Today I’ll be starting my switch to a polyphasic sleeping cycle. Polyphasic sleeping (aka segmented sleep) is when you break up the usual “block” of sleep into smaller naps that are evenly spaced throughout the day. Also, the naps are very short (15-30 minutes) and done every 4 hours so in the end, you’re sleeping only a total of 2 to 3 hours. The most obvious benefit of this is gaining an extra 6 hours of awake time a day.
This may seem very strange to counter intuitive to everything we’ve been taught about sleep. We’ve always been told that 6-8 hours of sleep a night is what we should do. The reason is because most of the research that deprive people of that sleep shows negative effects on brain function, mood, etc…
Therefore, we see the importance of sleep and what happens when stop sleeping. However, most of these research projects focus more on sleep deprivation as oppose the polyphasic sleeping. Of course, as I start this switch from a monophasic sleeping cycle to a polyphasic one, I will be experiences the effects of sleep deprivation for some time until I adjust.
I read much information from others who have done polyphasic sleep and it seems that once you past the “hump” of the adaptation period, the detrimental effects in cognitive function and mood will start to subside and a new higher energy state is acheived. One of the authors that is well known for his documented transition to polyphasic sleep is Steve Pavlina (website). While it has taken others several weeks (even months) to transition, it seems to have taken Pavlina around a week to past the transition point. I hope that the transition point will be reached soon for me as well.
As a current medical student, I have become a bit accustomed to an irregular sleep cycle as I always find myself staying up late to study then taking short naps when there is not enough time to sleep. A few months ago, I found myself able to sleep on the couch in our study area for 15-25 minutes and even have vivid dreams during such a short sleep. This indicates to me that I am entering REM stage sleep in this short time. Since hitting REM sleep within the nap is key for polyphasic sleeping to work, I feel that I may be at an advantage in passing the transition period sooner than what would be expected… but I won’t really know until this week progresses…
There are disadvantages to this sleep pattern as well. Although I’ll be entering REM sleep, it doesn’t seem likely that I will enter the deeper stages of sleep which have important function as well. Will my brain be able to adapt and still complete the processes that occur during deeper sleep stages?..such as hormone secretion, memory processing?
Dr. Claudio Stampi, author of “Why We Nap” (1992), writes that in his experiments, polyphasic sleep showed an increase in of memory retention and analytical ability as compared with a monophasic or biphasic sleeping pattern. He also indicates that the proportion of sleep stages remains roughly the same in polyphasic sleep. His hypothesis states that it is possibly because polyphasic sleep was the preferred schedule of ancestors of the human race for thousands of years prior to the adoption of the monophasic schedule.
My friend Dr. David Eagleman (website) is a neuroscientist here in Houston and has shown interest in my personal experiment. At some point, I will probably be working with him to collect some EEG tracings from my brain as I sleep and comparing them to a normal sleeper. We’ll see how it looks and post the results here!
However it turns out, I’m looking forward in embarking on this personal experiment. In addition to the free time I might achieve, I hope to also stimulate new thoughts and inspirations, and sharpen my self discipline.
I’ll will be documenting this experiment as I go and posting about it here on my webpage. As I go through the first couple of days, please bear with me. I’m sure my writing will be a little rough as I combat the symptoms of sleep deprivation!
You crazy guy, you need to get back on this experiment.