When a baby is born it has a three phase sleep – sleeps at night, a short time in the morning time and a short time in the afternoon. Do you remember when you were a kid sleeping after lunch? Yea, but as we get older it changes and we sleep just once a day during the night. Only when we grow old we come back to sleeping after lunch.
But the fact that we sleep just once a day has a tremendous influence on our life. That’s what you realize when you try the poly-phase sleep. What is that?
The poly-phase sleep means you sleep more than just once a day. During the day you try to sleep a half hour. For each half hour of sleep during the day you subtract 2 hours of the night sleep. Experimenting with one nap. I came to this conclusion. Sleep from midnight to 6 am and around 6pm have a 30-minute short sleep. During this experiment I have wrote down the pros and cons of the poly-phase sleeping.
Pros and Cons
- There was no influence on creativity, I was kind of afraid that I will be less creative but it did not happen. In the two hours before midnight I was not very productive, it is better to read articles – consume knowledge before creating something. We all have some productive time during the day and it seems my is not around 10 pm to midnight.
- Another particular interesting thing is that you will start to consider other people hibernating as you will have much more time then them. It will seem to you as if they waste their life sleeping. You might use the time for anything.
- A negative aspect is a personal life, because I started to wake up earlier than my girlfriend even though I went to sleep later. At this point you have to compare whether it is better for you to save a years of life by sleeping effectively or you want to wake up together.
- I also realized that even though I am not productive during the 2 hours before midnight, I am not here just to work. So I can read about what really interests me, like crypto, which I normally did during the day.
- Another plus is that now I am able to wake up very easily no 5 more minutes, nothing. Just wake up and go.
What more I have found:
- To fall asleep quickly, during the 30 minutes sleep you gotta fall asleep in 5 minutes otherwise its too late. What works for me is to focus on breathing. Just focus on you breathing, breathing is automated so once you sort of forgot you are focusing on it you will have a clear mind and you will fall asleep. Works for me.
- Get a proper alarm clock, you cannot trust cellphones, you know how to handle them even in your sleep so you will just turn the alarm off. Get a proper alarm clock. You will probably at the beginning not know what to do with the newly acquired time. Also you will not be 100% productive at the beginning. Just enjoy the newly acquired time and wait 2 weeks.
- The 30 minutes’ sleep is refreshing If done right. Some people should do it a lot.
- It is not true that you need 8 hours of sleep. The poly-phase sleep is a proven method. There are people who went years on poly-phase sleep and it did not have any negative impacts on them. Just google it.
- Stop thinking like others - its night I gotta go sleep, its morning I gotta wake up. No we are all different, find your own routine.
- It is not a problem from time to time to sleep normally a 8 hours in the night. You might come to visit your parents and they went to sleep at 10 pm. No problem it wont decimate your routine.
- What ever you do always sleep in between 2-5 am. This hours have proven to be the least effective.
Do you have questions or experience? Let me know in the comments.
Great post. I myself use this method but i tend to sleep a little longer than 30 minutes and a little less in the night. If i sleep less than 5 hours in the night i might aswell kiss the next day goodbye i am a hopeless mess. But if i sleep for about an hour in the day anytime from 1 to 2 and have 6 hours at night i am like a spring chicken,lol....but it depends on age and don't forgte how cute you are that helps,lol..no but seriously age is a big factor, the older the less is needed.
Thank you very much. It is usually being suggested to sleep in the multiples of 90 minutes as we have a deep sleep phase of sleep that follows after circa 60 minutes of light sleep. That means that if you sleep for 4,5 hours it might do you better job then 5. I sleep 6 as for me 4,5 is too less, and my creativity suffers :)
Ye, I would say that age does pretty much all the magic here.
Interesting experience. I have found I can save time by poly-phasic sleep, but I find the 7-8 hours a night plus a short power nap in the afternoon most comfortable. 30 minutes is just a nap though, are you planning to make that second phase longer? Some even sleep 4 times, 1 hour each. (Was it Tesla?)
Isn't it true that until the Industrial Revolution humans slept in two parts? That's very recently! Some speculate the likes of Shakespeare were at their creative best between the two phases of sleep.
Thank you, I honestly thinking about 2 power naps during the day and just 4,5 hour of the actual sleep. I see myself going to sleep at 1:30 am and waking up at 6. Placing the first power nap just after lunch and keeping the other one at 6 pm. Some of my friends tried to sleep just on power naps, but it did not work for them, I haven't tried that yet. I believe that Tesla and Shakespeare, were just too special, therefore I do not aspire to be like them, I just want to save time sleeping and enjoy more living :). Of course, if I would be capable as they were that would be great.
Great post! It's interesting to see just how sleep can potentially affect you and your functionality. I myself have "problems" sleeping (I tend to go to bed at 4-7am and wake around 12-2pm, when I can sleep.) and it honestly hasn't affected me too much, that I can observe.
Also, what I've found, is that when I try to set a certain schedule, or force my body to wake up when it doesn't naturally wish to, I tend to get hit with waves of depression and anxiety. Quite odd. I looked it up and I believe I have a sleep cycle disorder known as dsps. Link :)
That is certainly interesting, I have never came across such disorder I will read through the link. Thank you.
I like this post! I've heard all sorts of strange things about sleep, Including the half hour intervals. I guess I"m boring but I like my 8 hours in one great chunk. I sometimes sleep for longer/shorter, Or sometimes on my crazy busy days, I'll stay up all night long.
I think everyone shall think of ways how to utilize time and how to sleep correctly, but once something works well for you I should not change it :)
Does it mean I can sleep only in the 30 minutes intervals?
I will try to sleep like that, let's see :D