polyphasic sleep: Steve Pavlina blogs about adjusting to only 2-3 hours of sleep

Steve Pavlina over at StevePavlina.com is going through what looks to be somewhat of an agonizing Polyphasic sleep adjustment. Basically when you use this method, you are exchanging your normal eight hour we sleep night for little naps every four hours in a 24-hour period of time. The naps last about 20 to 30 minutes long and end up amounting to two to three hours of sleep per day. I would have surely tried it. I was always interested in different sleep patterns, after college especially when I learned that some people could get by on four hours of sleep. I was never able to do anything like that. I require about eight hours a night and I have fought it long enough to know that I'd lose the battle if I tried to get any less.

Best of luck to Steve and his journey

Link: Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog.

If there’s a hump, I’m probably past it. The past 24 hours of polyphasic sleep have been my best so far. Last night was the first night where I felt fairly alert and awake without too much drowsiness. I still grabbed an extra 20-minute nap at 3am (between my scheduled 1am and 5am naps), but I think I could have managed OK if I skipped it. I did have a very vivid dream during that nap and awoke feeling more refreshed than usual. But I think I’ll soon be able to wean myself off this extra nap.

Comments

[John]

Are people really so busy that they have to do this to themselves? I am very skeptical of claims that people can get by with less than 7 or 8 hrs of uninterrupted sleep. It can be done, of course, for short periods. But all the time? I don't believe it.

[John Richardson]

How can you hold down a normal job or function in normal society when you have to take a nap every 3-4 hours? It will be interesting to see if Steve can make this a permanent lifestyle change. It will definitely put a kink in his professional speaking career as many speaking engagements require 6-8 hours of onsite training time.

John

[Brad Isaac]

I agree with you all. It would interrupt most normal workdays. The only way I can see it working is if you had a very flexible schedule at work or if you worked from home.

I can't picture a lot of employers being accepting of naptime 1 to 2 times a day.