any one have any experience with such a sleep schedule? Supposedly you can sleep for like 25 min 6 times a day for a few months on end and get by just fine. anyway here's wiki for you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
I've heard of this, but never had the guts to try it. I find it interesting that I used to need 8-9 hours of sleep every night or I couldn't function. I can get by with 2-3 now. Not indefinitely, but for several days, then back to my usual 4-5. All my grandpa ever slept was 3-4. He would nap for 15-20 minutes, once in the morning and in the evening. So maybe he was practicing a modified version of what you're talking about without realizing it.
I have a sleeping pattern similar to that during spates of really hot weather (like now). Not on purpose, I just can't sleep properly so I wind up spending my time doing something more fruitful than tossing and turning in a humid room, then dozing for a bit when I can. I can't say that I get along just fine - I actually tend to find that my decision making is affected for the worse. (i.e. I make rash, sometimes irrational, decisions that I regret later. I also get quite over-emotional about stupid things that wouldn't normally affect me in the slightest ).
I just don't see how this would work with a work schedule?? I can't think of any employer who would give the requisite number of sleep breaks. And then there is the simple fact that this is not a natural sleep pattern. Circadian rhythms affect more than just one's sleep time.
I seriously considered doing this a few months back, but as I'm still a teenagers I'm still growing so I was advised against doing so. But it is absolutely great!! There are many variations of the schedule but all of them you do very regular short naps in which you go straight into deep sleep. The thing about regular sleep is that most of it is completely pointless, the light sleeping does nothing but use time as it's the deep sleep that actually get's you rested ... the reason why teenagers oughtn't do it is because you grow in the night thus the sleeping patterns wouldn't allow you to grow very well. But if you are an adult who has a job in which will allow you half an hour off every four hours (when you do this for longer you can go without sleep for longer) and if you want loads more spare time I seriously advise you to at least look it up in more detail. http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ is where I first got interested in it, it's a guy who has a family but works at home as he begins polyphasic sleeping and it blogs it for over 90 days, the reason why he stopped in the end was because his wife wasn't polyphasic sleeping so he felt too much at odds with his family.
Right now I don't have a job getting in the way, so if I can find a way of doing this without bothering the others in my apartment, I might just try something like this.
I have a friend who does this, and he's a brain surgeon. For some occupations it is actually more convenient to be able to catch a few minutes of sleep wherever you can rather than one long night of sleep. He's more extreme than this though, he takes a large number of 10-15 minute naps rather than even a 25 minute nap. All in all he probably only gets 2-3 hours of sleep a day. He's constantly tired, but it must not be that bad since he can still do brain surgery under those circumstances *shrug*
Obviously only having television as a frame of reference, it kinda' freaks me out the hours that surgeons have to put in. Personally, I would like someone fresh from a good night's sleep with scalpel in hand rather than someone who is in hour 45 of a 72 hour stretch.
Oye! Does anyone else find this very alarming? EDIT. We posted at the same time Wrey, so yeah. It would appear I'm not alone.
well supposedly it's popular among writers as it can supposedly help one be more creative since as a result you get a larger occurrence of alpha and theta brain-waves, rather than beta, during the waking hours. http://ezinearticles.com/?Can-We-Sleep-For-Three-Hours-and-Still-Function-Normally?&id=27235
be prepared for a brutal 7-10 day period as you work into it plus the possibility of putting on weight as "Those who have tried it have reported an increase in appetite which may lead to weight gain. You would probably need to spend some of that extra time doing more exercise!"
This sleeping method was a requirement for LRRP troops. (Long Range Recon Patrol) We learned to live for up to three weeks on short naps as we kept moving to observe enemy movement down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia. When we returned to our hooches, we suffered "sleep-debt" and crashed for a couple days. Did you know you can "bank" sleep? To a limited extent, you can sleep extra hours for a few days in preparation for an upcoming period of time in which you know you're going to work for extra long hours.
I think you would also suffer from "REM Rebound." Since it takes 90 minutes on average to reach REM sleep, and you don't get it so much with catnaps, when you finally do sleep...you get wicked dreams as your brain tries to catch up.
Yeah, I've been doing it off and on for the last six years... At first, I started out easy with longer periods, but now I've got it down to half hour intervals...and man, am I cranky. I thought it was called 'having babies'... nice to know there's a name for it, lol. (I'm joking about having three toddlers who take turns bugging you with nightmares, lost pacifiers, blankets that have fallen off, etc... all night, every night). Knowing what I do about sleeping that way, I don't think I'd recommend polyphasic sleep on purpose.
Maybe on 'average' but I remember dozing off in class or whatnot many times for just a couple of minutes and immediately dreaming. Wasn't it Einstein or someone who used to take powernaps like that? He'd rest on a couch for a few minutes, holding a pencil and when he relaxed enough that the pencil fell from his hands, it would hit the floor and he would wake up...
I can sleep just fine with a remote control in my hands. And...I wouldn't wake up when it hit the floor. I can sleep through just about anything.
William does that! He falls asleep holding the remote to his chest with the top of the remote resting on his chin. I feel bad (but not too bad) when I have to take the remote 'cause there ain't no way I'm falling asleep to telenovelas.
I am not sure I could sleep for only 20 minutes at a stretch. I lay down for a nap and next thing I know it is three hours later.
