt afterward etc) and jot it down in the polyphasic sleep logs thread. For questions on the routine or just biphasic sleeping in general, head back here.

Good luck. I'm keen to see how you find it.

I'll second that in its entirety ! And it seems quite a few folks have found this general "method" to work for them..

Originally Posted by andrew

....Anyways I really want to get started on this, but I'm going to be flying back to the east coast in a few weeks and I know it's going to be crazy sleeping. So I think it would be best to wait until I get back to start so things will be at a much more stable schedule. That's about a month and a half away though, but I think it's better than trying something totaly new beforehand and mess it all up. If that's possible?

I'd agree not to worry abt this at all. If you go with 90 minute cycles (to start out with) as the main thing...try to keep all your "sleeps" in 90 minute cycles, then it seems people do pretty well with some variances in the actual timing. I know I do.. how about others?

I'm also traveling, in about 10 days...lots of us will probably have all kinds of situational changes with the holidays coming up..and I'm just going to zero in on the 90 minute thing and let the rest of the time go as it does. We'll see how that works!

Originally Posted by andrew

Another question: it takes me over an hour to get to sleep, any recomendations? I don't want to set the alarm clock for 4.5 hours after I goto bed because I'd end up getting like 3-4 hours instead.

This has happened to a few of us and it seem to regulate itself, agree watch caffeine, other stimulants, alcohol, heavy protein or big meals and also heavy exercise within most often a few hours before you want to sleep. People vary on this one but a these factors form a pretty common starting point for initial sleep (aka "sleep latency") management. After getting good fall-to-sleep action, you can always add stuff back to see what particularly affects you.

Originally Posted by Scott Bird

Andrew, if you've got a few weeks until you fly out, you might as well start now. You'll be used to it well before then, and a couple of days' change won't hurt anything long-term. You can't really mess anything up.

On the getting to sleep thing, I used to be the same. In my case the answer was just to write a to-do list (with everything that was on my mind) each night before bed. Beside each item there'd be a quick note of the action I was intending to take - even that was 'unknown'. I was able to stop thinking about everything then, knowing it had been taken care of until the next day.

Something else to look at is your diet; I'm sure you're not having several cups of coffee or anything just before trying to sleep, but there may be something else. A large meal of something which takes a long time to digest for example.

Agree...Scott, maybe it's your to do list that's putting you to sleep
Jus' kidding.. that works for me for just the reason that you mention, gets things off my head. (also makes me sleepy...)