Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsjenkins168 | Hacker News Reader

Studies have shown you need at least 8 hours of continuous sleep if you are on a traditional monophasic sleep schedule. Anything less and you start to accumulate "sleep debt" and performance decreases, among other things.

If you are very very serious about reducing total sleep time, you can attempt polyphasic sleep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep

I recommend trying to find Why We Nap by Dr. Stampi. Its the only detailed research on the subject. Basically, dont trust much of the info about polyphasic sleep around the net as much of it is false.

View on HN

Steve Pavlina: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/ did polyphasic sleep for a while, and does a good job relating his experiences.

His conclusion: It sucks because life isn't set up for that sleep pattern.

How did you reach that conclusion from what he said? From what I remember he loved it while on it, and noted improvements in mood and concentration, in addition to having time for additional hobbies such as cooking.

He switched back to monophasic several months later so that he could spend more time with his family during their traditional awake hours. He also simply got bored of being awake when no one else was...

I was a little harsh I suppose, but here's what he says:

"The #1 reason I decided to call it quits is simply that the rest of the world is monophasic. If most of the world was polyphasic, I probably would have stuck with it. Obviously when you go polyphasic, you fall out of sync with the way other people live. You’re awake most of the night while everyone is asleep. If you sleep like most people, then the hours you’ll gain from polyphasic sleep will come in the middle of the night. And as I gradually learned, nighttime hours are not the same as daytime hours when you live in a monophasic world."

Sorry about the ad-hominem, but I think it's relevant to keep in mind that this is the guy that proposed that you could manifest one million dollars into your life just by declaring your intention everyday.

Well, last I heard he was making $40K/month and he had received valuations of $1-2M. Pav says some crazy stuff but it's usually backed up by his experiences.

there is not much practical advice in why we nap (which I recommend checking out from a library), but after reading it I realized how little research has been done on irregular sleeping patterns. I tried polyphasic for a while, but life is not setup for it, and you will be tired while trying to make the transitions- it takes an incredible amount of will power.

What I have found though is that you can sleep less at night if you take more naps during the day. Whether everyone can make a full transition to polyphasic is unclear. When I can manage, I sleep less than six hours at night and then take one or two 15 minute naps during the day.

Lucid dreaming is another approach to take to sleep- instead of avoiding sleep trying to be productive while sleeping. (inventor Ray Kurzweil does this)

It is possible to power-nap ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_nap ) on public transport. Your timing has to be good but it will quickly improve with practice. Masters of the art are able to nap while standing on a train and wake shortly before their destination.

I actually tried polyphasic sleep for a while (6-7 weeks), and it was great after I adjusted. It was a little creepy being up all night, but I wrote a lot of code, and felt fine.

The only problem is the nap schedule makes it impossible to have any scheduled commitments. As soon as school started, I just couldn't keep up with the naps.

My advice: polyphasic sleep is great, IF you don't have any scheduled time commitments.

(If you're curious about polyphasic sleep, I suggest you try it. It's an interesting experience, regardless of whether or not it's practical.)

I found the book on amazon.ca but it's not in stock and it costs over 240$ !! How can it be so expensive??

It is expensive because it is no longer in print. However, walmart in-store has it for 110$ http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=182980...

Did you try polyphasic sleep yourself? I did a fast search, this book seems not so easy to find...

I'm (sort of) doing it right now. Steve Pavlina's right, it's hard to integrate with the rest of the world (and he was self-employed with older children, and I work for the Man and have babies). I write about it sometimes on my blog - it's less instructive as an ideal case compared to Pavlina, but probably more inline with what a normal person could expect. I've got to say, if there's a lot of inflexible time requirements in life (day job, family, etc), polyphasic sleep is a great way to get some focus time to get in the zone. I've written more blog posts and more code since I restarted in earnest a couple weeks ago than I think I did in the 6 months before that. It really has given me a new sense of freedom to act.

http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/category/polyphasi...

> at least 8 hours of continuous sleep

You need as much sleep as leaves you alert and non-drowsy, even when bored. That's less than eight hours for me or any other adult I've lived with.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com