Biphasic Sleep clarification needed...

[jmrex]

**>> Sorry moderators, I think I posted this thread in the wrong forum! If so, can someone please move this into the Personal Effectiveness sub-forum? **

Hi, I came across this forum via a previous google article search. I was hoping that somebody would be able to clarify a couple things for me.

I'm a 30 year old male who typically sleeps 6 hours a day (monophasic.) I don't remember how old I was since adapting to this, but it's definitely been at least 10 years. No matter what time I would go to bed, (i.e. midnight, 1AM,2AM...) I would always get up 6 hours (with or without an alarm clock, +/- 5-10minutes)

So I've read a few articles, and it looks like I typically fall into 4 90 minute chunks which add up to 6.


My work-time situation :

I definitely have to be up and active between 6:00am - 5:00pm (06:00-17:00) - *** I possibly might have access to a 20 or 30 minute nap in between 4pm and 5pm.


Question #1.

Is the goal of biphasic (or even polyphasic) to reduce the amount of sleep one already has had from a monophasic standpoint?

My goal was to hopefully add some extra time into my day for productivity.

i.e. could I reduce my sleep that I normally have from 6 hours to 4.5 hours then? meaning 1 core sleep cycle of 3 hours somewhere at night, 1 evening cycle of 1.5 hours?

Question #2.
I wasn't sure on the time splitting duration.
How long or how many hours should the two sleep cycles be spread apart?


I'm not sure if I could realistically switch my sleep from 6 hours to 4.5hours a day.

For 6 hours that would be 4.5 hours @ night + 1.5 hours in the evening.

For 4 1/2 hours that would be 3 hours @ night + 1.5 hours in the evening.


Question #3
Would a 20 or 30 minute nap somewhere in between these two phases be detrimental or useful?

Then I could possible get 5 hours instead of 6 which seems nice than 4.5hours, but I'm not sure if this would affect my sleep REM stage cycle since I haven't studied the full technical side of the latter.



Question #4

Do I need to change any of my eating or caffeine habits?


Thanks for your input! This info would really help me out!

[Beuford]

Hi, I think I can answer a few of your questions.

If you sleep 6 hours now, and you are fine and awake during the day without caffeine, then you can probably do fine sleeping on 4 and a half hours core sleep and an evening nap of 20 minutes, but you will probably be drowsy during the day for a few weeks. The best thing is to experiment here.

You can only scarcely drink caffeine and not often, more so with polyphasic sleep. The idea of such sleep schedule is to provide the benefits of a full sleep but in short time. So you would rarely benefit from having caffeine, but it won't put you off if you had disturbed sleep one night and you supplemented with caffeine just once.

So the longer sleep session should probably start at some point between 3 and 4 hours after the smaller sleep has ended, not too far away, but not too close. Again, experiment.

[Brutha]

Sleep issues are fine in health&fitness.

i.e. could I reduce my sleep that I normally have from 6 hours to 4.5 hours then? meaning 1 core sleep cycle of 3 hours somewhere at night, 1 evening cycle of 1.5 hours?

There are people who have had success with it that way.
Try it out.

Would a 20 or 30 minute nap somewhere in between these two phases be detrimental or useful?

Additional naps are useful.

How long or how many hours should the two sleep cycles be spread apart?

As much as possible. I think you should have at least 6 hours between the two sleep phases.

Do I need to change any of my eating or caffeine habits?

It's a good idea to drop coffee.

[jmrex]

Thanks again for the additional input!