Bryant Gumbel was famous for running on 3-5 hours of sleep. When asked about it, he said:
"Two things: No matter how much sleep you get, it is never enough, and 10 minutes after you get up, it doesn't matter anyway".
I run for days at a time on less than five hours a night. I get in bed around 1 or 1:30, and get up about 6am. I see nothing magic about 5am. It looks just like 6am, but only an hour earlier.
There are many advantages to getting less sleep:
1. Your body quickly adapts, forcing you to sleep "faster" (you hit REM faster).
2. There is an almost narcotic high from sleep deprivation, colors seem brighter, food taste better.
3. In A Movable Feast, Hemingway talked about how working hungry made him sharper, made the edges a bit more clear cut. I find something very similar when operating on less sleep.
4. The big one is productivity. If I sleep a hour less than you, I am gaining almost a work-day of productivity each week, or well over a month of productive time in a year. How much more could you accomplish if you had a month more to achieve your goals than your competition did?
Of course, that assumes you have something productive to do with the time. Getting up an hour early just to watch the Muppets won't help a bit.
Just my 2 cents.
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