Polyphasic Sleep
Goal #3: Attempt polyphasic sleep for a minimum of one month.
One of the main factors that got me interested in self-improvement was polyphasic sleep. The basic defination of “polyphasic sleep” is simply sleeping more than once a day (hense polyphasic). The theory being that sleeping in more frequent, shorter periods is better for you than a single, “monophasic sleep” pattern in that your sleep requirements will be decreased. Think of it as similar to how eating more smaller meals per day increases your metabolisim.(1) I’ve always hated sleeping and when I found this concept promoting less sleep I became very interested.
To take it a step further, many people have tried the practice of breaking the day into 6, 4 hour periods. Each period includes a 20-30 min sleep. The theory behind this relates to REM sleep. The average adult experiences 4-5 REM sleep periods a night, totaling around 96 minutes.(2) The theory states that in sleeping 6 20-30 min periods your body increases the percentage of REM sleep to compensate for the decrease of overall sleep to 2-3 hours. You then obtain more REM sleep since you are having 6 sleep periods with REM.
There have been quite a few successful attempts at this form of polyphasic sleep. After an understandably rough adjustment period of 3-7 days some people seem to adjust to the pattern and claim to function normally.
The most successful polyphasic sleepers seem to practice a proper diet and a better than average exercise routine. To prepare myself for an attempt at polyphasic sleep I decided to change my diet and excersise. I already ate fairly well, with a normal meal and snack schedule (fruit and pretzels as snacks). However, after looking at my diet and reading about health I decided that I was consuming way too many carbs and not enough protein. I decided that I should change it and add excersise as well. I will post more about my current diet in the future.
These steps let me to think “Why not strive to improve every aspect of my life?” and I started down the path of self-improvement.
My current plan is to start polyphasic sleep while I am visiting my parents for Christmas. I will post more specific plans as I develop them. One of my ongoing concerns is that there hasn’t been enough scientific research into polyphasic sleep, specificly its effect on hormone production. I hope to talk with someone at the University of Rochester Sleep Research Lab prior to partaking in this experiment to see if they have any insight, and also reading Claudio Stampi’s works on the subject.
1. Louis-Sylvestre J, Lluch A, Neant F, Blundell JE., “Highlighting the positive impact of increasing feeding frequency on metabolism and weight management,” Forum Nutr. 2003;56:126-8. Review.
Le Blanc J, et al., “Components of postprandial thermogenesis in relation to meal frequency in humans,†Can J Physiol Pharmacol (1993) 71.12: 879-883.
Arnold LM, et al., “Effect of isoenergetic intake of three or nine meals on plasma lipoproteins and glucose metabolism,†Am J Clin Nutr (1993) 57.3: 446-451.
2. Roffwarg et al., Ontogenetic development of the human sleep-dream cycle, Science, 152:604-619, 1966
In: Goals, Health & Fitness, Philosophy, Sleep
on December 16, 2005 at 3:49 am
Permalink
I always look forward to hearing more sound research and study on polyphasic sleeping… I”m just hitting 4 and a half weeks in my own test, so I look forward to reading about yours!
–
Sean
…on Polyphasic Sleep.
…on Personal Development.