NationStates Jolt Archive

The latest comic from xkcd (http://xkcd.com/) has brought up the subject of alternative sleep patterns. I thought it would be neato to see what all you guys thought about the subject.

The comic itself brought up the 28 hour cycle. The idea is, that you stay up an extra 4 hours before getting the same amount of sleep, and you won't notice the difference (except an extra 4 hours of awake time per day). Its claim to fame over alternatives such as 25, or 26 is that it sinks up nicely with the week, and you still get two weekend days.

Of course, then there is polyphasic sleep, which is goes in a completely different direction. The theory here is you sleep much more frequently, but only for short burst resulting in less sleep per day than usual. The short duration of the naps will (over two weeks) force your body to get only REM sleep, which is thought to be all that is needed.

So has anybody here tried any of these (or others)? or considered it? or maybe even made plans to try one during an expected down period?

The latest comic from xkcd (http://xkcd.com/) has brought up the subject of alternative sleep patterns. I thought it would be neato to see what all you guys thought about the subject.

The comic itself brought up the 28 hour cycle. The idea is, that you stay up an extra 4 hours before getting the same amount of sleep, and you won't notice the difference (except an extra 4 hours of awake time per day). Its claim to fame over alternatives such as 25, or 26 is that it sinks up nicely with the week, and you still get two weekend days.

Of course, then there is polyphasic sleep, which is goes in a completely different direction. The theory here is you sleep much more frequently, but only for short burst resulting in less sleep per day than usual. The short duration of the naps will (over two weeks) force your body to get only REM sleep, which is thought to be all that is needed.

So has anybody here tried any of these (or others)? or considered it? or maybe even made plans to try one during an expected down period?
No official pattern but when working nights it was 19-20 hour days 4-5 hour nights

Thats where my natural sleep cycle fit when working ... I did 6 years of that pattern

But my night job complicated thing in a rotating night shift (ok here goes my explination of the complicated pattern) (two weeks) ... hours marked below are the number of sleep hours in the day

S M T W H F S S M T W H F S
8 4 4 0 4 8 8 4 4 4 4 0 8 8

Yeah it was complicated :) and I worked my ass off lol

Edit tryed to make it strait ... not working

I sleep when there is time. When there isn't time, I have coffee, diet Pepsi and loud music.
This translates into about 5 to 6 hours a night (generally 1 AM to 7 AM) on Sunday through Friday nights, and then 4 to 5 (generally 3 AM to 8 AM) on Saturday nights.
Then, about once a month I crash and burn, which leads to about 24 to 30 hours of sleep over just a couple days.

I've known for a while that 24-hour days don't suit me. Instead, I tend to be on a 25-hour cycle or so.

Lately I've been ping-ponging:
S M T W R F S
4 8 4 8 8 4 8

I sleep when there is time. When there isn't time, I have coffee, diet Pepsi and loud music.
This translates into about 5 to 6 hours a night (generally 1 AM to 7 AM) on Sunday through Friday nights, and then 4 to 5 (generally 3 AM to 8 AM) on Saturday nights.
Then, about once a month I crash and burn, which leads to about 24 to 30 hours of sleep over just a couple days.I'm down to three or four a night, except weekends were I get up to 7 or even 9. I have thought about trying polyphasic this Christmas. I'll have like three or four weeks off, so I figured why not. Word is if you can make it through the adpation period, you can actually feel rested on that much sleep. That would be so nice, to be rested.

If I didn't have school, so perhaps during college, I would go for the ideal sleep pattern for prime social interaction, from 3 A.M. to 12 P.M.

I'm down to three or four a night, except weekends were I get up to 7 or even 9. I have thought about trying polyphasic this Christmas. I'll have like three or four weeks off, so I figured why not. Word is if you can make it through the adpation period, you can actually feel rested on that much sleep. That would be so nice, to be rested.

I remember some studies though of declination of motor function as well as some other logic functions (such as math) declining on an extended polyphasic sleep schedule

Those two zeros worry me. Ideally, Posi should get 16 hours of sleep a day. However, this ideal is like communism, it just doesn't work in reality.

Yeah I worked every other wednessday thursday night from 10 pm to 2 am then it was to my day job then back to my night lol

Tell you what stats at 1 pm your second day up is ... intresting

No official pattern but when working nights it was 19-20 hour days 4-5 hour nights

Thats where my natural sleep cycle fit when working ... I did 6 years of that pattern

But my night job complicated thing in a rotating night shift (ok here goes my explination of the complicated pattern) (two weeks) ... hours marked below are the number of sleep hours in the day

S M T W H F S S M T W H F S
8 4 4 0 4 8 8 4 4 4 4 0 8 8

Yeah it was complicated :) and I worked my ass off lol

Edit tryed to make it strait ... not workingThose two zeros worry me. Ideally, Posi should get 16 hours of sleep a day. However, this ideal is like communism, it just doesn't work in reality.

I remember some studies though of declination of motor function as well as some other logic functions (such as math) declining on an extended polyphasic sleep scheduleI'm pretty sure three and four hours of sleep a night causes a similar declination of motor function and logic functions. Case and point: I can barely type this.

I'm pretty sure three and four hours of sleep a night causes a similar declination of motor function and logic functions. Case and point: I can barely type this.

True ... much more glad to be on a regular schedule (moved to it three weeks ago) I now get 7ish hours a night which is a tone!

I don't know how anyone can function on less than 7 hours devoted to sleep a night. Though, I do have a problem waking up every half hour to hour, usually, so that might make me need more sleep but I cannot function for very long without having an average of 7 hours I can devote to sleep a night.

I should be able to get more sleep. It is not like there is no reason not to. I just don't fall asleep before 300, unless I go to bed hours before that. Even then I won't get a good amount of sleep unless it is the weekend.

With that crazy schedule I was always out like a light whenever I laid down (which was about 2 am for me roughly on a majority of nights)

True ... much more glad to be on a regular schedule (moved to it three weeks ago) I now get 7ish hours a night which is a tone!I should be able to get more sleep. It is not like there is no reason not to. I just don't fall asleep before 300, unless I go to bed hours before that. Even then I won't get a good amount of sleep unless it is the weekend.

Though, this week I have little homework due, so I should try. Unless find a patch to get fglrx to work with xorg-1.4 or the OSS radeonhd to work.... then I am fucked.

How 'bout us apneacs?

3 hours a night for a month had almost no discernible difference in attentiveness on my part.
Reason being, of course, that i only get 3 hours of straight sleep on any night anyway.
Up & down all.blinking.night.

Sleeping/waking at the same time everyday works out for me.

It's like 100x easier to fall asleep/wake up once you get use to it. If you want good sleep, stick to a pattern and don't screw it up on the weekends. If must set an alarm to bolt yourself up on weekends the same time you would weekdays. Make sure you don't take naps as it will destroy your ability to sleep at night. Once you do this for about 2 weeks it should start becoming natural.

28h, with the same amount of sleep but more awake time, is my ideal, actually. But since the world won't comply to my sleeping needs, I could only do that during holidays...
Then there's what you called polyphasic sleep, I do something like that on weekends. Get up normally, then sleep somewhen between 11 PM and 3 AM (for about 3h), get rid of headache, stay up till noon, sleep another 3h... only there's the nagging suspicion it might be not very good for me. Because the first sleeping phase around midnight is usually not chosen on purpose, but rather an example of me suddenly being unable to do anything other than walking to bed and falling asleep with all my clothes on...

I get sleep where I can and am willing to fit it in, really. I don't really have much of a problem if I go a day without, and I often do the "awake for 20 hours, sleep for 10" routine, etc.

Well I only need a maximum of 4 hours of sleep and I can function the rest of the time no problem really with a 2-2 1/2 hour nap every other day

There was a about a seven or eight month period in my life where I got 2-3 hours of sleep a night.

This wasn't due to studying or anything, I had nightmares that I'd discovered didn't come if I went to sleep totally exhausted. So... that's what I did.

Judging by the fact that I was living off one meal a day made entirely of liquor store garbage, that might not have been the healthiest period of my life.


Sometimes I get nostalgia for how much time I had in a day and how I seemed to function just fine on so little sleep though.

These days it seems like I can't sleep enough, and there's SO much else I'd rather be doing.

i'm a sloth. i need my sleep or i no function. and i need it regular, too.

i try for at least 9 hours a day, preferably 10 or 11. thanks to starting later at my job (11am) i can sleep from 11pm to 9am and be good. if i go to bed about midnight i'll be tired and cranky next day (lately this has happened a lot...)

i don't think "alternative sleep patterns" would work for me. too much a creature of habit, me...

Polyphasic sleep? I would stay away from that. Not much is known about sleep, and therefore people who say that you can do away with NREM sleep have little idea of what they are talking about.

And there are now theories that NREM sleep is quite important, and that a lot of body regeneration goes on during NREM sleep, and only during NREM.

And I believe there are studies that show the optimal sleeping pattern is for a person to not force themselves to stay awake, nor to force themselves to rise early. Go to sleep when you feel tired and don't use an alarm clock.

I think I'm becoming nocturnal. Anyone else?

my life is a bit too hectic for sleep cycles especially with my habit of staying up till dawn unable to escape the computer

just one more turn!

usually I try to be up at dawn though since I enjoy the early hours :)

I ususally get 8 hours of sleep a night. I could get more if I really wanted it, but 8 hours suffices.

I usually end up with about 12-14 hours of sleep a week, sometimes it's all at once, but mostly it's split up into 2-3 hour bursts of sleep.

To all you people getting <5 hours sleep a night; what jobs are you working?

If I get less than 7 hours sleep for two or more days in a row I start to get pimples, my eyes hurt constantly and I have little energy or ability to concentrate.

To all you people getting <5 hours sleep a night; what jobs are you working?

If I get less than 7 hours sleep for two or more days in a row I start to get pimples, my eyes hurt constantly and I have little energy or ability to concentrate.

I am a mom.

To all you people getting <5 hours sleep a night; what jobs are you working?

If I get less than 7 hours sleep for two or more days in a row I start to get pimples, my eyes hurt constantly and I have little energy or ability to concentrate.
University student here.

i don't really have a pattern to my sleeping. today for instance i woke up at half 12, tomorrow i will be waking sometime before 7am. all depends on what shifts i get and how drunk i get in the evenings.

I maintained a 30 hour schedule for several months while I was a student. Awake for 20 hours, sleep for 10. I found it worked really well for me. I was always well rested when I awoke, but I had no trouble falling asleep 20 hours later.

I usually sleep like 6 to 8 hours. I could get more, but I enjoy talking to people on the phone at 1 am

University student here.

Do you actually have a job too? Or are you a med student or something? Because I can usually get seven a night.

Try the manic-depressive sleep pattern.
One month alternate nights with no sleep and nights with two hours sleep.
Another month sleep a minimum of 18 hours a day.:D

Do you actually have a job too? Or are you a med student or something? Because I can usually get seven a night.Engineering student, plus I work part time at a grocery store (ie 20-24 hours).