Hack Your Brain with Polyphasic Sleep
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- Опубліковано 2 тра 2024
- Today I'm talking about my 2-month experiment sleeping only 5 hours a day with Polyphasic sleep
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My name is Tris Oaten and I produce fast, technical videos.
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ERRATA
- Ugh, military time was not the right choice. After the fact, I realised I should have settled on "7 o'clock, 23 o'clock" etc, as a good mix of natural-sounding and precise.
- I should have mentioned i was weightlifting during this experiment, and found no change in my recovery, probably due to the fact I sit at my desk for 16 hours a day! 😂
- I stopped after 2 months because I had an injury that kept me in bed for a while. I was sad, but my sleep schedule had been fixed!
- Some folks asked "is it memory safe" which 1. is a solid pun, and 2. I think E2 is. I felt totally fine cognitively, I was still getting a solid 4:30 core sleep with my two siestas. I felt great!
What do you mean by "my sleep scheduke had been fixed!" ?
Did you continue E2 ? or back to normie sleepie ? (if so, why not go back to E2 ?)
Adverse impact of polyphasic sleep patterns in humans: Report of the National Sleep Foundation sleep timing and variability consensus panel
scheduke
I am sure I could figure it out, but how long have you been on everyman? ok I went back, It appears that you have been doing it for 2 years? Is that correct?
The more I think about it, this video might actually be harmful. Insomnia is a very common problem [1], I myself have had periods of insomnia throughout my adult life. Insomnia can have many different causes and can take many different shapes. As I understood it you had problem with falling asleep, but once you where asleep you had no problem staying asleep, I on the other hand had relatively easy falling asleep but I woke up super early (still tired beyond belief) but couldn't get back to sleep. Then you state that shifting to a polyphasic sleep schedule helped you (congratulations that it worked for you, it did not work for me) and then use that as evidence that this will solve sleep for everyone by referring to some pseudo-scientific nonsense.
Sleep is to a large part still a poorly understood topic and is a highly active research field. Mechanisms such as the glymphatic system (which engages during non-REM sleep and is the primary mechanism to clean the brain of toxic waste [2]) was only recently discovered, in 2012 to be specific.
I do not think it is wrong to encourage people to experiment and see what sleep schedule works best for them, but giving this one size fits all statements are just wrong. To some degree I think that this video is not that different from videos made by antivaxers (maybe less harmful since it is easier to change to a different sleep schedule if the current one doesn't work then get a vaccine when you get sick. Once you have measelse, vaccines won't help you).
[1]: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5353813/
[2]: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7698404/
Laying down for 20 mins and actually getting 20 mins of sleep is completely different
That's the adaptation period in a nutshell. For me, it took 4 days to actually start sleeping during the day. After 2 weeks I was sleeping within 2 minutes. Interestingly, this is a skill that I've retained, after going back to monophasic!
@@NoBoilerplate oh so you did go back to monophasic? Why?
@@NoBoilerplate Why did you go back if it was so good?
@@ChillAutos he explains it in the pinned comment
@@denizonder4812 No one wants to die at a very young age, these sleep schedules may not take same toll on your brain in the immediate short to mid term, but they definitely stress the shit out of your heart and other vital support organs.
I did polyphasic sleep 12 years ago. I was 16 and in the middle of a summer break. I loved the extra time and enjoying the peace and quite of night-time. Only thing I love more than that is how stubbornly inflexible our society is :^). Always wished I could go back to it, but the only thing harder than adjusting to polyphasic sleep is having an opportunity to put it into practice.
For sure, it's a rare treat. when I realised covid had caused the perfect conditions I was on it SO FAST!
What are you talking about? The fault doesn't lie with society... polyphasic sleep is garbage. You have entire structures in your brain designed specifically to respond to sunlight (hormone levels/production, heart rate regulation etc.). I have tried for years most of these alternative sleep schedules, and they all lead to issues long term. They only seem to work for the first few months, and then you realize too late that you've screwed yourself up. It takes a lot of time to undo the damage. For example, did you know that even your attention span is dependent on your sleep schedule? If you train yourself to stay awake at night, you won't be able to focus during the day as much as you should. That interferes with your job, your driving etc. Every behavior you have leads to a number of chemicals and hormones which get released in different quantities and different time intervals. The human body is constantly adapting to your behaviors (it's basically an organic machine learning unit), and it becomes hard to change certain behaviors. You want the best sleep schedule? Look in nature... look at chickens, look at your dog, look at your cow... look at non-nocturnal mammals. They sleep at sunset and wake at sunrise, because they're integrated into a natural cycle... and so are you. You'll find nothing good going against nature.
@@Borgilian just so you know, most animals have polyphasic sleep(even the ones you mentioned). Monophasic sleep in nature is a danger most animals cannot afford since it opens them up to predators so not many animals actually do it. Also humans before the industrial revolution were recorded to have a biphasic sleep. I personally still think monophasic sleep is the right choice for me, but people who decide to try polyphasic sleep are not going against nature.
@@mast-uw8ex But we're humans not most animals.
@@Borgilian Sleep is a poorly understood behavior in general. Most advice is conservative because we know it's important, and it's better to just "not fuck it up" instead of actually experimenting with it.
And that's usually pretty good advice. Literally 99.9999% of people shouldn't try polyphasic sleep for a variety of reasons (job, kids, etc.), but you're making all these claims about how it has damaging long-term consequences and that's all anecdotal and unsubstantiated (or based on studies done on people with nocturnal sleep schedules, not balanced polyphasic sleep schedules). Stop trying to sound like the world's foremost expert on a topic that's not well understood by even the ACTUAL experts.
Without realizing it, this was my sleep schedule for a bit, 6 hours of core sleep and a 20-30 minute nap in the after noon. It worked great until one day my schedule was nicked out of place and I felt exhausted.
the more spread out your sleep is over the day, the more fragile the schedule is, alas!
This is me too. I sleep about 5 hrs of core sleep and take some frequent short naps afternoon.
One thing I found is I can get extremely tired If I break this schedule a little bit, like, reducing the core sleeptime for about half or whole hour or sometimes few minuts could affect the condition a lot, at least to me.
jepp, mine too
If you don't sleep 8 hours during the 24 you'll be in debt. The debt will accumulate mathematically.
@@petrektek1385 Sad but true, the modern ideology of 'catching up on sleep' simply doesn't work. You will always owe the piper.
Biphasic sleep is easily the easiest way to sleep. Go to bed when the sun sets, wake up in the middle of the night, go back to bed for round two and then wake up when the sun rises. This is also much easier to do if you are living in the equator or during spring and autumn everywhere else in the world. That's because the sun rises and sets as close to about 6am/pm respectively.
Yeah, I've heard that too! fascinating! We're not done learning about sleep, as a species, I think.
With time from sunset to sunrise varying from 4 hours to 20 hours during the year, that doesn't seem like such a good strat xd
I do this when my sleep schedule is screwed
@@keyfpenc11 same
What time do you wake up and then resleep during the night hours?
I'm about to oxidize my sleep schedule
STAND BACK
IM GONNA OXIDIZE
IT’S OXIDIZIN’ TIME
Just don't get rusty
@@DannyLeWasTaken UGHHH I CAN FEEL YOUR OXYGEN COMING INSIDE ME 🤤🤤😖
Oxidation
Is
Loss
Reduction
Is
Gain
OILRIG
I just realised I have attempted polyphasic sleep in the past without realizing. Every day I spend about 30 min on the bus to school and back. And often times I would have a nap during the ride. And now that I come to think about it, I always felt really fresh and awake after my bus-naps
Yes! Love a bus nap!
Oh, that’s not because of the sleep schedule or anything. It’s just because during that time I would steal your DS from your backpack and slightly level up your Pokémon.
I was listening this without watching in bed for no reason in particular and realised that you would be great at audio only based content too like podcasts. Great voice and audible and visual presentation of ideas.
MY FRIEND HAVE I GOT GOOD NEWS FOR YOU (12 seasons of good news) ua-cam.com/video/p3bDE9kszMc/v-deo.html
@@NoBoilerplate Awesome. Just found your video by chance and had a similar experience as OP.
I love listening to podcasts, so this just made a new unexpected entry in my list.
Programming topics can be a bit hard to deliver in audio alone, but this seems more like a variety podcast with a unique premise from a developer lens.
@@LinkEX Well wonderful, I hope you like it! LT is a scifi podcast on the surface, but underneath it's secretly about mental health, through the lens of AI!
Intersting fact. I was watching it without audio but with subs
@@NoBoilerplate Omg yes, just found your channel and now your podcasts! Time to binge...
Polyphasic is utopian in our society, but biphasic is compatible with many life situations. My early shifts start at 7am and end at 2pm, allowing me to have 3-6 sleep both am and pm. I do think that its sustainable, not a huge adjustment and still gives you 1-2h each day for most people. Sadly i also have sporadic late shifts which fuck it up.
I should have been clearer in the video about how biphasic/siesta/etc are all types of polyphasic sleep - multiple phases. I REALLY like E1 for most people - I'm going to start doing it tomorrow
@@NoBoilerplate oo! How did it go?
Didn't work for me and I've tried every sleep system out there because I was also suffering from chronic sleep deprivation, which I feel is extremely common among software developers (which is your target demographic).
The thing that helped me is to set an alarm clock at the same time 7 days a week and forcing myself to wake up at that time. Sometimes I only slept 3 hours sometimes I woke up before the time but was forced to lay in bed without grabbing my laptop. But over months and eventually years it eventually resulted in my body just deciding on its own when to want to sleep and never feeling tired when waking up because my body already knew inherently when I was going to wake up and my circadian rythm just adapted the REM sleep in accordance with when it expected me to wake up, which was always at the exact same time so that my biological clock realized this.
It's been 7 years since I started it and my quality of life is a lot better now. My wife doesn't complain about me looking like a zombie with black rings around the eyes anymore. I actually feel tired before going to sleep and I'm a more consistent worker instead of having sudden bouts of high performance and moments of brain fog which I usually had throughout life and everyone with insomnia can recognize.
I agree, for most people, a fixed alarm in the morning will be best. But some people might find the experiment useful, as I did
thats a great idea, ive been doing the opposite having an alarm based on when i go to bed but thats definitely the wrong approach
Did you also travel in this time to other timezones? Would be interested to hear how strong the habit stays after returning from a large timezone difference
@@Neomadra Yeah. I've traveled multiple times for work. Jetlag is worse now than it used to be but the cycle doesn't get disrupted.
You might be vitamin D and magnesium deficient, friend. B vitamins too, very crucial.
Not telling others your goals can be backed by some studies. Not seeking praise, letting others talk you out of your goal or even questioning your intentions can give one a reason to stop when it becomes difficult.
I honestly feel like not getting a dopamine hit by bragging about what you're going to do results in you seeking that dopamine from actually accomplishing your goals
@@thodorisevangelakos I completely agree. It all starts so innocent with wanting to share someone close to me but it does more harm than good in both the long run and my experience.
I find for myself that it can be a good way to keep myself accountable. If I don't tell anyone It's easier for me to just quietly give up, but if my friends know it's a bit more of a barrier. I do think it depends on your friends' reactions though.
@@JeffHanke I've recently set up a small server running Kanboard and made several, publicly viewable boards relating to important goals so that others can track my progress. Maybe this experiment will prove the technique to be useful for streamlining communication in a way that does not dodge accountability, but, at the very least, having a clear set of tasks makes it easier to stay focused in my experience.
Did you consider athletes in this experiment?
Having watches in the navy meant sleeping 2-3 times per day. I was always really surprised to learn that my combined sleep time was even below 6 hours, yet I was feeling very fresh a lot of the time.
There's something to that idea.
This took a lot of practice. Grew up working with my dad and his lawn care company which were big into naps at noon. Afterwards I went college and went back to “monophasic” and then joined the army and became a master at naps. I’ve started an office job now and I’ve struggled a lot with adjusting back to the socially acceptable style of rest
Really like the concept, but Id be interested in reaction time and cognitive ability tests comparing Monophasic and Polyphasic sleep. Sometimes the way you feel doesnt line up with the way you actually are, it would be really interesting if the brain is just adapting to the new scedule and making you feel normal while not actually working well.
That'd be a good improvement on my method. I was playing video games while polyphasing, I should have kept track of my scores!
However, consider: E2 is only slightly different from E1, which is a normal siesta schedule.
@@NoBoilerplate small changes in complex systems can have huge impacts! Would be interesting to see any studies on this.
I don't remember the source unfortunately so you have to rely on my word, but I've read about biphasic sleep in medieval times. Sounded interesting, so I've read after it and found a study saying that most people even though feeling rested, performed worse on cognitive tests.
This. I saw not too long ago an expert talking about this. They did some tests on people not sleeping at all, sleeping for 4, 6 and 8 hours and found that all of them with time would get worse and worse results, even though they felt ok. A big note on the people who slept 8 hours was that in the 14 day study, after day 6 or 7 something like that, the tests declined a bit, and then they stabilized but they didn't feel tired at all. So basically, they were performing worse without feeling worse. Doesn't matter how you feel sometimes, you might perform great even feeling bad.
@@ajtatosmano2 yea, it totally makes sense to me, sleeping time does matter in cognitive behavior like memory and emotions, and in physical growth; where sleeping took many stages and have different functionality of each stage. Though, i haven't read much about how it affects in detail, but at least there are these fucs on the text book i read in intro to psychology. And I think the shortened sleeping block needed to explore in the direction of how effective cognitive behaviour compares to normal 8 hrs of sleep.
I find that siesta in generals are simply a great way of recovery.
When i was an intern, i saw a big pattern of sleepiness after lunch. I knew about post-prendial effect on the body, but that was true for everyone around me, but it seemed i was the only one to struggle that much.
I tried to do a 20min siesta, in a sitting position, head on my desk, brown noise in my earbuds. For me, clos8ng my eyes are enough to fall asleep, even in a lit and noisy environement.
After those 20 minutes, i felt like i had taken 5 coffee, and the feeling stayed for the afternoon.
People were not very enthousiast at the idea of the somewhat new intern sleeping on his desk, but it was during lunch time and it did help with productivity, so they could not say anything about it.
As of today, i converted some people to the 20-min-sitting-down siesta at work. It never stopped working for me. The only downside is missing social gathering during break, but my prodoctivity is worth it and people now understand.
The weird thing is, if i do the same thing but laying down (at home, not at work) it completely reverses the effects. I get tired, i am foggy, i feel like a truck hit me. But sitting (even at home), that 20min sleep instantly wake me up feeling ready to run a 4km sprint.
Interesting! I forget who did this (tesla or someone like that I bet): Sitting in an armchair, holding a bunch of keys in your hand, with a metal plate underneath it. When you fall asleep, you drop the keys, which hit the plate loudly, and wake you up. Perfect short powernap (apparently!)
It's probably got to do with oxygen flow. Sleeping lying down in a small unventilated bedroom will give you some poor air quality
@@NoBoilerplate I think it was Salvador Dali.
About the lying down part: you could try to incline your bed. IIRC there was a mechanical fluid engineer that was showing why a 15 degrees incline would greatly benefit your blood flow and overall sleep quality.
@@Aranarth78 Dali! Of course! he wanted that dreamlike state
1 coffee and that sleep schedule is gonna crumble like a house of cards
You're right! polyphasic.net recommends skipping caffeine while you do your experiment.
I was able, after 2 weeks, to introduce a cup of tea after I wake from each phase, and that seemed to work fine!
Haha I was considering polyphasic until i realized this. It would be hard to separate myself from coffee
@@bienzoo every day I'm so grateful that I drink tea XD
@@NoBoilerplate would this be the same for ADHD stimulant medication? If so I'm already doomed and still tired.....
@@moafwaz5563 People tell me it's nearly impossible to nap on adhd medicine? If so, this is not the hack for you. Perhaps focusing on sleep hygiene and routine might help? The stricter you are, the less time you need in bed! Less extreme hack, more of exactly what our parents told us for years, sorry! XD
Its my first time hearing this and I've actually been living it all a long. I sleep 2-3 hours in the day and 2-3 hours during the night. And I feel very active and I'm productive throughout the day.
Your avatar of a cat is very prescient!
hey dude sorry to bother you but how did u managed to develop a certain sleep schedule to fit your daily routine and tasks
if u dont mind i'd love to hear your advises and how can i do the same as you, thank you!
@@WhyyuuplayinZord I tried polyphasic sleeping a long time ago and the trick for me was lots of alarms and reminders, written and digital. Also, lots of discipline. If you really want it you have to make it happen.
Actually that was my sleep schedule while in german navy. On small boats you have 6h watch, 6h off. But while on offwatch you also have some duties, have to ingest two meals and care for hygiene and/or sports.
Doesnt take much adaption time as well, id say about 2 days based on experience.
Strangely I also gained the ability to sleep everywhere and whenever, which i lost after following a "normal" sleep schedule again.
@@janeymers7154 I could do the same in the military when we were in the field for one or two weeks and I had to get up once or twice a night for multiple hours. It is called "Behaviorally Induced Insufficient Sleep Syndrome" which is a mouthful and being able to fall asleep anytime and everywhere is actually a symptom.
Well done; I tried this method 2 years ago.
24 y.o. Programmer. Goal: I was in the process of switching my professional field. This required extensive studying. So I wanted to increase my learning speed by increasing amount of waking hours.
Result: I gave up on the 5th month as I became less productive and felt tired. Overall decreased motivation and mood. I caught myself many times sleeping while waking or reading comprehension decreased, had to reread some things 2-3 times. Hallucinations, I was staring at the carpet, was awake, but had a dream with sounds. Part of me still thinks I have damaged my brain because of this experiment.
I tried this experiment 5-6 times, but it was only a short time, 2-3 weeks, until I found my schedule, 2 hours at night: 11pm - 1am. And 2 1-hour naps during a day; I am trying to remember which time exactly, but I planned to have a qual time gap to recover. I asked my little brother to wake me up no matter what I say or do or how tired I look because I believed that after some time, I would adjust.
Possible failure reason: I was living with my parents, and sometimes I had guests, kids especially, who sometimes woke me up during my daily nap. Yeah.
It could have compounded to the point that I needed more sleep, but my strict sleep habit was my priority, so I couldn't adapt and return to the net zero.
Also, lots of stress at that time. Some personal stuff.
BTW: Would I try it again? No. Don't even think about it. It's not even short-term beneficial.
The best is to stick to 8 hours of sleep + workout + eat well, + WORK HARD to have more freedom than more slave hours, and the MAIN thing, have love and peace with yourself and your family. It's not even negotiable because It's the foundation for your future. The most frustrating part about this guidance is that folks don't wanna listen, believing there are still easy ways out. As a result, nearly everyone discovers the truth the difficult way, just like I did.
yeah. there's no scientific evidence for benefits of polyphasic sleep. it probably will cause sleep deprivation in the long run
can you elaborate on the brain damage part? what potential signs show up?
@@danynata9337 nothing special really, only sometimes when I can sleep without alarm, I sleep at least 9+ hours, it's almost 8 hours is not enough anymore. My learning ability overall is the same as my mental state.
@@rtnjo6936 I had the same after I had spent months at an average of 4 hours for several months and 6 hours for years. After I disconnected from the concept of night and day signalling sleep and slept whenever I wanted I returned to a healthy 8 hour cycle naturally (more like 7:40-50)
@@rtnjo6936 I read somewhere that 8 1/2 is optimal. Mostly due to the fact that it takes the average person about half an hour to slip into sleep. People hopping into bed with an alarm set for 8 hours are only getting 7 1/2 on average a night. So they are losing 3-4 hours of sleep a week.
As a narcoleptic this interests me because it takes me about 5-10 mins into sleep to reach REM compared to the average time of 90 mins. Something like the Uberman is like subjecting your body to the quantities of stage 3 sleep of that a person with narcolepsy has. Not experiencing enough stage 3 sleep is really rough on your body. You will feel tired. Stage 3 sleep is where your body releases growth hormone and where a lot of other appetite regulating hormones are released. There is data that indicates that a lack of deep sleep leads to a lot of physiological problems. Also for narcoleptics there is a significant correlation with anxiety and depression. Who knows if that correlation is caused by a lack of deep sleep or the possible autoimmune disorders that also cause narcolepsy. In the end quantitative data surrounding sleep is hard to gather. If you are going to experiment with your sleep schedules I implore people find a purpose for wanting to sleep less other than simply" having more time to be awake". From a small sample size of my friends I can certainly say that the the people that tend to get the most work done/do the most, in a day, also tend to sleep the longest.
I'm sorry to hear about this, what a terrible condition! I totally agreed with you: I certainly don't recommend 'uberman', as I hope was clear in the video. Siesta schedules, like E1 and E2 are gentler, and provide a good option for people looking to experiment and pinch back a few hours a day.
I agree that it's important to have a good reason for doing a polyphasic schedule, but given the difficulties, I wonder if that group is self-selecting? I'm looking to do E1 from next week because I'd really like a few extra hours before breakfast to write youtube scripts, my podcasts, and music! :-)
I like the statement that simply looking for a way to decrease the total amount of sleep needed per day might not be the best motivation to change the sleep schedule.
I naturally transitioned into some kind of polyphasic sleep some years ago and I'm still sticking to it. My sleep quality definitely improved, however, the total amount of sleep I get per day didn't significantly change.
No ways a fellow narcoleptic💥 actually glad to have seen this comment. A lot of stuff I've had to self-diagnose over years is in your comment...unreal :')
I can't get through a through a work day without at least 2 naps...and yeah level 3 sleep is non-existent.
this is such an exciting concept. Thanks for sharing this.
I was obsessed with the polyphasic sleep when I was a teenager, but unfortunately in my case it doesn't quite work. What works however, is this biphasic sleep - one late afternoon, then I wake up extremely rested (and I clean, eat, study, read, have fun), the second sleep is a night one, however this one is shorter. Apparently this process has been way in the past as people back then have "two sleeps" - I highly recommend googling this phenomenon.
nice! yeah, 'polyphasic' is an umbrella term that covers biphasic, do check out www.polyphasic.net/biphasic-2/
Also important to note that the circadian rhythm is shifted later in teen years, why it's so hard for teenagers to get up early for school for example
@@kimarna I'm 27 and it's still hard for me to wake up early tbh lol
@@pedrosilvamusician I think it’s more in contrast to younger kids, who naturally wake up earlier :) the able bodied teens need to be able to stay awake to protect their families from tigers and wolves during the night, at least from an evolutionary standpoint. Lots of schools actually make teens get up EALIER than elementary/middle school kids which is all kinds of messed up :/
@@TheHappyZappy I actually find it harder to wake up than when I was a teen. I went from struggling to fall asleep as a child, to struggling to wake up as an adult.
I didn't know about polyphasic sleep, but I did have a weird experience earlier this year.
I had so much work to do that I didn't have time to sleep the full night. Most days I simply felt awful in the morning, but a couple of times I fell asleep when getting home at 18:00 for something like 40 min. Then I would sleep between 00:00 and 04:00. And when I woke up I felt amazing. Best sleep ever.
At the time I thought my body was so tired it confused itself into being full of energy, but in retrospect it might be connected to this topic.
You accidentally did polyphasic sleep! Some wierd form of E1, perhaps?
Nope, you just woke up at the end of your REM sleep cycle. There alarm clock apps that track your sleep cycles and wake you up at the end of them. If ypu wake in the moddle of REM you will be way more tired as you are chock full of hormones that make you sleepy and paralized (in order to not move during a dream)
@@KayleMaster I've heard people say the opposite: if you wake up from deep sleep you feel groggy, but if you wake up during REM you feel alert, and can remember your dream.
We don't know much about this!
@@NoBoilerplate Is REM not deep sleep? I had always heard so….but I often dream right off, even as I am going to sleep, and I cannot be in REM that soon…
@@Karenpayne47 No, I blieve REM is quite a light sleep, deep sleep is very little brain activity, no dreams.
I just wanted to say this is one of the best planned and executed "essay videos" I've seen on UA-cam so far. You've made me curious and truly inspired to give it a go. You've won a subscriber
Thank you! This is my new standard of video, I started doing programming videos, but I have branched out into other technical topics that intrigue me!
@@NoBoilerplate I fully advocate you keep the format as an option :)
Man, I think I found my new favorite channel. Just love the presentation
Glad you enjoy it!
Love the different topics you cover. Keep it up!
Thank you! I'm alternating: one rust, one other. ☺️
@@NoBoilerplate Variety is always good, and it doesn't hurt that the topics interest us (should I just speak for myself?).
Planning to start a everyman schedule from today, cold turkey. Wish me luck!
Definitely looks interesting.
Also I can't overstate the impact that not eating at nighttime has.
Personal anecdote: I've been suffering from similar issues that you mentioned about an inability to fall asleep as well as the ability to stay asleep. Generally i can manage this and be productive but things got out of hand at the start of this year. So much so i was miserable. It took a week for me to get back on track and now I have a stable 11-6 sleep schedule.
Tips: People online are correct, I didn't believe in some of the tips i found online but they have worked for me (maybe it's placebo but i don't mind it as long as it works). Basically turn off your lights at night, and get some sun in the day with bright lights. Don't eat or drink coffee after sunset. Preferably give yourself 15-30 minutes of no screen before sleeping which will help you get in the mood to sleep.
I think I'll try polyphasic sleep after a couple of months, once I've fallen into my current routine as habit.
That's great! Even a siesta gives good improvement it seems
Funny enough, I'm the opposite. I need to eat before bed. I can not sleep if I am the tiniest bit hungry.
The tips you mentioned are not given online. Those tips are actual studied facts. Drinking coffee and blue lights from TV, Computer or Phones slow down the adenosine receptors (which make you feel drowsy and sleepy) making you alert and awake for longer. After you fall asleep your adenosine doesn't recover so when you wake up and still feel tired it's the issue. Usually it's related to that. Additionally, eating before sleeping does something similar in that regard too, because your body needs to spend energy digesting the food. If you fall asleep after eating a big meal which spends more energy, you risk your digestion to stop and that can be fatal. But your body can respond naturally to it by making you throw the food out
dude! what an awesome video, thanks! very informative! and I love the quote "those without dirty hands, are wrong" I believe i might start getting my hands dirty on this topic
This is very interesting! Thank you for introducing me to this concept and sharing your experience, I'll definitely be looking more into this myself :D
Have an experiment and listen to your body! www.polyphasic.net/
Suprised to see a video like this on NB. You're doing great Tris!
Thank you! My schedule is half rust, half cool shit :D
I did E2 for 3 months as an experiment. It was very interesting as a self reflective exercise as I dreamed a lot more during the core sleep and paid a lot more attention to my bodys sleep signals.
I stopped after 3 months because I was at university and started missing out on social events. (Timing shifts and alcohol can really mess with polyphasicsleep quality from my experience) and I worked in a lab where there was nowhere I could consistently have my qfternoon nap. There were a few awkward conversations with my supervisor...
Its something i would consider trying again if my schedule would allow for it (currently it doesn't).
I also wanna try E2 out, but as a university student I also would miss out a lot socially since a lot of my social time extends well into the 22/24 hour mark
At the very least E1 (with a siesta SOMETIME between 12-15) can be very good
Yes, starting and stopping polyphasing is very normal I think, depending on life!
As someone who had untreated sleep apnea for a long time it would be very interesting to me to see how people on polyphasic sleep do on some of the standardized sleep questionnaires (e.g. the Epworth Sleepiness Scale).
I ask because while I had apnea I never really felt like anything was wrong, I was just tired a lot.
Your comment about being ready to drop at 22:00 kind of reminded me of that.
at the end of high school, i adopted a biphasic sleep schedule where i sleep at 10, wake up at 2, sleep again at 4 and wake up at 8. after two years of that i was able to do that consistently but a couple years and a dozen or so mess-ups later and now i’m staying up til 5, waking up at 9, crashing at 11, and finally waking up at 3. literally watching this as the sun rises lmao
My main issue with aggressive polyphasic sleep is it runs contrary to our evolved circadian rhythm that is based around the rising and setting of the sun. There has been some recent striking findings about sun exposure, the timing of said exposure, and even the wavelengths you are exposed to and its long term effects on a wide variety health issues. Getting up before the sun is up, (especially by several hours) as well as going to bed many hours past sun down seems to affect many bio-mechanisms in our body negatively. That said, I am more open to doing this for a 6 month stretch to get a major project done, my concern is more around doing this for years. If you are interested in some of the data I mentioned, I recommend giving this a listen. Its a little long, but fascinating, and can be just listened too:
ua-cam.com/video/5YV_iKnzDRg/v-deo.html
Very interesting, there's certainly a lot to learn about how sleep affects our bodies and brains, thank you for the link.
My suspicion is that the three 'Everyman' variants that I talked about in the video, E1, E2, E3, all get plenty enough of core sleep that they remain pretty good for most people, Certainly E2 felt straightforward for me.
As you say, short project-focussed periods of Everyman seem useful.
The 'nap-only' variants, like 'uberman' are seemingly impossible, as I said. Those I'd be very cautious about trying, even as a short experiment!
@@NoBoilerplate uberman sleep schedule and everything with less that 2h sleep blocks is garbage. deep sleep is needed for tissue repair and immune system function as two important examples. you WILL NOT be healthy if you are depriving yourself of deep sleep blocks
did you know that pre industrial societies often slept in two phases?
a first sleep and a second sleep, one started at sunset and ended sometime around midnight and the other started a few hours after that and ended as the sun rose.
sleeping throughout the night in one block is a relatively new thing.
medieval workers in europe often had a lot of naps during the day between stretches of work, cant comment on those specific individuals night schedule though, ive not looked into this bit a lot
@@guesswho2778 I've heard that too, I wish I'd put it in the video as an example of the prevalence of non-monophasic sleep!
This old method of sleep was extremely common in the winter, when there was much more than 8h of darkness, and candles a precious resource.
Well, if your monophasic sleep schedule is actually working, you might not want to change. 😂 I, OTOH, cannot get asleep at night, nor stay awake in the day. Worth a shot!
Fascinating! I've been sleeping 4 or less hours a night for about a year now. It's not great. The idea of scheduled naps sounds lovely! Might have to try that lol.
that's not enough! throw some naps in there! research: polyphasic.net
Found this channel on recommended, I didn't even watch a few seconds of this video and I instantly subbed. I'm gonna retroactively watch your entire catalogue of videos (I see something about Rust, gonna look that up fo sure). Thank you for this
Thank you - welcome! Half my videos are about Rust, half are about interesting technical topics like this!
Thanks for making this video, great to hear your experience! In my late 30s, I was able to do the E3 schedule for about 18 months back in 2018-19. According to my sleep tracking app I got an average of 4.5 hours of sleep for that entire period of time. I loved having the quiet time in the early morning hours to work on a project I needed to get done. My core sleep was from 22:30 to 2:30 and took 20 minute naps before breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Most of the time I was able to plan it so my first nap allowed me to wake up to the sunrise at the same time as my wife. A couple of times a month I would crash and just sleep all night as a bit of a reset, this was also necessary if I ever missed a nap the day before. I came to really enjoy the naps, I carried a blackout mask and a neck pillow with me so I could always be comfortable no matter where I was even if I had to nap in the car. I would set my alarm for 23 minutes which gave me enough time to relax, fall asleep and get the perfect 20 minute nap. Then I would wake up, have a bite to eat and be ready to go. I felt like my concentration increased and really felt great as long as I stuck to the schedule precisely. But as soon as that project was complete it was all too easy just to stay in bed all night. It takes a lot of motivation to overcome the pressure to conform to "a normal schedule"
Thank you for your account. Yes absolutely, society has a lot of pressure!
Adverse impact of polyphasic sleep patterns in humans: Report of the National Sleep Foundation sleep timing and variability consensus panel
Yeah, more investigation is needed. But that could be you!
This article excludes the kind of sleep schedule present in the video: "We did not include studies of afternoon naps or siestas, since they do not resemble the common schedules advocated by polyphasic sleep enthusiasts".
Still, the article does suggest that reduction in sleep time has adverse effects, although there appears to be only one study listed where the participants have been on polyphasic sleep for an extended period of time (longer than 10 days).
Did you consider athletes in this experiment?
This sort of sleep modification is basicly saying "When I sleep and im still mid sleep but done with my REM for the night, the fact that if I then wake up it leaves me tired, is my body being stupid. And sleeping many times is just the way to stop my body being stupid."
But I dont really understand that.
Id just try to learn to be productive during your sleep instead.
@@Dogo.R oh yeah lemme just change the way that my body handles sleep, such an easy thing to do. You know, all these people with "insomnia" and all just have skill issue, I am obviously qualified to say so
Here is why you're so eager to sleep earlier with this E2 sleep schedule: You're sleep deprived.
No, being sleep deprived doesn't necessarily mean you've lost any meaningful cognitive function or that you're constantly tired or fatigued. I have lived for weeks on just 4-6 hours a sleep per night and it doesn't even feel like you're tired after a certain point. In some ways it feels invigorating. But after some good sleep, a damn good long sleep, you feel restful. Like a burden has been lifted from your back, a burden you didn't even realize was there. I think it has something to do with the stress levels of the body rising on account of being sleep deprived. I don't strictly mean the kind of stress you get from an upcoming exam or a presentation, but the kind of stress that has to do with high stress hormone levels. To say it with the cool science bidibang badaboo wibii reddit terminology, the sympathetic nervous system activates so you can get shit done. No parasympathetic nervous system (opposite of the prior) activation leads to health concerns in the long run, vascular and heart problems, nervous system issues like dementia, weight gain, weaker immune system etc. The reason nobody has succeeded in the E4 system is because that's too much sleep deprivation to push trough. Because if needed a human can push trough a LOT of sleep deprivation.
Thanks for sharing this experience.
I remember discussions about this in college psychology.
Man I love this content!
straight to point and with great explanation.
Keep it up! This one video convinced me to subscribe.
Thank you!
Intresting, I need 9-10hrs sleep to fill fully energetic. Whenever I get less than 8 hour sleep I fill mild headache and nausea through out the day, and only able to focus on work for 2-3 hours. I think polyphasic sleep can work for those who don't require to put much mental efforts in their work.
But thanks No Boilerplate for introducing concept of polyphasic sleep
oh totally, we're all very different. I even believe that SOME people can do uberman! But maybe try a siesta, E1?
Awesome stuff. More of these please!
Thank you! Will do!
super interesting video. I really enjoy taking naps during the day but have never done it consistently enough to consider it part of "a" sleep schedule. the idea that doing naps at regular intervals can reduce overall sleep time is new to me, I'll have to look into this now
I hadn’t realized but I also may have accidentally tried polyphasic sleep. Usually after coming home from uni, I’d sleep around 10pm out of pure exhaustion. Almost like clockwork, I’d somehow wake up around 2-3 am, remembering to do my assignments. Id stay up the whole morning and I genuinely felt more productive.
sounds like E1 to me!
Im basically accidentally in E1 aswell, it seems
My time in the Army convinced me something like this is possible and healthy. I learned to sleep anywhere, even standing in formation in the morning. And the minute I close my eyes I immediately start dreaming. Now during the work week I’ll sleep 5-6 hours and take a 20 minute nap and sleep in on the weekends. I’ve done jt for years and so far it works for me.
Does the army 'train' you on this or is it just how their schedule works?
@@quora1820 Some level of sleep depravation is always part of training so you learn to catch any sleep while you can. Some schools like Ranger School specifically incorporate long stretches sleep depravation and starvation to simulate combat conditions. There are real life combat situations where you can't sleep for days so it has to be trained for. A good soldier can sleep anywhere anytime :)
When do you take the nap? The polyphasic sleep site shows it at 1pm, that wouldn't work for me since I'm at work
@@seanomik6176 hmmmm I try to catch a nap when I’m tired and have a spare half hour between meetings. Not everyone has the freedom to do that with their work schedule and environment. If I don’t nap then I’ll sleep a full 8 hours when I get home. I’ll be so sleepy from not having a nap that I’ll naturally sleep earlier and longer to catch up
This sort of experience led to the polyphasic hypothesis, I think! Thank you for explaining, very interesting!
Yo guys! I haven't watched the video but I just came in to tell about my experience. I tried polyphasic sleep when i was a student and it broke me in 2 month. I had 2 phases: 3-4.5h at night and 1.5h around 20-21. It difficult at first but then i kinda adapted. I was functional but never well rested. After 2 months I lost my ability to concentrate and i couldn't study anymore. Also my mental has gotten worse. In process I completely burned out in Uni and had to drop off. Spent a couple of years dealing with mental issues.
So before you try it know that it might be dangerous and this experiment might have long lasting impact on your life. Having enough sleep is important for you mental health and if you don't feel well rested you should just stop and look for other ways to increase your performance.
Yes certainly it's not for everyone, especially biphasic schedules like that sounds tough.
E2 is a *breeze* compared to that!
I think it's because your schedule was unadaptable and you proceeded with less than required sleep for too long.
Also these schedules need to be strict and aligned to your circadian rhythm - your body has different sleep phase pressures at certain times.
Hope you get better soon.
I dont wanna be rude, but i sounds like this sleep cyrcle might probably not have been the main reason for what happened to you. Sounds more like stress and presure from Uni breaking your mental health which lead to having depression. I might be wrong tho, this is just what it sounded like to me.
That schedule doesn’t sound very awesome. With a segmented schedule the first sleep should be ideally between 21:00 and 00:00 which is where you get the most SWS. It should also last at least 3h to cover all the SWS need. With the second core sleep would ideally be around 6:00-9:00 (REM peak, where you get a lot of REM). The last core should also be 3h, but can also be 1.5h with the presence of daytime naps.
As a few comments have mentioned, this is quite interesting and it has taught me something I didn’t know!
Would you consider doing a follow up video with more info? Maybe some different methods, how to minimise the effects of having a strict sleep pattern, how to catch up on sleep debt using an uncommon schedule. For example say you need to be awake from E2 Nap 2 all the way through to 04:00 (long road trip maybe), in a normal schedule you would just sleep in then continue on like it never happened.
Thanks for posting this!
My pleasure - honestly I've exhausted my knowledge on the matter, all I know is that E2 worked great for me, and I suspect that E1 would work for nearly anyone (who can nap after lunch).
You will find most answers on the very detailed info on polyphasic.net, and do chat on my discord, there are many folks talking about their own experiments in #polyphasic-sleep!
The last time I had heard about polyphasic sleep was years and years ago- so glad to have stumbled upon this video! Next chance I get to alter my schedule my days shall contain one or several siestas
A siesta or two are wonderful!
tried this once and was ready to end it all on the 5th day. I wasn't tired but I was miserable like never before
Thank you for making this video! Polyphasic sleep is my special interest right now and I wouldn’t have found out about it without this video. I wanna adapt to a schedule sometime, but my parents are very critical to it, so I have to wait a couple years first.
no rush - the best time to do a polyphasing experiment is when you have control of your own schedule, and can take a siesta. So, this will probably be over a summer, or perhaps if you get a job where you work from home. Till then, try normal sleep hygiene, strict bedtime strict wake time - you can dial in your sleep really well with just that!
Be careful if you aren't 18 yet. The detrimental effects of polyphasic sleep can be amplified for young people.
@@WatchMeDoMath yes, I am aware of that and will wait until i am 21 before starting to experiment with poly, but thanks anyway.
Interesting. Didn’t know this was a thing but already do this to some level. May test it out as mentioned. Need more time to learn stuff. Love your videos.
Thank you so much! Yes, it's an interesting experiment. A reminder that as I said in the video, 'uberman' is impossible (and unhealthy) but Everyman 1,2,3 seem very sensible to me, and certainly E2 worked well!
I tried hacking my brain once but I accidentally bricked it by putting the wrong instructions into the command prompt.
This sounds pretty awesome, I usually get really tired after work/dinner and take a nap. After, I can't fall asleep anymore till 1:00 - 3:00. But it doesn't feel great, I feel a lot better when I sleep and wake early and sometimes take a nap early in the afternoon. So this schedule seems pretty well suited for me.
Good experiment for you too, maybe?
Man, I remember doing ubermann around 2008/2009 and it was horrible and awesome at the same time. What really kicked my nuts was the fact that I got really really bored and then started to sleep again normal. I did this for a period of 60 days or so (the first two weeks felt like torture in a russian gulag) and I had a todo list prepared what I wanted to do in that time. The list hat around 500 things and I was done with all of them very fast.
Maybe I try it again, but I will never try ubermann again!
Thanks for sharing this video :)
Yes, friends don't let friends try uberman! lol
Try E2 or E3 - and read up on polyphasic.net!
I was actually wondering on this subject - at least of the social default part, and your vid came up. It never seemed right to me how the default schedule should work the same for everyone, nor does the school system.
Anyway, cheers and keep up with all of your content. You're awesome 🤘
Man, I really needed this. After my 6 month experiment with Uberman in 2007 I tried to get back to it several times but failed. Now I have sleep problems and far more things to do and don't really have anything to lose. Thank you!
Good thing, my brain still responds to pzizz app, so I can always take a 20 min nap.
I noticed that every time I first wake up in the morning, if I don't get up and go back to sleep ill wake up feeling groggy, unmotivated and low energy. But if I wake up when I first gain consciousness in the day then ill feel energized, motivated and awake.
I think this might have something to do with waking up from different phases of sleep? Good to have figured it out for yourself!
Me too! But then I need a nap a couple hours later
I might feel more awake immediately after getting up, but I tend to feel sick-ish and fatigued the rest of the day, rather than the groggy ramp-up that I'd get for getting another 1-2 hours of sleep in, but I'd end up feeling better later in the day. I know my sleep cycles are around average to a slight bit faster, so I should be sleeping just one extra cycle, normally.
I enjoy a very light sleep and difficulty falling asleep as well. My experience with polyphasic sleep years ago was a disaster. Maybe I should give this one a try, that sounds promising!
Give E2 a go!
Very interesting and presented so well!
I've been practicing biphasic sleep for a few years now, because my work schelude is very irregular: 2-3 early shifts, 2-3 late shifts, 2-3 night shifts, then 4-5 days off. I sleep for 2h after getting home, 3-4h before going to work.
When i have days off, the 2h after a night shift really help to stay awake the whole day and immediately getting back into an early shift rythm. Tho in my off days i'll then just have one sleep at night.
thanks for sharing this enlightening experience
I have some pretty extreme bouts of insomnia, some where I am just flat out awake for 2-3+ days at a time, crash for a day or two and then start the cycle over. Something I notice about these cycles is when I doze off even just for literally 10-30 minutes I will have EXTREME dreams usually of wild nightmares and they’ll all be very vivid. From what I know, this stuff only happens during REM sleep and when I’m at a healthy sleeping schedule I really never have dreams at least that I remember and if I do they’re pretty insignificant, so clearly there must be something to the whole idea of your body will snap into REM sleep if it decides it really needs it.
yeah, there's *something* there isn't there!
Try out drinking a lot of water (2 l / day). It helped me to improve my concentration and somehow my sleep as well. It's still pretty bad thou. Your case definitely need medical help, seek out a doctor!
@@ajtatosmano2 +1 on drinking well, I drink a LOT of water
Same for me and is annoying/confusing, wish my sleep was anything resembling normal.
wow, i had no idea this is a "thing". after watching this video, i realized i was practicing Everyman 2 unintentionally for almost a year from 2021 to 2022. My schedule was sleep from 00:30 to 05:30am then work from 6am to 2-3pm with a 1h sleep at either 1pm or 4pm during the day. I was working remotely from Brazil on european schedule. Outside of work i was exploring the cities or just enjoying in a lot of extra time (reading, etc..). I remember those times as being most focused and switched on I ever been. i work as SRE in a highly stressful environment and i have my times when i have very hard time focusing. sometimes i thought i have adhd, so i really did notice a big difference.
Incredible! Now you have a name for the schedule :-)
To start Uberman I began with 30 or so hours of no sleep. It didn’t take long to get into the 20 min sleeps. This fixed my inability to fall asleep at night almost permanently.
Gotta say it's really amazing and life changing
I just figured out how I don’t die at school…
I go to sleep at like 1am, wake up at 5:50am, get ready and sleep on the bus for bout 20 minutes and when I get out at 2:40, I sleep on the way back for like 20 minutes. I’m almost never tired and now I guess this is why
having a nap while on public transport is awesome
@@NoBoilerplate Finally someone who gets it
I started doing this, by accident, when I started working from home. I am also a work at home software developer and I started work at home because of the pandemic, but now i refuse to go back. I found a fully remote job with no chance of going into an office (the don't have one) and I love it.
So, after I started working at home, like many, I had some mild depression during the lockdowns. Honestly, as I am very introverted to start with, it wasn't a huge adjustment to be away from people, but it was more just due to the stress of trying not to get my semi-immune compromised wife sick, while still working, managing my son's schoolwork (his school also went remote for about 18 months), and dodging that minefield that was Florida during the pandemic (highest infection rates in the country because most people just didn't care to social distance; i mean, hell, they reopened the theme parks here in June of 2020...), As a result of the depression, i found myself going to bed earlier, and also napping on my lunch hour. The side effect was that I noticed when i went to bed early, i woke up after about 5 hours, and would have to either force myself to go back to sleep, or I would read until my morning alarms went off. After the depression passed, I stayed with the napping, and hit REM within a 20-30 minutes nap pretty consistently. it was a little jarring in fact, but this seemed to completely get rid of my previous afternoon caffeine cravings or nodding off at my keyboard by 3pm-ish.
So now, I do find myself feeling tired earlier, although I force it a bit some days to stay up later, and some evenings I will get off of work around 5pm, eat dinner at 6, and nap until 8 or so, before staying up until 2-3am, and getting back into bed for a short time before waking to start the morning routine. But honestly, I think this works for me. I am less irritable, need less caffeine, and have more time to play video games in the evenings/early mornings.
I really think there's a schedule for everyone, you've found yours, and I hope that my video encourages folks to experiment and find theirs!
Hi there! Hopefully this comment is of any use for someone.
In 2021 I had my first experience with psilocybin. One of the effects that lasted till now, is the enhanced awareness of my body stimulus. I came to recognize these weird feelings and I started to put them some words/meaning. For example: some nights I feel the need to sleep wearing socks, and some nights my feet are screaming "get them off!!!". Answering to my body requests is key for having my optimum experience when going to sleep (specially getting through the difficult part: falling sleep). Another example is that sometimes I feel need to brush my teeth again, but in order to do that, I need to get out of the bed even if I was getting cozy. But it pays off massively. My body then becomes transparent, and at some point, not always but most of the time, I can even feel how I'm leaving to the other world (actually saying "night-night" to myself in my mind).
That way, I have managed to have great sleeping during night, or when napping, or even a performing a 5 mins "bio-break" to reset my body stimulus that are unbalanced. And I have experienced all kinds of stuff during the process of falling asleep and also having amazing lucid or weird/fun dreams.
To conclude, I'm not suggesting taking mushrooms (lol, they are fun but not a toy), but make sure you listen your body as equal as your routine and desires.
what an interesting account, thank you!
I’ve used this similar technique for the past few months, it some what worked for me and somewhat didn’t simply because I took into account my coordination and communication time with my family and friends. Because I received less time with them it made me feel like I was tuning my sleep schedule but that’s what helped me through exams, I also attempted to sleep for 5 hours at night, typically 1-2am to 6am and then I’d come back from school, sleep at 4pm-9pm and then get up and continue with my school work which left me feeling groggy and tried, even if I would sleep 8 hours if still feel the need to take an afternoon nap. Some days I would feel so exhausted from school without even any physical activity or sleep deprivation from the night before, absolutely nothing, yet I’d still end up on my bed right after school at 3pm and sleep till the next day 12pm on weekends.
I’ve also noticed my dad has a similar routine, he works very hard and has changing/rotating shifts every 2 days, so for when he has night shifts he would come back from his Night Shift at 7am sleep till 10am and then go for his second job, come back in the afternoon (sometimes he wouldn’t come back till sunset) and sleep from 4-6pm and then he would get up, do some office work at home, and then sleep again from 8-9 and go for his Night Shift and the cycle repeats. Or during morning shifts, he would come back at 3, sleep till 4 and go for his second job or just stay at home, then go to bed at a usual 9-10pm and wake up at 5 am for his job. And lastly, for his afternoon shift, he would sleep wake up at 8, go to his second job and then either come home for an hour or straight up go to his office at 1pm and come back at 11pm and sleep at the same time. There were no gaps between his changing shifts but there would always be a 1 day off after his second nightshift during which he would dedicate his time to his second job which was his own niche company (a family business as a side hustle) and he has been doing this since I was born. Even so I didn’t take into account those times I would use up his sleep time for going out to get groceries or getting dropped at a mall or friends house. My dad does both office work and Labour. He’s also in charge of multiple things in both workplaces including dealing with paper work and running errands etc, he’s the most hardworking person I know. I used to get upset and angry at him for being such a terrible father, for not showing up on school events or being rude or just not being a vibe but after taking a moment to think about what he has to go through to make sure I’m living a lavish and comfortable life I realise why he’s been like this, I don’t know if it’s really that healthy for him but I do know atleast me and him share the same messed up sleep schedule
I have done this off and on forever, I need to fully commit to it. I've found I always feel better even after a couple of months doing this. Normal 7-8 hours I'm tired throughout the day, even if I sleep 10-12. Some people just aren't meant for normal sleep schedules.
Right!
I inadvertantly fell into an E2 sleep schedule for a good chunk of the winters of both 2017 and 2018. I lived at the time way up north in Canada where the winters are extremely oppressive. I was 100% work from home for a social media start up and severely depressed and stressed out because of the above two factors.
I was so unhappy at work, I would just go to sleep and shower multiple times per day as just the only things I could do to get away from work and sitting in front of a computer. I had no friends, no family, and nowhere to go during the winter in my small town where the air was -20 degrees celsius for 5+ months at a time.
I had no way of spending all of the extra time I unlocked. All I did was play video games I didn't enjoy and work excessive hours to pass the time. It destroyed my sense of time with the packing of 3 day and night cycles of sleeping, waking up, showering into 24 hours. I barely at all during this time. Partly due to being absolutely sedentary and simply not burning many calories, I honestly probably ate fewer than 1000 calories a day on average at times. I'd eat once a day 3 fried eggs and a pan full of hashbrowns and that was basically it. I was 120lb 5'9 at best.
Now obviously there's a lot going on there beyond just E2 sleep cycle, but my sleep schedule was absolutely part of the misery. I would have good small sleeps through the day, and then the most terror-inducing false-awakening nightmares during the long sleep during the real night (at least partly attributable to the aversion to starting another work day) to the point I couldn't really even tell when I was awake anymore. I would have dreams within dreams where I would 'wake up' but as I was going about my day horrible things would happen because I was still dreaming all along - I hadn't truly woken up.
It should be noted I had effectively zero sunlight exposure, nor in person contact, nor leaving my house for months at a time. Only breaking the cycle to go grocery shopping for more eggs and hashbrowns in the middle of the night - speaking nor looking at anybody. As if that was a reset of my 4 week+ isolation stretch in any way. Even this was a struggle because at the constant -20, -30, -40 weather your car battery would drain and die and it would be a full exercise to break the ice out from your car hood, re-charge the battery, scrape all of the ice and snow off of the vehicle, wade through the all of the unshoveled snow of the drive way in the cold, dark and wind.
I'd legitimately wake up in the morning, take two naps spread throughout the day, and then have at least one false awakening dream within a 24 cycle. 4 'days' within one as far as 'waking up' was concerned.
Never again.
Even now I'm still vulnerable to just going to sleep in the middle of the day as an escape from work as I'm still 100% remote. Don't screw with your sleep schedule and don't deprive yourself of sunlight. I wouldn't wish my experience on anybody - I cannot explain the terror of not being able to trust your own senses of whether or not you really are awake, or just experiencing a terrifyingly vivid dream within a dream.
That sounds interesting now that you are past the nightmares are you glad that they occurred since they are in the past and they were an interesting experience? Kind of like skydiving. Care to tell me about some of the nightmares you had?
@ok, this is epic
It's important to emphasize the complete disconnection I had to any normal circadian rhythm regulation. I was in northern canada with blackout curtains on every window during long and miserable winters. I had no family. No friends. No exercise. I did not leave my house. The sole singular thing I had in my life was my job that I wasn't qualified for and could be fired from at any moment to lose everything.
The nightmares were often mundane which is why they were so distressing. They were often indistinguishable from a regular day, probably 75% of them were a completely lucid dream. Over time somethings would just be increasingly off: I would be fired from my job. Something in my kitchen would catch fire. I would cause a traffic accident. My teeth would fall out. People would show up at my door to harrass and threaten me.
I would again often know I'm having a terrifying lucid dream, after all it was a constant daily occurence, and try to force myself out of it with varying degrees of success.
The worst dreams were when I would believe myself to have woken up, only to still be dreaming. Completely destroying any sense of reality I had. The movie inception is a near perfect representation.
When I did for real wake up, I would be tortured with sleep paralysis for what seemed forever. I would be completely paralyzed unable to move, to speak or anything. I would stare at my open bedroom door 'knowing' somebody was in my house and going to murder me with a knife: even if I couldn't see them. It would never make sense to me at the time how somebody with a knife had failed to cross the 10ft to kill me after minutes of paralysis. I would try my best to scream, but nothing would come out. I would try to move my and legs to get up, but nothing would happen: the blankets might as well have been made of concrete they were so immovable. I would again often know I'm having sleep paralysis, and try to force myself out of it. I would try to slap myself. I could feel my arm moving around and come to a sudden stop, but feel nothing on my face, nor hear a sound of contact. Another betrayal of my senses.
I would never describe the experience or those years of my life in any positive sense. I have no retroactive thrill or hindsight sense of 'it wasn't so bad'. It terrifies me to know how your own mind can betray you and what the experience must be like for those with schizophrenia, dementia, and other degenerative mental conditions.
I tried using marijuana once hoping it would help me relax: it did not. It gave me the single worst day of my life. I don't even want to go through the effort of describing the terrors of that particular night I tried using marjiuana.
Eventually, the social media start up would fail. The first night of my sudden and long-feared unemployment would be the first good, peaceful, restoring and proper sleep I would have in a very long time. Immediately once i was no longer employed the 2+ years of torture immediately and unceremoniously stopped and has never returned.
yt didn't show me this comment until now. Wow Brandon, what a story, I'm so glad you're in a better place now :-)
Nice work. Keep it up
Thanks, will do!
so you basically described my normal natural life. everyone always said i was weird, i dont care, thats how i feel the best and i just wing it. On the plus side my schedule is flexible, so i can do it without work related issues.
My job is shiftwork, and I've naturally fallen into the habit of having a ~20 minute nap during my lunch break. I tend to sleep only 5-6 hours between shifts, but combined with the nap at lunchtime I think I've accidentally stumbled into a polyphasic sleep schedule.
Works really well for me, especially because it's difficult to switch between days and nights and I rarely sleep for longer than 5 or 6 hours at once, but I'm always tired around that lunch break and having a quick nap perks me right up.
I'm not sure about the long term effects, but for the past few years it's been working pretty well for me.
That's a classic E2 schedule, which I think is a great schedule. Read more about your schedule at polyphasic.net!
Very nice video, happy it worked for you.
But, according to Dr. Matthew Walker, in his book Why We Sleep, he mentions that NREM is useful, in fact it is responsible for sedimenting our memories. He also mentions that most of our REM only comes later at night, so cutting of the last few hours of sleep might cut off >80% of REM sleep, at least for normal people. He mentions in the book that people who attempt alternative sleep schedules end up having higher levels of cortisol and other physiological imbalances.
Anyway, just wanted to mention a counter-point, which would be nice for you to discuss as well.
that's what came to my mind immediately when I started to watch the video. lack of proper sleep can cause so much long term health related problem that I don't think all the gain in productivity is worth it. also people can only have around 4 hours of cognitive work at highest quality so I don't think we're short of time for doing deep work.
Certainly I don't have all the answers - but for 2 months E2 felt fine and comfortable for me :-)
I wanted to do nocturnal cycle as a temporary experiment during lockdown but school prevented me. Awesome to see that someone used quarantine for sleep experiments!
yeah, you need full control of your schedule to do your own experiment - one day though!
ayooo i'll support your work then, l'm loving your contest so far, as I just found your channel
Thank you! Hi!
Oh I always do it and yes I do have to sleep very less. Also, my brain works better with it. I did not know that it is some standard concept before this. I just take multiple short naps during the day and stay awake almost all night except like 4 hours of sleep at the end. I might be sleeping like 6 hours a day, but I get quite time during the night which happens to be the most productive. Also it means I am never too tired to think.
Fun! Try graphing your schedule on napchart.com
I wanted to try this in college (was 22, now i m 28)
It went as well as you expect it to go for someone with noisy college kids as housemates.
This is really cool! I want to try out the Dymaxion schedule (4 30 minute naps) this summer, when I don't have much else to do. If not, I'll try the Everyman.
As a linehaul truck driver in Australia I am given 7 hours rest time plus one hour break mid-shift per day. In the 7 hours I'm expected to unload, drop trailers, refuel, wash the truck, pick up trailers, reload, park, shower, eat and sleep.
Turns out I had adapted this sleeping pattern without knowing and now I'm perfectly comfortable with 2-4 hours sleep a day broken up between 15 minute naps and hour long sleeps. I'd also like to mention that I have no schedule. Sometimes working during the day, sometimes at night. Often both. I've been doing this for years, even when I am at home and not on the road. As long as I get a couple of hours of sleep and one or two 15-30 minute naps I know I'm good to drive.
Great video, it's good to know I'm not the only one getting the most out of every 24 hours.
Fascinating! Thank you
Do this if you’re an adult! You need more sleep than this when your brain is still developing. Great video though, well structured, informational, and concise. Love it 🙏
It will increase drastically the chance of alzheimers or a stroke. Monophasic sleep ensures that all waste produced in the wake state is flushed away at night.
You need 6 sleep cycles to be fully functional again. Minimum 4. It takes a non recoverable toll on a tissue so choose wisely when you are going to literally damage the brains
Agreed, this is probably why 'uberman' doesn't work
Yes, many folks here in the comments are asking if young people should try it - I tell them the same.
But LUCKILY school and uni are places you can't really polyphase, as you're not in control of your own schedule!
@@NoBoilerplate I would argue it's not nearly impossible. I have started doing an E2 schedule one week ago. So far I didn't have to miss a single sleep/nap. For me there is one break that is constant and at the same time every day, the lunch break. Which allows for a nap there.
@@kintrix007 nice! What's your situation, uni? For sure that lunchtime nap is the hardest one, but if you work from home, or can get somewhere reliably to sleep, it's totally possible! The first nap is before you leave in the morning, that's the easy one.
I've just finished my foundation year at university, going into first year. I have ADHD. I used to struggle with concentration an _extreme_ amount, and while I still do, it's significantly less, because of two main reasons:
(a) ADHD medication
(b) I found that setting my alarm early, getting out of bed, and straight into a cold shower is extremely helpful for my concentration throughout the entire day
Unfortunately, I have had so many problems over the university year because of noise. I was not able to travel to the location of my university prior to getting university accommodation. What I didn't expect, and probably should have but just had no experience, was the sheer amount of noise at night. It has been absolute hell as someone who pretty much _has_ to get up before 07:00 to be productive, living on campus with students which don't stop partying every single night until between 03:00 and 05:30. I've had to wear noise cancelling earphones every night to sleep, but I've still had a lot of difficulty, and I'm pretty much constantly sleep deprived.
I'm moving countries to start at a different university for my first year for a few unrelated reasons. I hope that I can find accommodation which is quiet enough for me to be able to sleep at the times I need to. What I am wondering, though, is what times those are. Maybe Everyman or something would be of huge help to me. While I haven't been able to set my alarm any earlier than 06:30 without simply losing too much sleep here, I think that getting up at a much earlier time would help me a lot, probably something like 05:00, or potentially earlier if a polyphasic schedule could help.
if your schedule can allow you to ALWAYS sleep at lunchtime, you can do E1 or E2 easily. If you sometimes are on campus at lunchtime and can't sleep, that's going to ruin adaptation. Normal sleep hygiene can work well, even for just monophasic - come talk to us in #polyphasic-sleep on my discord!
Just found your channel! Great content!!
Awesome! Thank you!
I work at a smelting factory, with a brutal 12 hours shifts, 2 hour round trip drivings so this is a gem for me. I also noticed that is actually the patterns my sleep and rest follows so I will try to do this consistently
I tried that for few months back when I was studying and racing for my team. Although I had much more time to learn and train, my reaction time got so bad I had to go back to normal sleep schedule.
My husband has been sleeping basically like this for years. I remember telling him that it was bad idea lol
Not 'uberman' I hope? that's demonstrably bad for him! some core sleep is certainly important.
You could find the schedule that matches his and read up on healthy suggestions, if you like, www.polyphasic.net/polyphasic-sleep-schedules/
It's weird to hear about something like this, since I've been doing it since about 2007 without realising it was a thing. Good to hear that it's not damaging.
To be clear, there's not enough evidence either way. Uberman I bet is damaging, siestas (E1) I bet is not, listen to your body and you'll be ok I expect!
ok i laughed at the coming out joke 😭😭 also, the e2 schedule is actually what i naturally do but ive never heard of polyphasic sleep before. super interesting stuff
Fun! Now you have a name for the thing! And names are powerful
Deep sleep is extremely important for the brain. During deep sleep the brain cleans itself from all the toxic byproducts of all the chemical processes that occur during normal operation, through what’s known as the glymphatic system. By avoiding deep sleep you slowly poison your brain, literally. I personally have found that I need at least one and a half hours of deep sleep to not get headaches during the day, in fact I have found that the amount of deep sleep correlated the most with my daytime alertness and mood.
I think you're talking about rem? This cleaning of the brain is what polyphasic sleep encourages, I believe
The architecture of sleep has been greatly studied and not only REM sleep is fundamental for recovery.
Based on everything I’ve consumed about sleep over the past years, I strongly discourage polyphasic sleep (I myself tried Everyman 2 for 8 months 10 years ago).
If you want to inform yourself better on it, a good starting point are Andrew Huberman episodes on sleep and his interview with Mathew Walker. From there you can dive deeper on the references and studies if you’d like.
I have Narcolepsy, which doesn't really qualify me for anything other than I have researched a lot about sleep. Based on current science, Tor is correct. Deep sleep is when the brain cleanses itself of toxins and REM sleep consolidates memories. Brain activity in REM is also much closer to brain activity when you are awake. That isn't to discredit polyphasic sleep patterns. As someone with narcolepsy, without medication, multiple naps throughout the day is the only way that I would feel awake, roughly a 30 minute nap every 2-4 hours. However, I would still need 6-8 hours of sleep at night. Maybe all I need to do is cut down that larger sleep session lol.
@@smokestacklightning I'm not claiming any such facts. Sleep is a very poorly-understood thing, I'm just saying what worked for me, and others are doing the same.
@@NoBoilerplate You are right that sleep is a poorly understood thing, but the part of the glymphatic system and how and when it is activated (during deep sleep) is understood. REM is important too but for other reasons that are less understood. My point is that it is dangerous to claim that we do not need one over the other.
Ive heard of the uberman sleep schedule but that always seemed so extreme. Everyman makes a ton more sense to me. I think ill try E2 since i already only get 4/5 hours of sleep most nights anyways.
Edit: Also congrats on being able to do videos full time. I love your content and very much looking forward to getting more of it
Thank you so much! I'm so excited about making more stuff, now I have more time!
Yes, E2 was really easy, read up on polyphasic.net and chat in #polyphasic-sleep on my discord!
Funnily enough I've been doing everyman 1 for years already since I live in a complicated household, and the free hours for myself are a gift I needed to stay sane, with the 20 mins sleep being a mid day nap.
I'd say I have even done everyman 2 on ocassion due to overstaying the nighttime vigil and compensating with an extra 20 mins nap before the afternoon but I don't think it counts hahaha
Your content feels tailor made for me, I'd love to support you on patreon, but I'm pretty broke haha. So All I can offer you is my wholehearted thanks. Please keep making videos
This lovely comment is more than enough - thank you so much for saying so ☺️
Sleep is tricky..and it's so weird. We've been doing it since million of years, you'd think that we'd have it figured out by now. But we still haven't. What I'm wondering is, you mentioned that we really only need REM sleep. But do we really? Does the body really recover well enough with only 4-5 hours of non REM sleep, especially if you're working out? I really have my doubts about that and I wish you'd shed more light on that aspect. Personally, I need a lot of sleep, ideally 9 hours. This is probably because my sleeping efficiency is terrible. I've measured my sleep quality with different devices and techniques and usually my sleep quality is sub optimal. I am also super restless when I sleep and talk alot in my sleep. I also experience a lot of lucid dreaming. I've always wondered how I can improve my sleep fundamentally. I hope we as a species will make a breakthrough in this area. Sleep is probably the most important thing to get right in life.
You absolutely need more than just REM sleep, SWS ("deep sleep") is just as vital. Recent studies also suggest that NREM 2 ("light sleep") is needed to have peak cognitive performance, especially in people with developing brains. So if you're not yet an adult or you have concerns about losing sleep you need, you can try a non-reducing polyphasic schedule, which simply spreads your 8/9 hours of sleep throughout the day. Not all that useful for most people, but it can be nice for those who want to get up early and have time to sleep in the afternoon/morning.
More research absolutely is needed! But that research could be self-administered! E1 and E2 seem very safe to me, I felt absolutely fine on E2!
Look into the benefits of mouthtaping during sleep. It's been great for me, I wake up feeling more refreshed so I know my sleep quality must have been better.
@@NoBoilerplate self-administered research is great but only anecdotal though, we really need more studies/data to identify more of the mechanisms at play, sleep is still fairly mysterious to us at this point in history as is much of how the brain works - neuroscientists and psychologists are happy to talk confidently about mechanisms we know but they are frequently challenged in their convictions as research continues to advance which shows how tenuous our understanding of the brain and sleep really is. Personally, I think wellness is more important than time efficiency when it comes to what we want to accomplish in a given day, as we are capable of far more than we think when we take good care of our bodies and minds, it’s almost as if time slows down and 6 hours feels like 10 where it usually feels like 2 when sleep deprived. That said, part of wellness is listening to your body so if it tells you to sleep at 6pm, wake up 11pm, sleep 2am, etc, just fulfill the order. Life is a game and wellness is the meta, stay healthy friends!
@@ohokcool Couldn't agree more!
I tried everyman 2 for two weeks while in high school, but sadly I still don't live on my own, and my family couldn't keep quiet during nap times. Without them, I had to stop because of sleep deprivation. When I finish college, start working and move out, I hope to try again with success when that time comes.
Tough, you have to be in control of your environment!
I have always known that my optimal sleep occurs from 23:00 to 01:00. If I manage to sleep during this time, I require less sleep the next day.
Years passed, and I didn't manage to implement this idea in my life. Then I got married and had a job.
Recently, I had to be alone (my better half is studying in another country), so I needed to divert my mind from negative thoughts. That's when I started to make improvements to my lifestyle.
I began attempting to sleep at 22:30 (so that I would be asleep by 23:00), and then my body would automatically wake up at 03:30. IT WAS AMAZING!
I had all the time in the world and could do things that seemed impossible before.
UNTIL I caught a cold and then showed allergic reactions to medication, so everything went out the window.
Now, after 2 weeks, I am trying to get back into the routine.
Thank you for this video; I always had doubts that this would be damaging to my health, but now I am sure that it is actually a normal sleeping cycle (kinda!).
nice! you're napping during the day? sounds like you could be on some kind of Everyman cycle!
@NoBoilerplate, there wasn't any pre-planned nap time. I would take a short break whenever I felt sleepy, although, in practice, I was simply closing my eyes and opening them after a few minutes.
And you are correct, Everyman 2 and 3 were the two schedules that I could see myself fitting into, and thus, I am adopting Everyman 2 from now on.
@@reykhault4072 Fantastic. It's great to have a name for something, isn't it! Do join my discord and tell us how you're getting on in #polyphasic-sleep, there's many that would be fascinated to hear!
I believe my body is going through such a thing
I know for a fact my body needs 8 ish hours of sleep a day but for the past few months its been incapable of sleeping more than 6h30
Even when i didnt take naps, i couldnt sleep for more than that.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, now I can fix/optimise it further now that I realise it's at least natural
Yeah, sounds like you'd be a natural fit for E1/E2 - it's a very personal thing of course, experiment and see what works for you!
There was one experiment where they made 3 groups of people. 1st group had no sleep at all
2nd group had 4 hours of sleep
3rd had 8 hours of sleep
1st group had very very bad performance after just a day and everyday their performance weakened
2nd group after around 5days had same performance as the first group had in the first 2days
3rd groups performance also worsened (probably because not everyone needs the same hours of sleep, but it doesn't matter rn)
The interesting thing is that when they first asked how each group felt, they said they are feeling not really good but after some days have passed they said they felt ok.
So that means that even if you feel ok and normal while sleeping less hours than you should your performance gets worse and worse each day.
So I'm not really sure if the technique you tried really works.
'uberman' certainly doesn't work.
E1, a siesta, certainly does.
For me, personally, E2 seems quite easy, but I acknowledge I wasn't being scientific.
Super interesting. Especially because I normally only get about 6 hours of sleep at night anyway, and I noticed that sometimes, after work, I'll kinda crash and take a nap (inadvertently) for about 30-60 min. The schedule doesn't line up with the Everyman 1 you mentioned, but the overall times are similar. So I'm wondering if I shifted things around and made sure I took a nap every day rather than fighting it, if I'd fall into a rhythm that works well for me. Also, thank you for mentioning the bit about weightlifting. I was curious about that =)
E1 (ie, a siesta schedule) is the most flexible, I bet you could useful have your siesta after work instead of the middle of the day! check the guidance on polyphasic.net though, there's good stuff there!
I am mesmerized by the fact that my natural bio rhytm has a name, and my more socially compatible go to rhythm as well. For my whole life I kept trying to get used to monophasic sleep for social reasons, but I am much more comfortable with everyman 3 or 2, depending on my work schedule.
I wonder if this is because I work with children in a Kindergarten. You mentioned this might be typical for parents of little children. I am not a parent, but everyman 2 fits perfectly into the schedule my 30 kids need for napping and resting, while I feel miserable with everyman 1 and really good with the 3.
Wonderful!
This gives me the motivation to try the E2 schedule when i take my 3 weeks of holidays this month. I have a lot planned in terms of catching up with latest nlp research / starting my own blog and preparing for a job transition. Would be cool to see if the more frequent sleeping periods help with consolidating new ideas / knowledge to memory. I just dont know how I could fit this into my normal schedule as I have to be in the office for 3 days every week (one of the reasons I wanna go with full remote option, or at least a bit more flexibility)
Best of luck! Even if you can't continue after 3 weeks, you'll have learnt a lot about your ability to sleep.
Do read up here www.polyphasic.net/everyman-2/
and come ask questions in #polyphasic-sleep on my discord server!