“I Sleep Two Hours Per Day” | Hacker News Reader

“I Sleep Two Hours Per Day”

danceproof.com

14 pointsArsene16 comments

I've known 3 people who gave this a serious shot. All tried different variations, and all are very bright individuals who recorded their sleep to the hour. One has a family and a business, the other two are extremely bright engineers.

2 eventually gave up on their own, as it was too intense.

1 almost killed themselves when they blacked out driving, then gave up immediately.

Interesting point about driving.. Since I'm a driver, I wonder how many 'polyphasic' zombies I encounter out on the road? My dad has always told me that sleep deprivation is a significant cause of car wrecks. I'm sure there's research to support this if you google around.

So basically I hate these people. They should do something else with their free time, instead of endangering others with their zombie-driving.

Not many, I'm sure, as it's EXTREMELY hard to maintain polyphasic sleep if your life is anything close to what people call "normal." You can barely go to a movie theater. That said, driving does seem a little reckless, at least until you're absolutely sure you're safe to do so.

When I was younger (college), I really wanted to sleep less. I thought that if I could get by on 6 hours, 4 hours, or 3 hours of sleep, I'd live a better life, and would have more time to get things done.

No more. First, there is a lot of research that most people need 8+ hours of sleep, and that this is determined genetically. As in, not everyone can move to a 4 hour sleep night without side effects.[1]

Second, I'm happier and more productive when I'm well rested. Better 16 good hours a day than 20 bad hours.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/health/research/14sleep.ht... (registration req'd)

There's lots of data supporting this, sleep research has gotten big in the last 50 years. I haven't studied the rationale behind the polyphasic sleep system but it sounds like a couple slip-ups and you're hosed, whereas if most people go without much sleep for a few nights they'll be tired but able to rebound with a regular night's sleep. It sounds dangerous to leave yourself constantly on the verge of sleep deprivation.

This is the same results I arrived at. By now, I am pretty convinced that routine and focus is much more important than being able to sleep 4 hours less, whereas routine easens focusing hard and thus being more productive.

Right now, my very own producivity experiment is pretty amazing. I am currently training to get up at 6, eat till 7 and work till 12 from there on and after about a week or two of doing this, things just go amazingly well. I get up, and while my head is still kind of sleepy, my hands prepare coffee, breakfast and whatever else needs to be done, but once it is 7 o'clock, I almost instantly slip into the zone and stay there for a few hours (it works well enough such that I am running out of projects to solve for university, which I consider a good thing ;) )

I've tried the Uberman three times, failing each time. I don't recommend the Uberman to anyone. In a population where almost everyone does it, it'd be great, but for most people now it's just not possible. The world is run by monophasic sleepers. I'll be interested if this guy succeeds.

I've done the 3-hour core sleep with three 20-minute naps variant of the Everyman, and that lasted (fairly well) for a little over a month. But even as flexible as that was, between school and other activities I just couldn't manage to do all my naps on time, and I had to give it up.

I started the 4.5-hour core sleep with two 20-minute naps variant of the Everyman a couple days ago, since this coming semester I can actually accommodate the naps. I sleep from 2am to 6:30am, with naps at 12:30pm and 6:30pm. I think it's fairly hard to fail this one, and the adjustment period isn't so bad. My monophasic schedule (when school's in) is 4-8 hour sleeps (average 6) with 12+ hour recharges on the weekends, and I'm sick of that.

He just started yesterday. Someone repost this in a month. From what I've heard, most people don't make it very far.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

Note that he quit the next year:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/polyphasic-sleep-th...

I thought it might have affected him mentally, but from his writing he already believed reality is subjective when he started.

HN is not here for you to post your blogspam. Please stop.

(this and also http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1019785 which has even less relevance to HN readers).

edit: I'm not objecting to self-linking at all, or indeed to the meaninglessness of the article being based on intentions rather than results.

I'm objecting to the simultaneous posting of this with 'The real meaning of Christmas: seeing through the bullshit' (at the link mentioned above) from the same author, who has 0 comments to their credit. Posting multiple stories at once is spammy, and happens a lot on the new page.

It's pretty well established that it's fine to submit your own articles to HN, provided they meet the standard HN criteria for story submission. The fact that this is less than an hour old and nearly at the top of the front page would seem to indicate that people find it interesting.

EDIT: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=129291

I heard Buckminister Fuller tried something similar. He recounted he had gained more energy out of his reduced sleep cycles. But I wondered why he didn't keep the practice to his death, if that was indeed the case.

What I read Fuller did was simply catnap whenever he felt the urge. I also heard he never slept regularly again after starting this. I worked for an architect who spent a summer at Black Mountain, he said Fuller would just lie down and take a nap anywhere, even in the middle of giving a lecture (which I think was an exaggeration, being active, even just lecturing, is the best way I know of to stay awake and alert).

I'm a pretty light sleeper. I can usually only get one decent night of sleep a week. Might as well spend it being up and doing stuff.

I wonder if something like WakeMate would be beneficial in polyphasic sleep, or are you not asleep long enough?

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