Biphasic (or any other alternative to monophasic) long term sleepers

[Dimitry]

Morning/Afternoon/Evening from wherever you are,

I'm just wondering if there are any examples of people who have adapted a Biphasic/Polyphasic sleep schedule for long-term without any side effects (as compared to a good healthy monophasic sleep habit though).

What I'm trying to gather is if this is something that you do as bursts for a few months when more time is needed, and then go back to a good monophasic sleep schedule. So sort of an on again-off again pattern. Or are there people who have slept like this for 10 years without any known or seen side effects?

I'm also interested in either well documented experiences of other people, personal experiences or at least of stories where the source isn't separated from you too much (degrees of separation... i.e you know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody etc.).

With other healthy lifestyles such as diet (vegan etc.), there are plenty of examples of lots of peope doing it for years on end successfully. Whereas with any alternative to sleep, I mostly find it people who are early on into it with the successful results (i.e 6 months to a year lets say). At least that's the trend I saw so far. Anyone else noticing similar results or is my exposure to this just simply limited?

I'm still going to give it a shot myself down the road. I'm currently work on other things and don't want to juggle too many revisions in my life and crash. So I decided to at least do some good quality research before diving in first hand.

[SergiuB]

I never thought of trying other sleep schedules long-term. I try to find one that'll help me save time when it's much needed and not overload me too much. I think living on the limit long-term will drain my energy too fast.

[Dimitry]

So you're saying that most people just utilize these techniques or tools for a temporary period to get a boost in productivity and then go back? The people that are trying it now, is that your plan or are you in this for the long term?

[Wanderer]

The most I have heard of polyphasic from a reputable source is 6 months or so, any more than that is considered unchartered territory.

Biphasic has probably lasted longer but a wikipedia search will probably give you the most up to date information.

[David Hausladen]

As for biphasic, I think Winston Churchill used a biphasic schedule for much of his adult life. More recently, Glen Rhodes's article on biphasic sleep suggests in the update at the end that he's been on a biphasic schedule for 2.5 years; the article is from September 2005.

With polyphasic, the only long-term example I've heard is that supposedly Buckminster Fuller slept polyphasically for two years (specifically, one 30-minute nap every six hours). However, I've only read about this in a couple places; other sources talking about Fuller's sleep don't mention this or make differing claims.

I think we're still waiting to see a polyphasic test of a year or more on the Internet.

[Scott Bird]

Dimitry, I asked this same question a while ago (Long term biphasic sleeping); however I wasn't exactly inundated with responses from long-term adherents to either biphasic or polyphasic sleeping patterns. Personally, I've been biphasic for a little over two months, and there's no temptation at all to return to monophasic. I'm not quite sure why you'd want to mix the two.

Certainly in the case of biphasic (and also in polyphasic, from what I've heard) the quality of sleep increases. In fact, there are several benefits quite apart from the time reduction. To get an idea, take a look at the summary of my initial 30 day trial.

[Dimitry]

Thanks Scott, I'll take a look when I get home.

I guess with sleep it's also like with any other personal development, the further it gets away from mainstream, the weirder you're considered and less people will attempt it as a result. The ones that do attempt (until now) have not been within internet's reach probably. At least that's how I'm seeing it.