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Comment by nakedrobot2 | Hacker News Reader

WHY OH WHY is polyphasic sleep so attactive? Read about it a little bit, and realize that it is totally, TOTALLY unnatural, nearly impossible to maintain for any length of time, and possibly dangerous to your long-term well-being.

Go hack something else. Leave your circadian rhythms alone. You cannot redesign them or improve them.

If you are working on a submarine, then maybe polyphasic sleep is useful, because of the extraordinary circumstances. Otherwise, it is simply a bad idea.

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You're probably right about polyphasic sleep. Biphasic sleep is worth considering, however, either in the flavor of daily naps, or simply getting up for an hour or so in the middle of the night. There is some evidence for the notion that this was the norm before artificial light: http://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/sleepcommentary.html

Napping in the afternoon (the hottest part of the day) is common in many cultures as well.

That's pretty much what I do now. My daughter (at one!) still needs a bottle around 2-3 am, so I'll feed her then tidy up or move the wash to the dryer or something. I think it's at least worthwhile to explore how you sleep, even if you're not trying to do the whole polyphasic thing. Just sleeping at a regular time every day, and timing your wakeups to coincide with a sleep cycle can make you feel better and give you a lot of extra hours on the weekend (no sleeping in!)

Segmented sleep and biphasic sleep are distinct terms with very different meanings in this context [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep#Claimed_sleep...

> totally, TOTALLY unnatural

Source? because the studies I know usually show polyphasic sleep as the most natural, and wikipedia agrees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep)

> nearly impossible to maintain for any length of time

crazy schedules like uberman, perhaps, but I know people that have been on everyman for years.

> possibly dangerous to your long-term well-being

So is monophasic sleep.

> Leave your circadian rhythms alone. You cannot redesign them or improve them.

Unless you can.

That article is about biphasic sleep cycles, not polyphasic.

Biphasic is a form of polyphasic. And if two segments are better than one, why would you think three segments are definitely worse than one?

Well, I'm certainly not an expert in the field, but from that same wikipedia article it seems as though a large number of human societies have practiced biphasic sleep cycles, but there's no historical reference to having more phases than that. If it were that advantageous, why haven't there been entire societies practicing it?

Not necessarily.

First of all, what 'advantageous' means has changed a lot. Our priorities and needs nowadays are completely different then back in early history. Food is abundant, physical work is much less common, etc.

The benefits from having more awake time might not be enough to propagate such a change. Or the lost flexibility might have mattered much more back then.

I'm not claiming everyman is clearly and strictly better than mono or biphasic sleep. We have to find out, and the only way we can find out is by people actually trying it. But saying that monophasic sleep is the only way to sleep is silly.

Yup. That's why my desk fan has 11 blades, and my car has 16 wheels and a 1024 valve engine.

Most of my life consists of "unnatural" things. This is hardly the right audience for an "appeal to nature".

That it is nearly impossible to maintain for any length of time explains why things that can make it easier to maintain is attractive.

The only real objection you are presenting is that it possibly is dangerous.

> Go hack something else. Leave your circadian rhythms alone. You cannot redesign them or improve them.

Do you have any actual basis for this claim, or are you just making another appeal to nature?

I bet you're just in the pocket of Big Sleep.

Regardless of whether polyphasic is best, it looks like it also supports biphasic and a variety of other sleep modes.

Polyphasic sleep looks pretty natural if you're the parent of a newborn.

True, but in terms of performance, the only measure that I would have liked to been judged on during my kid's first few months would be survival.

actually this is the first i've heard of it and its not too far from my natural sleeping pattern tbh.

if left unchecked i usually end up with a couple of 2-3 hour naps in a 24hr period instead of a big sleep.

although i'm sure its not good for me. :)

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