Polyphasic Sleep

Recently I have been considering switching over to a polyphasic sleep schedule. Polyphasic sleep simply means to sleep more than once a day. That alone sounds pointless but the result is greatly reduced sleep time, the minimum being 2 hours daily sleep. This is done by shortening 90 minute sleep phases in to 20 minute naps, so you can get the full effect of a 90 minute sleep in just 20 minutes. It's not exactly clear as how this works, but I'd imagine it's because we are ineffective sleepers naturally. This could be because naturally humans wouldn't want to be up all night so sleeping passes time and if we didn't need to pass time, our sleep phases would only take 20 minutes. I don't think anyone really knows why polyphasic sleep works.

There are only a few schedules that have worked before. The most hardcore one is known as uberman sleep. This schedule involves a 20 minute nap every 4 hours. I have attempted to transition to this before but I was younger and not nearly as healthy as I am now. I will not be attempting this schedule this time, but I want to do it again in the future.

There are methods of polyphasic sleep that are generally easier to adapt to. Everyman sleep schedule is usually a 3 hour sleep at night with 3 20 minute naps during the day. I have also tried this at around the same time I tried uberman, so again, not healthy and too young, but I found the core 3 hour sleep the hardest to do properly. It sounds much easier but both methods are very difficult and most people fail, so if you try them, I recommend first becoming extremely healthy and mastering monophasic sleep, if you want a good chance at adapting.

There is another version of Everyman sleep, which is even easier and less rewarding. It will still take 2-4 hours of sleep less each day than regular monophasic sleep would require. This method works by a 4.5 hours core sleep at night with 2 naps of 20 minutes length each. This method gives the most versatility and length between naps while sacrificing more night time than other methods. This is the method I wish to try to adapt to this time.

There is also a thing called biphasic sleep. Some include it as a polyphasic sleep schedule but as poly means many and I don't consider 2 as many, I believe it is best to just call it biphasic sleep, and leave polyphasic to triphasic and more. I do not want to adapt to biphasic sleep as I don't currently feel that it is worth the time to adapt and the lost time early in the night doesn't really justify the gained time late at night. It just doesn't fit in unless you want to go to bed at 9:00pm or before. I'd rather go to bed at 3:00am.

So I came up with a schedule to try which will give me just 5 hours and 10 minutes of sleep a day. This is the schedule I want to follow:

3:00am - 7:30am
2:00pm - 2:20pm
9:00pm - 9:20pm

This should give me a total of 18 hours and 50 minutes of waking time each day. Currently I get 15-17 hours. I don't know when I will start to adapt, but it should be very soon. At the moment I am still in the planning part.

What I learnt last time
Last time I tried polyphasic sleep was about 1 year ago. Although I was certainly not deficient in nutrients I had little concept of health and did not give it much energy. There is a theory that only vegetarians can adapt to polyphasic sleep but that is only because, to make a generalisation, vegetarians are healthier. I don't necessarily agree with only vegetarians can adapt, but I am one now and wasn't last time. Still, it was definitely worthwhile trying because I learnt why I failed and how to change it next time. This time I have a far greater chance of success for several reasons including health.

My computer is now in my room so I won't have to go very far to occupy myself. Not that I am too lazy to go to a different room, it's just if you have tried polyphasic sleep before you know how difficult it can get, and having something to do helps a lot.

I am taking an easier method. It gets difficult waiting all night when tired. It's fine once you adapt if you ever get there, but if you only sleep 2 hours a day it is very difficult. This time I will only have to keep myself busy until 3:00am, and sleeping 4 and a half hours should get me through the day while adapting.

Last time I didn't eat or drink at all during the night. That could have been a big contribution to why I failed because if I remember back to the times I was most tired, eating a piece of fruit would have kept me going. I will make sure I have a banana and a glass of water to help me make it through.

I won't go on about anymore details as this has been a long post, but in general I know what to do this time and have learnt from my failures previously. I have just shared the main points. If I come across ways to help the adaption I will post them in the daily log I'll keep. The daily updates will be available when I started adapting soon. Maybe if I make it through I'll be able to share all my tips and tricks for getting through.

Anyway, I did most of the planning for it while writing this post, so I know what I am doing now. Take a look at future posts for my updates and if I make it or not.