Polyphasic sleep: Difference between revisions

Polyphasic sleep is a sleep pattern specification intended to reduce sleep time to 2–5 hours daily. This is achieved by spreading out sleep into short naps of around 20–45 minutes throughout the day. This is supposed to allow for more waking hours with relatively high alertness.

The method uses natural human sleep mechanisms to maximize alertness when sleep time needs to be minimized. However, it requires a rigid schedule which makes it unfeasible for most people. It can work well for those engaged in activities which do not permit lengthy periods of sleep.

Theory

Ordinary "monophasic" sleep consists of several stages, some of which may not be necessary in the amounts or proportions that naturally occur. It is believed by advocates of polyphasic sleep that after undergoing controlled sleep deprivation during an initial adjustment period, the brain will start to enter the essential sleep stages much more quickly, as a survival strategy. Once this adaptation is learned, the theory goes, a comfortable and sustainable equilibrium of sleeping in only naps can be established.

Boat racers have used a similar technique to avoid dangers of sleeping for extended periods alone at sea. Astronauts have also occasionally tried similar strategies during extended crises. There is a substantial interest in polyphasic sleep at NASA and among the military (esp. the Marines).

Practice

Self-testers often "crash" several times while testing and accidentally sleep through for several hours longer than intended. Current polyphasic users and scientific evidence (Stampi's) both suggest that problems relating to tiredness dissipate around 10 days into the schedule, and disappear completely around 14 days into the schedule, but many self-testers do not effectively plan their two week transition period. Therefore, they remain tired long after the target 14-day end date and eventually terminate the experiment.

Mechanism

According to Claudio Stampi's book ("Why We Nap, Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep"), in sleep deprived condition, measurements of a polyphasic sleeper's memory retention and analytical ability show increases as compared with monophasic and biphasic sleep (but still a decrease of 12% as compared with entrained free running sleep). According to Stampi, the improvement is due to an extraordinary evolutionary predisposition to adopt such a sleep schedule; he hypothesizes this 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.

There are at least two schools of thought as to how polyphasic adaptation affects sleep patterns. One school claims that REM sleep is the most necessary stage, and that the body needs multiple hours of this stage each day, so therefore every nap taken by a polyphasic sleeper consists entirely of REM sleep. Another school acknowledges research done on users of this schedule (Scientific American Frontiers 1991), which suggests that the body will enter different stages of sleep during the different naps—REM during some, deeper sleep during others—in order to get some of each essential stage.

The idea that polyphasic sleepers experience only REM sleep is relatively popular among advocates, perhaps because some theories of sleep suggest that REM is largely responsible for the mental rejuvenation effects of sleep. However, the role of REM sleep has been disputed in recent years. It has been documented that depriving rats of REM sleep in particular leads to death in 3 to 8 weeks, but the notion that REM sleep is the most important phase of sleep, or even necessary for good health, is dubious: depressed people are known to have excessive REM sleep [1]; and monoamine oxidase inhibitors nearly completely abolish REM sleep, yet patients who take MAOIs do not exhibit any obvious cognitive deficits (Siegel 2001).

Types

The term "polyphasic sleep" itself means only the practice of sleeping multiple times in a 24-hour period (usually, more than two, in contrast to "biphasic sleep") and does not suggest any particular schedule.

"Uberman" is likely to be the most widely known type of polyphasic sleep, and also the most strict. It consists of six naps of 20–25 minutes each, occurring four hours apart throughout the day. This is also the closest schedule to the type that has been studied by Claudio Stampi in connection with long-distance solo boat races.

"Core sleep" is a variant of Uberman that adds a block of sleep, usually several hours, to the Uberman schedule, replacing one or two naps. (This term is also sometimes heard to describe a short accidental oversleep by someone following Uberman.)

Buckminster Fuller advocated "Dymaxion Sleep," a regimen consisting of 30 minute naps every six hours. A short article was published about this schedule in Time Magazine's Oct. 11, 1943 issue (Time 1943). According to this article, Bucky followed this schedule for two years, but after that had to quit because "his schedule conflicted with that of his business associates, who insisted on sleeping like other men."

Criticism

The theory behind polyphasic sleep is unsound as there is no brain control mechanism that would make it possible to switch from a typical biphasic (or monophasic) sleep pattern to "multiple naps" system. The body will always tend to consolidate sleep into, at least, one solid block of sleep (usually during the night or early in the morning). As a result, adepts of polyphasic sleep suffer through a never-ending period of "adaptation". There is no scientific evidence supporting the possibility of entrainment of the polyphasic pattern. There are no peer-reviewed publications.

Critics have expressed concern that the ways in which polyphasic sleep limits actual sleep time, restricts time spent in peripheral stages of the sleep cycle, and disrupts the circadian rhythm of the body will eventually cause subjects to suffer the same negative effects as with most forms of sleep deprivation, such as decreased mental and physical ability, increased stress and anxiety, and weakened immune system. There is a lack of controlled study documenting the negative side effects, but critics point to journals kept by subjects who have difficulty waking at specific intervals without oversleeping as anecdotal evidence that the pattern is unsustainable.

Advocates of polyphasic sleep often claim that the procedure boosts their alertness, but skeptics question whether this alertness is related to the sleep pattern or whether increased adrenaline and cortisol is gained from eagerness to succeed in their polyphasic experiment and their other productive pursuits. A study published in the Journal of Sleep Research in September of 2002 concerning the effects of napping on productivity found that 10-minute naps tended to improve productivity more than longer naps, which may suggest that the onset of sleep is not the cause of the increased alertness.

Polyphasic sleep is also thought to increase REM sleep, but it may also be likely to upregulate slow-wave sleep, causing a polyphasic sleeper to gain less REM sleep in a given period of time than with standard sleep patterns. Different sleep patterns may also give varied results (polyphasic sleeper Steve Pavlina reported dissatisfaction with the 6-hour interval, 30-minute nap variation [2]).

Most polyphasic sleepers tend to claim that the most difficult aspect of the sleep pattern to overcome is the social aspect, as the work hours of modern careers generally do not allow for the required nap periods at regular intervals. Personal accounts indicate that missing even one nap can cause heavy drowsiness, and thus even successful polyphasic sleepers often revert to monophasic sleep to accommodate their schedules.

Attributed polyphasic sleepers

Proponents claim that several famous people applied catnapping to a large extent. These include:

• Leonardo da Vinci — unverified. It seems all we know about Leonardo's sleep was written after his death. Polyphasic sleep blogs claim he slept only 15 minutes at a time, every two hours.
• Thomas Edison — false. He is known to have held sleep in contempt. He also practiced catnapping. Yet his naps, often on the floor, could take several hours. He had a napping cot in his office. Most importantly, however, he would take a normal 4-5 hours sleep in the night. Due to his contempt for sleep, he would often claim to sleep less than it was actually observed by his co-workers. He often worked throughout the night. However, he would usually sleep through the most of the next day. During a short period of life, Edison kept a diary whose scanned versions are available on-line. The diary shows that he would often wake up at 5-6 am and linger in bed till 8-9 am repeatedly waking up and falling asleep again. He was definitely not a polyphasic sleeper despite a widely-spread urban myth
• Buckminster Fuller — when travelling extensively, instead of submitting to a jet lag, he would enter what he called a "dog sleep", i.e. getting a 15 min. nap every 2 hours or so. It is not clear for how long he could sustain such schedules.
• Nikola Tesla — unverified. Rather than being polyphasic, Tesla used to work excitedly for extended periods of time seemingly without fatigue (even above 70 hours). Yet he is also reported to sleep through the entire day
• Napoleon — unverified
• Benjamin Franklin — urban legend. It is Franklin who said "There will be sleeping enough in the grave" as well as "The sleeping fox catches no poultry". However, he is also attributed with "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise", which is a definite monophasic mantra.
• Winston Churchill — urban legend. It is well documented that Churchill slept little in the night and worked till the very late hours. However, he regularly took an afternoon nap of 1-2 hours saying "this gets me two days in one". As such, Churchill was definitely biphasic
• Bruce Lee used to nap on movie sets
• Thomas Jefferson — this claim is likely to be an urban legend as Jefferson, in his own words, indicated that he slept irregularly in a single block of 5-8 hours in the night, always after 30-60 minutes of inspirational reading (Letters to Vine Utley, 1819)
• United States presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, and Harry S. Truman are/were frequent nappers. They were all biphasic sleepers (i.e. not polyphasic, as per definition of this article)
• Steve Fossett, while flying non-stop around the world used 5 min. powernaps in regular intervals around the clock
• Ellen McArthur, while sailing around the world used 3-10 min. catnaps frequently around the clock
• Claudio Stampi advocates polyphasic sleep as a means of ensuring optimal performance in situations where extreme sleep deprivation is inevitable (e.g. to improve performance in solo sailboat racers), but Stampi does not advocate the polyphasic sleep as a lifestyle.
• Sir Hubert Opperman and thousands of other practitioners of the form of long-distance endurance cycling known as randonneuring have successfully completed events that required them to propel themselves over 1200 km in less than 90 hours, under rules that effectively proscribed sleeping more than a few hours at a time. Many in fact sleep less than 30 minutes at a time over the challenging routes, the best-known of which is Paris-Brest-Paris, a 1200-km challenge that attracts 3000+ riders from over 20 countries every 4 years.

Polyphasic sleep in fiction

• Polyphasic sleep was also popularized on Seinfeld, where the character Cosmo Kramer attempted to adapt to a polyphasic sleeping pattern in The Friar's Club episode.
• Some writers have depicted Batman as sleeping only two hours every twenty four hours; the exact schedule has not been shown.
• The character Shellman (Skalman) in Bamse is a polyphasic sleeper; using a special alarm clock as a reminder when to sleep and when to eat.
• In Ursula K. Le Guin's story The Word for World is Forest is set on a planet where the monkey-like hominids that make up the native population practice polyphasic sleeping naturally, finding alternative methods of sleep strange. Later, one human character attempts, with some success, to imitate the native sleep patterns.

References

• Claudio Stampi. Why We Nap, Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep. (1992) ISBN 0-81763-462-2
• Jerome M. Siegel. (2001) The REM sleep-memory consolidation hypothesis. Science 294(5544):1058-63.
• "Catching Catnaps," Scientific American Frontiers, Show 105, February 27, 1991. (transcript, video)
• Dymaxion Sleep, TIME magazine, Oct. 11, 1943.
• Tietzel, Amber J. & Lack, Leon C. (2002) The recuperative value of brief and ultra-brief naps on alertness and cognitive performance. Journal of Sleep Research 11 (3), 213-218.

External links

Criticism

• Ubersleep? Hacking Sleep? Stupid!
• Polyphasic Sleep: Facts and Myths

Praise, Support, Advocates

• Polyphasic / Uberman Sleep Schedule - Five Years Later by the author of the famous Everything2 node
• Polyphasic Sleep Forum & Wiki at PolyphasicSleep.com
• The original Uberman's Sleep Schedule node at Everything2 (December 2000)
• Uberman Sleep Schedule YahooGroup
• Personal experience over a 3 month period at StevePavlina.com

Analysis

• Polyphasic Sleep Wiki
• Miles to Go Before I Sleep at Outside.com
• What You Can Do About Sleep Deprivation at Healthology.com
• The Power of the Sleep Cycle at GlenRhodes.com, advocating sleep in increments of 90 minutes

Other

• Sleep facts from Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer site
• Uberman's Sleep Schedule at Kuro5hin: 2002 article by a self-tester that outlines pros and cons; one of the original Web resources describing the technique

Polyphasic Sleep Testers

Sorted by the starting date:

Success Stories (true Uberman)

none at the moment

Success Stories (other polyphasic)

Stories of happy polyphasic sleepers that apply biphasic sleep, polyphasic sleep with "core sleep", polyphasic sleep with naps longer than 20 minutes, or periods with "oversleep":

• Started 2005-11-03: Andreas Pauli's Polyphasic Sleep Blog. Successful.
• Started 2005-11-07: Federico Pistono - Project Polyphasic Sleep 162+ Days counting. Declares: respiration and heart beat control, improved concentration and attention, better health, lucid dreams, higher grades at University.
• Started 2006-01-02: Stuart Hogton - Been going 3+ months now, had a few ups and downs but have embraced polyphasic as a lifestyle. Feel much more relaxed knowing there is more time to get things done.
• Started 2006-01-20: Achieving Goals: A Guide to Polyphasic Sleep Claims: improved health, recovery from injuries, increased creativity.