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11-18-2006, 06:59 AM
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 Intermission, Day 3 (Free-Running Sleep) I'm about five minutes away from my first biphasic core sleep. I will be sleeping from 2am to 5am every morning, and then from 2:30pm to 4pm every afternoon. I'll do biphasic sleep for 30 days and then evaluate its success. I don't anticipate any major problems--after all, it's not polyphasic  .     |
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11-19-2006, 06:47 AM
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| Biphasic Sleep, Day 1 It's great to finally be getting into biphasic sleep! Ati mentioned the goal of finding "a way to sleep which truly produces good rest and health in addition to any time or scheduling advantages" and I really think that biphasic sleep will be that way. It conforms to the body's circadian rhythm better than any other sleep schedule--even monophasic--and I think this form in particular (i.e. aligned with the 90-minute sleep cycle) will be much more efficient than monophasic sleep and much easier to adapt to than polyphasic sleep. The biggest question in my mind is whether this form of biphasic sleep is feasible in the 90+180 schedule (i.e. 90-minute nap and 180-minute core sleep) that I'm trying, or whether a person needs the extra sleep cycle that the 90+270 schedule provides. It might be situational--I could find that once adapted I'm normally energetic under the 90+180 schedule, but if I want to do intense exercise I need the 90+270 schedule. There are lots of interesting questions that I'd love to see answered through my experience and/or the experiences of the others here trying biphasic sleep. On to the log: having gone to bed at 2am but not fallen asleep too quickly, I had a little trouble waking at 5am. I was conscious from the time my alarm went off, but in hindsight my thinking was very fuzzy. For some reason at 5:10am my mind snapped into focus, I turned off my (still-buzzing) alarm, and from there I was alert for most of the morning. After a few hours I did begin to feel a little sluggish. This was nothing compared to my experiences with polyphasic sleep--the tiredness only became significant twice during the day, and both times were quickly overcome just by getting up and moving around. My nap at 2:30pm was pretty much ideal. I woke up easily when the alarm went off at 4pm, indicating that the nap's timing had worked with my sleep cycle. I was still sluggish for the rest of the night, but I expect this problem to fade away as my body adapts to the schedule. |
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11-19-2006, 09:36 PM
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| Quote:
 Thanks for the step by step, now could you please tell me how to find the text editor?? I don't see it on the screen while I'm writing or sending messages (duhhhhhhhhhh  )Thanks 
__________________ Ati A Musica Cura Saudade |
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11-19-2006, 09:51 PM
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| Ati: You should be able to enter the code that I mentioned along with your reply as just regular text. The "text editor" (sorry for the tech-speak, I forget that I'm not at a technology school anymore) is just the white box that you type into to compose your message. Does that explain it? Oh, and call me David. No offense taken or given at all, but I can't imagine being Dave. Reminds me too much of the guy from 2001: A Space Odyssey . |
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11-19-2006, 10:13 PM
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| Biphasic sleep log report, day 5 Welcome back David and the same to me. A house full of friends and with all of us playing music and a gig Saturday night pretty much wiped out my biphasic sleep pattern so I'm back at it again today, starting with a 90 minute nap in a couple hours (It's 235P right now). I'm still sorting out whether there will turn out to be an "ideal" time in the afternoon/evening to take that 90 minute nap and how much wiggle room there is in the timing of that, in relation to a nightsleep time of about 1045-11pm with anticipated sleep starting around 1115, reading a bit before I fall asleep, and arising at 345A. I guess that will be one of several good purposes to this log, to see what I find out abt that question. Any ideas welcome, I've looked at some links for biphasic sleep posted by ScottByrd, they are pretty good... So, the recap: 11/19 Sunday today, plan 90 minutes at abt 4 or so, then restart! 11/18 Saturday Day 5 NO NAP; Nightsleep 130AM-800A [6.5 hrs] 11/17 Friday Day 4 Nap 4-450P awakened by early arrival of one guest: Nightsleep 1230P-7:30AM [:50 + 7hrs=7:50hrs, but freesleeping, pretty much] 11/16 Thursday Day 3 Nap 615-745P; Nightsleep 1115P-345A [1:30 + 4:30 hrs=6hrs] 11/15 Wednesday Day 2 Nap ("Nap") 800-1100PM then to bed Nightsleep 1130-345AM---3:00hrs + 4:15 hrs//Total: 7:15hrs 11/14 Tuesday Day 1 Nap (++) 730-1030PM---3:00 Nightsleep 1130-400AM---4:30hrs// Total: 7:30hrs 11/13 Monday Start, with first Nap) 630-800PM---1:30hrs Nightsleep 1130-400AM--4:30hrs total ending in am: 6hrs All best, Ati Quote:
__________________ Ati A Musica Cura Saudade |
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11-20-2006, 04:01 AM
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| hey guys. im starting biphasic tomorrow. im going with the 6 hour core sleep plus 1.5 hour "nap" in the afternoon... im starting this way because currently im sleeping 8-9 hours per night and i dont really have time for an "adjustment" phase over the next few days. ill probably switch to the 4.5 hour core sleep plus one 1.5 hour nap next week. ill keep you posted. |
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11-20-2006, 06:14 AM
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| Biphasic Sleep, Day 2 I woke up more quickly today than yesterday, turning off my alarm at 5:01am (Day 1 I didn't get it until 5:10am). The morning was more difficult in general, though--I don't think it's so much lack of energy as the fact that my body still thinks I sleep from 4am to 12pm (as I did before my polyphasic experiment and during the three-day interval of free-running sleep immediately afterward). I ended up taking several short naps during the late morning. I don't think these extra naps are as troublesome as they are in polyphasic sleep adaptation, but it still would be better if I did without them, since part of the experiment is to determine whether I can do with just the 180- and 90-minute blocks of sleep. After the morning naps, I was awake and alert for the rest of the day (with the exception of my scheduled 2:30pm nap). I'm just now beginning to feel a little sluggish, which is a good thing since I'm going to bed in about fifty minutes. |
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11-20-2006, 06:24 AM
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| Ati: I don't know if you have to restart just because of an off-day. It's up to you, though--just don't get discouraged by it. BSper: Good to see you trying biphasic sleep! I would think you'd have no trouble adapting to the schedule you mentioned--that's five full sleep cycles, which is more than most people get in a night. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes for you. |
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11-20-2006, 12:05 PM
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Makes real good sense to me to slowly drop the total hours per day sleeping rather than make two adjustments at once--biphasic and dropping off hours. I'm thinking about dropping my core hours from 4.5 to 3 after this current strategy gets off the ground (again  ). I'm thinking to have a good 21 to 30 day period of 4.5 hours core (plus 90 minute nap) before doing that, both for that adjustment and because I'm likely to simply know more, theoretically as well as abt my own physiology, by that time.Good luck and do keep posting if that works well for you, it'll work well for the rest of us, I think! Quote:
Ati
__________________ Ati A Musica Cura Saudade |
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11-20-2006, 12:22 PM
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| biphasic sleep log report, day 6 Quote:
Thanks, I'm not at all discouraged ! Actually, with the biphasic and no recent "heavy" experimentation with polyphasic cycles (seems "heavy" to me anyway  ), it doesn't feel like starting over again at all, just going back to the program, so to speak.As it turns out, no nap yesterday, everyone didn't go home, we watched a movie, so I just slept from abt 11P to 345A, when I was awakened by alarm, did loll abt a bit thinking maybe to start everything later today, but got up at 410A since both my physiology and my cat were being very assertive abt the fact that I was UP, WASN'T I? So, close to being back on schedule and 90 minute nap today! 11/19 Sunday Day 6 no nap: Nightsleep 11P-345A [4:45 hrs] (3~+ cycles) 11/18 Saturday Day 5 NO NAP; Nightsleep 130AM-800A [6.5 hrs] 11/17 Friday Day 4 Nap 4-450P awakened by early arrival of one guest: Nightsleep 1230P-7:30AM [:50 + 7hrs=7:50hrs, but freesleeping, pretty much] 11/16 Thursday Day 3 Nap 615-745P; Nightsleep 1115P-345A [1:30 + 4:30 hrs=6hrs] 11/15 Wednesday Day 2 Nap ("Nap") 800-1100PM then to bed Nightsleep 1130-345AM---3:00hrs + 4:15 hrs//Total: 7:15hrs 11/14 Tuesday Day 1 Nap (++) 730-1030PM---3:00 Nightsleep 1130-400AM---4:30hrs// Total: 7:30hrs 11/13 Monday Start, with first Nap) 630-800PM---1:30hrs Nightsleep 1130-400AM--4:30hrs total ending in am: 6hrs 90 min Cycles: 1=1:30hrs; 2=3:00hrs; 3=4:30hrs; 4=6:00hrs; 5=7:30hrs
__________________ Ati A Musica Cura Saudade |
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11-20-2006, 12:29 PM
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| biphasic sleep: current outstanding questions Just to keep track of the current questions that have most interestingly emerged as I do this....any ideas welcome, experience from others welcome! 1. To what extent does it matter if the timing of the 90 minute nap varies? (Of course when "stuff happens", it will vary, but I wonder whether it will be best to just get that nap in sometime, like one brushes one's teeth (every morning, every night at least, the actual time matters little to me anyway ), or whether it is better from a sleep standpoint specifically to have that as regular as possible. May well be a highly individualized matter. I'll post my findings and hope others might do the same. 2. When there is an interruption (with holidays coming up, a real apropos time to be looking at this), is it best to just get right back on a previous schedule? I'm thinking yes, and that's what you were saying, David. Especially so for biphasic sleep, I would think compared to polyphasic.
__________________ Ati A Musica Cura Saudade |
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11-20-2006, 12:32 PM
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| Quote:
Ha ha on the text editor! Oh, the white box where I type has a name I'll try this next time, thanks!!
__________________ Ati A Musica Cura Saudade |
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11-20-2006, 07:38 PM
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| hey guys... i took my first 1.5 hour nap today and learned a few things. first i should probably wear earplugs and fix the lighting in my room because i woke up after about an hour with no REM sleep. then i went back to sleep almost immediately and woke up in the middle of REM. so now i feel groggy. im wondering how youve been waking up from these naps? are your cycles always 90 minutes? because ive been reading that the cycles can be anywhere from 90-120 minutes, where the onset of your first REM is about 90-100 minutes into the cycle. it seems, though, that with deprivation you can get an entire cycle in 90 minutes. also, most of these websites that are discussing sleep deprivation factor in about 20 minutes of "awake" time as you try to fall asleep. they also have asynchronous timing of the REM portion... so they have REM sleep at around 2:10, 3:50, 5:10 and 6:10 hours after you fall asleep. i assume the theory is that if you deprive yourself of sleep for a while, the cycles will condense themselves down into about a cycle per 1.5 hours. this might be an endorsement of a more "cold turkey" method. i was wondering what i should do if i find myself waking up again in the middle of a cycle. should i just get up? or let myself go the entire 90 minutes. in hindsight, i probably should have gotten up. |
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11-20-2006, 10:39 PM
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| Biphasic Sleep Update: Switch to 90+270 Schedule After some research online, I'm having a hard time believing that three sleep cycles (as in the 90+180 schedule that I have been on) could be enough to live on healthily. I'm going to switch to the 90+270 schedule (four sleep cycles), extending my nighttime nap backward to 12:30am to 5am. BSper: Actually, what I've read suggests that from the beginning your sleep cycles are around 90 minutes (slightly different for each individual, though), with no need for adaptation or sleep deprivation. The cycles do differ from each other in any given night in terms of the ratio of NREM to REM sleep--more NREM in the first cycles, more REM in the later cycles. That might explain why your source is saying first REM sleep might not occur until 2:10, though I'm not sure. Could you post links to a couple of those sources? As regards waking up in the middle of the nap, I think that'll go away over time once your body gets used to it. Probably going back to sleep was the right move, since you're telling your body that you want to sleep the whole 90 minutes. |
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11-20-2006, 11:09 PM
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i just googled "sleep cycle" and it came up with a bunch of graphs that try to approximate the stages of the sleep cycle and when they occur. there were also a couple that had different ones for children, adults, and the elderly. that sounds right about the sleep cycles being a core of about 90min with differing amounts of REM and NREM in each. it would be interesting to see the distribution comparison between monophasic, biphasic and polyphasic sleepers. |
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11-21-2006, 03:26 AM
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| Ati: I've been thinking about the nap timing. The body experiences a circadian drop in body temperature about every twelve hours (which is a large part of what makes you sleepy at night and, to a lesser degree, after lunch). For a typical person, the lowest body temperatures are at 2am and 2pm, so ideally a typical person's core sleep and nap should be centered around those times. That said, those times could be shifted if the whole circadian rhythm were shifted--i.e. you could center your core sleep and nap around 5am and 5pm and your body should adjust. If one of the two were off by a few hours from the ideal time, I suspect the body could adjust almost as well. That's my theory, at least; the proof is whether and how each of these biphasic experiments work out. I hope those who have posted about polyphasic sleep haven't become discouraged at this thread's turn into biphasic sleep; I'm still just as interested in seeing what methods work best for adapting to polyphasic, and I think the other readers and posters on this thread feel the same way. Last edited by David Hausladen : 11-21-2006 at 03:57 AM. |
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11-21-2006, 03:37 AM
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| Biphasic Sleep, Day 3 I experienced a lot of sleepiness this morning, prompting a bunch of short naps just like yesterday, followed by full alertness for the remainder of the day. The sleepiness this morning, plus research into how many sleep cycles people generally need, prompted me to switch to the 90+270 schedule, adding an extra sleep cycle onto the beginning of my core sleep (as posted in the update earlier today). Hopefully this will get rid of most of the morning sleepiness. |
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11-21-2006, 03:44 AM
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| David, Yes I'm aware of that circadian drop about every 12 hours, and that would probably be an interesting thing to try---to sleep every 12 hours, alternating 90 minute naps with 270 minute core sleep. For me to do this and coordinate nightsleep time with family (10-11PM), I'd have to nap at 10-11AM. I could probably do that since I'm my own boss, but it would be a bit awkward and interfere a bit with the office schedule I've set up. (Wha-a-a-a-t she's asleep at 10 in the morning ??????? )I'm going to keep that in mind, though. If I did set something like that up and it turned out to be a regular thing, it wouldn't be much of a deal. Trick is to know somehow that it actually works so I don't have to take everyone else on the same roller coaster ride I'm currently enjoying as I experiment with this  !
__________________ Ati A Musica Cura Saudade |
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11-21-2006, 03:59 AM
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| I'm also interested in hearing about any of your experiments with polyphasic sleep, even though there's been a bit of a switch to biphasic amongst some or us posting here. We'll all learn from each other, there's plenty of cross over. Much to consider with all of this also---for instance music, breathing and light. I have definitely found that turning the lights wakes me up great, both in the mornings and after naps (not just not enough light to see, all the lights in our front room--they are nice warm lights, no overhead florescent head pounders or anything !) I haven't gotten to it yet, but I'm quite sure that the right sort of music (highly individualized I'm sure) would be good for either waking up or going to sleep if either of these transitions become challenging. Andrew Weil has some great stuff on breathing exercises and I was considering adding this. It's an amazing composite, really. I'm really glad to be exploring it. Truth is, although I'm not a "type A" really or flitting around nervously or so overbooked that I don't know where I'm going, I do tend to keep quite a bit in the air with both a medical practice and an active and growing musical career in addition to family, the outdoors, having fun, reading, etc. (and now this forum!!) I have for as long as I can remember had some sort of energy dilemma-- feeling low on energy daily and trying to treat that with changes in diet and exercise primarily. Since I started with power naps, and even more with this biphasic change, I haven't had a bit of the type of energy drops I have had for years. That's really amazing, I always assumed that was my metabolism and I'd be having to push through those drops for the duration. So far so good on that, hope it lasts! Anyone else with noticeable changes in your energy level which you connect with changes in your sleep patterns?
__________________ Ati A Musica Cura Saudade |
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11-21-2006, 04:16 AM
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| This is slightly off-topic, but...in the past few days, I've seen three different pointers to Dr. Andrew Weil. The most recent was Ati's latest post, which mentions him and which I read just a few minutes ago at 11:11pm. Synchronicities, anyone? Probably best not to reply to this message except by PM--I don't want to lead the whole thread off-topic... |
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11-21-2006, 06:22 PM
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| Hi all, If anyone is interested I have just started sleeping biphasically, I have decided to keep a record of my progress in the form of a blog. Here. It's not a fancy blog like Steves I just made it in a couple of minutes in order to record my results. I will be updating it after each |