Is "polyphasic sleep" possible to achieve?

I’ve actually looked into it and considered doing it before. But when I was researching it, I saw studies showing that people using that method had a shorter life span along with certain health problems. So in the short term, it’s shown to give more energy and increased efficiency, but in respect to long term, it’s a bad idea. I should, of course, provide you with credible links instead of just going based on my word, but I don’t have the time to look for them right now. But I’ll come back tomm and provide them (if you want them).

Speaking as someone who has done it… not by choice…

Fuck no. Never again. Hells to the naw.

I have a friend that tried this for 30 days. They were managing pretty well by day 20, and were saying that the extra hours in the day were really quite pleasant. He started to look like hell by the end of the month though, despite claiming that he felt normal and awake.

My step-mum works in medicine, and briefly explained the Circadian rhythm and general chronobiology to me when I mentioned this, and how polyphasic sleep really screws around with our hormones and chemical balances if you keep up with it for two long. Although there haven’t been conclusive studies, the studies there have been have shown that it can potentially make you rather unhealthy.

For me, it’s something that I would love to try for the hell of it, but wouldn’t want to keep up with permanently.

Shilolo will be able to chip in here better than me, anyway. (Here he is!)

The prevailing medical wisdom is that this would lead to sleep deprivation and sleep debt. So, I’m not sure it would work well.

I heartily support asmonet’s answer.

I certainly didn’t have the dedication to get through the initial period of sleep deprivation you apparently need to be successful. But there are several accounts of people, and even small groups of people, doing it successfully.

The most detailed (and convincing) one was Steve Pavlina who gave it a shot and sustained the schedule for quite some time (almost 6 months).

So is it possible? I think so. Is it a schedule you could actually live with long term? No way.

I fairly often engage in polyphasic sleep (never realizing there was a name for it). it works okay for me for a couple days but any longer than 3 and I start feeling really shitty, having mild halucinations and looking worn down.

My sleeping habits are all out of wack and I very rarely sleep more than a couple hours at a time. This is not by choice, and i’m running pretty ragged at the moment. Lately I’ve been blaming menopause for my lack of sleep, but I’m really not sure why this happens.

My grandfather swore by this, he was an on call physician that did house calls and an army MD, and had to do it by necessity. There were some odd side-effects however, mostly that he would just fall asleep in an almost narcoleptic way here and there.

Personally speaking, I’m a SysAdmin and for instance, it’s 8:30am Wednesday here, and I have 40+ hours in from Sunday. I find that while I can’t do 15 minute naps, 2×2–3 hour rest periods per day do me OK for at least a few days, but if I’m doing that all week, I turn into a monster.

I would not be a fun person to be around. i cherish my 7–8 hours of sleep per night. I find short naps make me very, very bitchy.

I used to work the night shift and one of the guys I worked with brought in these tapes (I think they were called Hemisync)that were supposed to take you through all the phases of sleep in 30 minuets. They helped me get a cat nap in a 30 minute lunch break that I never could have gotten otherwise!

I’ve had a work-related circadian rhythm sleep disorder thingy for the last year and a half and I can’t imagine doing something like this…

Wouldn’t you just cease to wake up from an intended “nap” eventually?
Or do you just set an alarm clock 10 times a day?

I’d rather shoot myself.

The hemi-sync tapes used sound waves to take you quickly through the phases of sleep and then back up to alpha. They have them for concentration and all sorts of things. I googled them. Here’s a link
http://www.bindependent.com/hompg/bi/bindep/store/aisles/booktape/tapes.htm

Here’s the cat napper tape
http://www.bindependent.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=btc111
and here is Deep Sleep
http://www.bindependent.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=btc112
Quote from website:
The audio-guidance process works quite simply by sending different sounds (tones) to each ear by stereo headphones. The two hemispheres of the brain then act in unison to “hear” a third signal – the difference between the two tones. This is not an actual sound, but an electrical signal that can only be perceived within the brain by both brain hemispheres working together.

@Malakai: At first, my friend was using a loud alarm several times a day to wake him up. Towards the end of the ‘experiment’, he was waking up naturally, and could do without the alarm. He still didn’t want to carry on though.

@judi, f u go on freedownloads.com you can actually find pulsing programs to help you sleep, and for concentration etc, they have many settings.. i cannot think of the name of he program off the top of my head, but i used to use it to fall asleep…it really worked

You’ll find me in the corner with deaddolly and a bottle of Tylenol PM!

Woot! for Tylenol PM!
I personally used to sleep like that in college and I can tell you from EXP,
DON’T DO IT FOR ALL THAT IS HOLLY TO YOU AND I, DON’T DO IT!
It will F*** you all up in the head. I mean you become a zombie, doing and only thinking surface thoughts. That was great for making video games because you would just do and not question anything you did.
Ah! Right there! There is proof it is bad, nearly 80% of the game industry sleeps like that, and look at how many, many, MANY, crappy, bad games have come out in the last few years.

Why would anyone choose to do this to themselves? It’s not natural and not healthy.

Well, the idea is that you get a lot more total awake time. And the question is really whether it can be healthy – your body could theoretically readjust to the sleep schedule.

I guess I just have no desire for more total awake time. That is the mystery to me.

@Funkdaddy: Pavlina explicitly said that it wasn’t for health reasons or lack of sleep but just for social things (wanting to spend more time with his wife, the rest of the world not being polyphasic etc). Like Bucky Fuller it was more a case of giving up because he had to fit in with other people’s schedules.

Furthermore there’s examples of Everyman schedules proving to be more feasible for living in a Monophasic world, with this blogger being Polyphasic since 2006 (having been so briefly before):

http://www.puredoxyk.com/

Studies in Polyphasic sleep are inconclusive. So far they suggest Free-Running Sleep to be more effective but I don’t know of anybody who truly has a FRS schedule. Further, from what I’ve read, there does seem to be some argument for saying Polyphasic is better than a non-FRS Monophasic routine. It’s an area that needs more through research for sure. So far scientists just seem to be dismissing it without research.

It’s patently incorrect to say it’s not natural. The evidence cuts both ways (and there’s not much either). As for if it’s healthy, there’s little evidence in either way. That’s part of the attraction; it’s an experiment.

To be fair I don’t know anyone who proclaims it to be healthier than Monophasic. Most say the extra hours are worth the risks (especially as the risks aren’t at all clear). Besides, most people have sleep debt anyway, some have it even when sleeping the recommended 8 hours.

Of course it isn’t for everyone, and if you have no want/need for extra time in the day then you may not find it at all useful. Some people just need a siesta in the afternoon, and other can survive with just a solid block of sleep at night. We’re all different after all.

Ultimately the only way to know about it is to try it (at least until we actually get scientists willing to dedicate the necessary time to explore it properly, not simply dismiss it). We’re constantly told that our sleep patterns vary, that no two people have the same sleep rhythms. If you want to try it, try it, if you don’t, don’t.

For proof it does work, consider Ellen MacArthur. She slept an average of 5 and a half hours a day during her around the world trip, and if she can do it whilst doing that it suggests she wasn’t suffering sleep deprivation (or else she’d have had an accident).

Of course she had great help from Dr Stampi (who is one of the few scientists who has given Polyphasic sleep due consideration). For more information:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1180274.stm

Note: That doesn’t mean that it will work for everyone. Or that it’s necessary possible to maintain long-term (for that I’d look more at PD’s blog) but it certainly illustrates that the risks that are often attributed to it are probably exaggerated. We need more studies, it’s the only way to know.