Biphasic Sleep?

[IdiotsOpposite]

Has anyone ever tried biphasic or polyphasic sleep? Has it worked for you?

The reason I ask is because monophasic sleep doesn't work for me right now, given how my two jobs like to put their schedules. So I was thinking of switching to a biphasic sleep schedule, where I'd sleep, say, 10 PM to 1 AM and then 11 AM to 2 PM. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

So 6 hours total and equally devided. I remember reading that the most effective sleep schedule is 6 hours in the night and 2 hours after lunch. So an after-supper-nap is probably quit recommendable. After all, it is also when people tend to be the least productive.
But 6 hours is not very long in total and I suspect that 3 hours have too short a phase of the most healthy part of the sleep. I predict that you will want to sleep longer than 'til 2PM.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

So 6 hours total and equally devided. I remember reading that the most effective sleep schedule is 6 hours in the night and 2 hours after lunch. So an after-supper-nap is probably quit recommendable. After all, it is also when people tend to be the least productive.
But 6 hours is not very long in total and I suspect that 3 hours have too short a phase of the most healthy part of the sleep. I predict that you will want to sleep longer than 'til 2PM.

I really can't, my second job starts at 2:30 PM...

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Can you maybe go earlier to bad? Say already 20pm? Of course everyone is different, but if I were practicing the sleep schedule you prpose in a regular basis, I would prepare to feel tired and miserable all the time. But I also feel like a person who needs its sleep more than others.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I'd love to, but my second job (chronologically) extends to 10 PM sometimes. And my first one (chronologically) can start as early as 2:30 AM.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Wow.
So you basically decided to stop having a self-determined life unless in your dreams?
Well, I hope it at least pays.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Why would anyone want to get up twice?

 

[TheLastOne36]

IIRC your body goes through sleep cycles, about 90 minutes long (varies for people) and each cycle has all the stages of sleep). If you wake up in the middle of a sleep cycle, you are going to be tired and grumpy whilst if you wake up at the very end of a sleep cycle, you are going to be full of energy.

Your body naturally wakes you up at the end of the sleep cycle, whilst with alarm clocks, that is not always the case. I am certain I am getting this stuff off an image I've seen in another forum not too long ago. This is how I sleep every day now, timing the minutes and without any alarm clock(except for like 40 minutes after, just in case my body screws up ), and I feel I made an improvement in my life anyway. I hoped I helped.

 

[shadowplay]

This article from beeb may be of interest to you:

In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks.

His book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, unearths more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern - in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer's Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783

Good read.

 

[mrt144]

Has anyone ever tried biphasic or polyphasic sleep? Has it worked for you?

The reason I ask is because monophasic sleep doesn't work for me right now, given how my two jobs like to put their schedules. So I was thinking of switching to a biphasic sleep schedule, where I'd sleep, say, 10 PM to 1 AM and then 11 AM to 2 PM. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

How did you swing this two jobs at ridiculous times thing.

 

[TheLastOne36]

IIRC your body goes through sleep cycles, about 90 minutes long (varies for people) and each cycle has all the stages of sleep). If you wake up in the middle of a sleep cycle, you are going to be tired and grumpy whilst if you wake up at the very end of a sleep cycle, you are going to be full of energy.

Your body naturally wakes you up at the end of the sleep cycle, whilst with alarm clocks, that is not always the case. I am certain I am getting this stuff off an image I've seen in another forum not too long ago. This is how I sleep every day now, timing the minutes and without any alarm clock(except for like 40 minutes after, just in case my body screws up ), and I feel I made an improvement in my life anyway. I hoped I helped.

From shadowplay's link:

Every 60-100 minutes we go through a cycle of four stages of sleep

Stage 1 is a drowsy, relaxed state between being awake and sleeping - breathing slows, muscles relax, heart rate drops
Stage 2 is slightly deeper sleep - you may feel awake and this means that, on many nights, you may be asleep and not know it
Stage 3 and Stage 4, or Deep Sleep - it is very hard to wake up from Deep Sleep because this is when there is the lowest amount of activity in your body
After Deep Sleep, we go back to Stage 2 for a few minutes, and then enter Dream Sleep - also called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep - which, as its name suggests, is when you dream

In a full sleep cycle, a person goes through all the stages of sleep from one to four, then back down through stages three and two, before entering dream sleep

 

[Ayn Rand]

Has anyone ever tried biphasic or polyphasic sleep? Has it worked for you?

The reason I ask is because monophasic sleep doesn't work for me right now, given how my two jobs like to put their schedules. So I was thinking of switching to a biphasic sleep schedule, where I'd sleep, say, 10 PM to 1 AM and then 11 AM to 2 PM. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

Are you sure it's your sleep that's not working for you? Sounds more like having those two jobs at different times is the real problem.

 

[The_J]

Did not really actively try it, but for some time I slept in biphasic (2 - 7 AM and 2 - 5 PM). Was not really due to a need, but rather because I was unable to get off the internet earlier in the morning .
Worked in general, but in the afternoon you really feel totally destroyed after getting up, and a cup of coffee doesn't fix it (at least it didn't for me).
Was better in the mornings, but you don't feel that powerful over the day. Sure better if you sleep the whole time at once.

 

[Tahuti]

I can do with as little as 4 hours sleep each day with a triphasic sleep pattern. However, due to social pressure, a largely uniphasic sleep pattern of around 7 hours will have to do.

 

[timtofly]

Another thing to consider for this sleep pattern, is your ability to metabolize food. If sleeping on a full stomache helps you rest, then do so. If eating before you start work is better then do so. If you're eating a big meal before trying to sleep and it is interferring with it, then that could cause problems also.

 

[Save_Ferris]

How did you swing this two jobs at ridiculous times thing.

Time turners, my friend. Time turners.

 

[BvBPL]

You can do it. You can catch up on sleep on the weekends. You'll be tired and miserable a lot though.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

How did you swing this two jobs at ridiculous times thing.

Are you sure it's your sleep that's not working for you? Sounds more like having those two jobs at different times is the real problem.

Heh, I don't really have a choice. I need the money. And my second job's mainly a weekend thing, although they do throw me occasional weekday 3-7 (PM) shifts from time to time.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I tried sleeping from 11 to 3, woke up for 3 to 4 and then slept till 8.

I felt pretty normal.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I tried sleeping from 11 to 3, woke up for 3 to 4 and then slept till 8.

I felt pretty normal.

3-4 AM? Why not just sleep the whole time?