Comment by chetan51 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chetan51 | Hacker News Reader

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Hi, Chetan here. First off, thank you for your opinions.

About Colemak, I think a bunch of the replies to your posts hit the nail on the head. It's been a really rewarding switch, and I can still type QWERTY fine when I have to.

As for biphasic sleep, if you do a bit of research on it, you'll find that it's even more natural than a monophasic sleep cycle (think about why the siesta is so popular in other countries). It's just not as convenient for the average American, since everyone doesn't follow it. That being said, if you have some flexibility with your schedule and can implement it successfully, it can turn out to be better for your health and time than a monophasic sleep cycle.

And you're right about the 30/30 cycle being hard to use in a professional setting. That's why I would use it for personal projects, or when I'm working at home. It's just another tool for your productivity toolbox; you don't have to use it in every situation for it to be useful.

Right. The argument is that we force ourselves into monophasic sleep, which is unnatural and inefficient.

"Why We Nap" (ISBN 0817634622) is a great resource about polyphasic sleep. Most of us are in the habit of monophasic sleep, even if we have crazy or limited sleep schedules. The thing is, if your body goes through more than one sleep cycle in a period of sleep, then there is a period in the middle where you are basically not getting anything from the sleep. Biphasic sleeping is a way to reset the cycle more quickly, so instead of 2 hours of low value sleep, you just wake up for a half hour or so.

Personally, I've found that another important thing is simply sleeping consistently. That means either certain times of the day or for certain amounts of time. For example, always sleeping in three hours means your body knows what to expect and makes the most out of the time. Biphasic is just the easiest (and perhaps most natural) way to do it.

I found this page convincing that polyphasic sleep won't be optimal for performance in practice, despite its obvious appeal

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm

""" Healthy body clock runs a 24 hour cycle. This cycle will make you sleepy during the subjective night (which can be midday too). This is why you won't be able to wake up from your nap in your subjective night without an alarm clock. Alarm clocks are unhealthy. They prevent sleep from fulfilling its function. The choice is yours: either (1) sleep polyphasically or (2) sleep naturally and let your brain develop its full intellectual potential. """

Here is a rebuttal to that article by a prolific polyphasic sleeper:

http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2006/11/01/an-attack-on-p...

Thanks for the pointer. I found a follow up from the same author I posted:

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic2010.htm

he addresses some of the critiques of his original article.

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