Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Zero

November 16, 2009 · 28 comments

Every since I first read about polyphasic sleep in 2007 it has lingered in the back of my mind. Taking a 20 minute nap every 4 hours around the clock… is it possible? Could my body adjust? Could I function? Would I have the energy to exercise, or would I sit around in a daze? (twenty minute naps around the clock adds up to about 2 hours of sleep per 24 hour period).  Well, I’m going to try it. :-)

polyphasic-sleepBut… why?

The first thing that appeals to me about this concept is that it’s just plain weird. Secondly, the challenge seems nearly impossible. That is, the challenge to not give in to sleep deprivation and oversleep during the adjustment phase (which can last up to two weeks).

A normal sleep cycle lasts about an hour and a half and has four separate phases of brain activity. The final phase of the cycle is the REM (rapid eye movement) phase, which is the most restorative of the four. The goal of polyphasic sleep is to train the body to skip the three phases that aren’t as restorative and get straight to the REM phase. Dreams occur in the REM phase of sleep, so I’ll know I’m making progress towards adjustment when I start remembering dreams after my 20 minute naps – indicating my body is getting straight to the REM and skipping the other phases.

polyphasic-sleep-cycles

Is it possible?

Working for myself as a web developer, I have the flexibility of making my own schedule.  This will allow me to strictly adhere to my new schedule while I (hopefully) adjust.  However, there are two huge forces that will be colliding head on during this experiment. First, my love of sleep (usually over 9 hours a night) and dreaming (I keep a fascinating dream log), and secondly, my determination to not give up.

My sleep patterns are pretty chaotic right now, so hopefully this is an advantage as I adjust to a new schedule since I won’t have to “unlearn” a schedule first.

I’ve read about Steve Pavlina’s switch to polyphasic sleep (he kept it up for over 5 months) so I think I understand what to expect (Steve used the word “hellish” to describe the first week of adjustment *nervous laugh*).

Some Ground Rules

Here are the basic rules I’ll follow to get started:

  • Sleep Rules
    • No oversleeping
    • No oversleeping! This is the most crucial rule I must follow, as oversleeping once will set my adaption schedule back days at a time
    • I will set my alarm clock on the other side of the room so I have to get out of bed and walk over to it when it goes off
    • I will nap at 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, 2am, and 6am around the clock.
    • I will start naps within +/- 10 minutes of scheduled time during the adaption phase.  After I’m adjusted I should be able to delay naps by as much as 1-2 hours if needed.
    • Seriously, no oversleeping
  • Diet
    • Eat light snacks between naps; avoiding heavy foods, excessive carbs, and red meat.
    • No caffeine or candy (ouch!).  Caffeine is known to disrupt the REM phase of sleep and I’m afraid sugar would prevent me from falling asleep on time.
  • Awake time
    • During the adjustment phase, get outside once per period for a walk or light exercise
    • Keep the lights on during awake time
    • Create short, achievable  “to-do” lists for each 4 hour awake session.
    • Use pushups, going for a walk, or stretching to help wake from naps
  • Safety
    • No driving during night time awake sessions

Why Blog about it?

I’d like to post daily updates on my progress, challenges, and overall sanity for three reasons:

  1. Accountability
  2. It’s fun to share the experience
  3. It will motivate me to succeed

Tonight will be my first night of the experiment, so I expect to be pretty exhausted tomorrow. My body will also have to adjust to falling asleep more quickly – as it normally takes me at least 30 minutes to fall asleep at night.

Visualizing the Adjustment

I will periodically record my mental clarity, optimism, and fatigue levels on an ordinal 0-10 scale. I will then graph these values over time as the week goes on. Hopefully this will be an interesting visual to track my progress.

At the official start of the experiment:

Mental clarity – 10
Optimism – 10
Fatigue – 0

We’ll see how long the optimism stays at “10″… I feel like I’m sprinting up the foothills of Mt. Everest.  It won’t be long before the air gets thin.  Let’s do this!

[subscribe by rss or by email to follow my experiment]

[UPDATE 11/17 4:00 am: My goal is to keep the experiment going for two weeks in order to give my body a legitimate chance at adaptation.  If all is going well I anticipate extending the experiment indefinitely.]

EXPERIMENT INDEX:

  • Aaron

    “No caffeine or candy” Good luck have fun!

    Hah, but really — I can’t wait to see how you do. I (probably) would totally do this with you if I didn’t have school :-D
    Can’t wait for updates!

  • Aaron

    “No caffeine or candy” Good luck have fun!

    Hah, but really — I can’t wait to see how you do. I (probably) would totally do this with you if I didn’t have school :-D
    Can’t wait for updates!

  • elton08

    This sounds like like a great experiment! Sometimes I sleep eight hours straight and still feel tired. As long as you are taking brief naps along the way your body will adapt. You can accomplish more in your life around the clock. I think?

  • elton08

    This sounds like like a great experiment! Sometimes I sleep eight hours straight and still feel tired. As long as you are taking brief naps along the way your body will adapt. You can accomplish more in your life around the clock. I think?

  • http://drewskwarcan.com Drew

    @Aaron, yes this will be a huge challenge. I am hopeful, but the gravity of the lifestyle changes haven’t sunk in yet. The next 48 hours should be very interesting… :-)

    @elton08 thanks for the encouragement. Something I was just reading about sleep cycles talked about how we generally have two “energy reserves”; our primary short-term energy and our “second wind”. The second wind allows us to stay awake for 14-18 hours at a time, but it takes a lot of rest to fully replenish. The idea behind polyphasic sleep is to never use (or try to replenish) your second wind – focusing solely on the primary short-term energy, which is much easier to replenish via short naps. That’s the plan at least :-) And you’re absolutely right, I hope to be able to accomplish much more per day if I can successfully adapt.

  • http://drewskwarcan.com Drew

    @Aaron, yes this will be a huge challenge. I am hopeful, but the gravity of the lifestyle changes haven’t sunk in yet. The next 48 hours should be very interesting… :-)

    @elton08 thanks for the encouragement. Something I was just reading about sleep cycles talked about how we generally have two “energy reserves”; our primary short-term energy and our “second wind”. The second wind allows us to stay awake for 14-18 hours at a time, but it takes a lot of rest to fully replenish. The idea behind polyphasic sleep is to never use (or try to replenish) your second wind – focusing solely on the primary short-term energy, which is much easier to replenish via short naps. That’s the plan at least :-) And you’re absolutely right, I hope to be able to accomplish much more per day if I can successfully adapt.

  • Luke

    good luck – let me know how it goes! I wish I had the flexibility to try this, but work/school would be miserable and or not possible

  • Luke

    good luck – let me know how it goes! I wish I had the flexibility to try this, but work/school would be miserable and or not possible

  • Taylor

    I’ve not been brave enough to try this. Can’t wait to see how it goes for you. Love that you cite “because it’s weird” as a motivating factor.

  • Taylor

    I’ve not been brave enough to try this. Can’t wait to see how it goes for you. Love that you cite “because it’s weird” as a motivating factor.

  • Colin

    Awesome. cant wait for some results, sleep experiments are interesting. I tried a lucid dream sleep experiment for awhile. until schedule conflicted. hope it goes well.

  • Colin

    Awesome. cant wait for some results, sleep experiments are interesting. I tried a lucid dream sleep experiment for awhile. until schedule conflicted. hope it goes well.

  • http://cjf.exofire.net Cameron Farnsley

    Good luck! I cant wait for the results!

  • http://cjf.exofire.net Cameron Farnsley

    Good luck! I cant wait for the results!

  • http://ResaMichelle.com Resa

    Wowww… I’m impressed. Godspeed and I cannot wait to read the results.

  • http://ResaMichelle.com Resa

    Wowww… I’m impressed. Godspeed and I cannot wait to read the results.

  • http://www.yeswayleadership.com John

    Drew, I’m excited to follow this experiment. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes for sure. Be careful though, I remember a certain Seinfeld character attempting a similar experiment.

    Actually, I’ve always thought about testing this out myself. Steve Pavlina is on my list too. It was his raw food experiment that got me to try it out myself, although I only made it 4 days.

    Anywho, I wish you the best of luck with your experiment!

  • http://www.yeswayleadership.com John

    Drew, I’m excited to follow this experiment. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes for sure. Be careful though, I remember a certain Seinfeld character attempting a similar experiment.

    Actually, I’ve always thought about testing this out myself. Steve Pavlina is on my list too. It was his raw food experiment that got me to try it out myself, although I only made it 4 days.

    Anywho, I wish you the best of luck with your experiment!

  • http://www.OnlineTrafficData.com Chet

    It would be interesting to perform some sort of regular alertness/reaction time test and track your scores throughout the process.

  • http://www.OnlineTrafficData.com Chet

    It would be interesting to perform some sort of regular alertness/reaction time test and track your scores throughout the process.

  • http://www.jeffandelliott.com Elliott

    I agree with Chet: We need to see some track-able, graph-able, scores! Good luck!

  • http://www.jeffandelliott.com Elliott

    I agree with Chet: We need to see some track-able, graph-able, scores! Good luck!

  • http://www.rockinbclothing.com Jess

    I read about this last year, very interesting. I believe it was some sort of design firm in the Pacific NW allowing a few of their employees to try it out, complete with a napping room and flexible schedules. I’m pretty excited to see how this works out for you!

  • http://www.rockinbclothing.com Jess

    I read about this last year, very interesting. I believe it was some sort of design firm in the Pacific NW allowing a few of their employees to try it out, complete with a napping room and flexible schedules. I’m pretty excited to see how this works out for you!

  • http://drewskwarcan.com Drew

    Thank you all for the “good lucks” – especially now, 48 hours into the experiment, I find your comments very encouraging.

    @Chet & @Elliott – I wish I had a better method of quantitatively measuring my alertness/mental clarity, but nothing comes to mind. Any ideas? I hope people are enjoying the chart that I have been keeping of mental clarity, optimism, and the very scientifically named “want to sleep” index (hah!). Its pretty subjective, but its better than nothing I suppose.

    @John & @Jess – I’m hearing more and more stories of people who have attempted a polyphasic sleep schedule. It’s cool to read other people’s experiences to help prepare myself (mentally, mostly) for the adjustment period. I hope things don’t get too much worse than they were this morning (I debated quiting – read about it in my “day two” post)

  • http://drewskwarcan.com Drew

    Thank you all for the “good lucks” – especially now, 48 hours into the experiment, I find your comments very encouraging.

    @Chet & @Elliott – I wish I had a better method of quantitatively measuring my alertness/mental clarity, but nothing comes to mind. Any ideas? I hope people are enjoying the chart that I have been keeping of mental clarity, optimism, and the very scientifically named “want to sleep” index (hah!). Its pretty subjective, but its better than nothing I suppose.

    @John & @Jess – I’m hearing more and more stories of people who have attempted a polyphasic sleep schedule. It’s cool to read other people’s experiences to help prepare myself (mentally, mostly) for the adjustment period. I hope things don’t get too much worse than they were this morning (I debated quiting – read about it in my “day two” post)

  • http://WhosChrisHughes.com Chris Hughes

    Wow Drew, I just meet you and find out you are doing this! Crazy! I hope that this works out good for you, I read a little bit about it when Steve was doing it but never really understood it. As a college kid my sleep schedule is pretty random at times as class schedules differ each day.

    Good luck with this and I’ll be sure to keep updated on your progress!
    -Chris Hughes

  • http://WhosChrisHughes.com Chris Hughes

    Wow Drew, I just meet you and find out you are doing this! Crazy! I hope that this works out good for you, I read a little bit about it when Steve was doing it but never really understood it. As a college kid my sleep schedule is pretty random at times as class schedules differ each day.

    Good luck with this and I’ll be sure to keep updated on your progress!
    -Chris Hughes

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