Sleeping Only Two Hours A Day?

Is it possible to sleep only two hours a day and still retain functionality beyond that of a caffienated dippy bird?

Apparently so. I’ve been reading Tim Ferriss’ newest book, The 4-Hour Body, and I was particularly interested in his chapters about sleep. While the first chapter, “Engineering the Perfect Night’s Sleep”, was great, I was more interested in the second, “Becoming Uberman”. It describes a technique called polyphasic sleep, which is a sleep method that allows you to sleep as little as two hours a day while still feeling fully rested and retaining normal functionality.

Polyphasic sleep involves taking multiple short naps, which are spaced at regular intervals throughout the day. This is much different than monophasic sleep, in which you go comatose for one gigantic, eight-hour block of time. When you sleep monophasically, only a portion of your time spent sleeping is spend in REM sleep, which is the sleep you want. If you recall from my prior post on sleep, your sleep cycle involves five stages. Only the last of the five is REM sleep, and the other four stages are essentially wasted time. You can’t eliminate this wasted time in monophasic sleep; you need it in order to get into those REM stages.

Under monophasic sleep, you go through about four REM stages in an eight hour period. Each REM cycle is 20-30 minutes, so you’re really only getting two hours of real REM sleep a day. Polyphasic sleep is different, because once you’re used to it, your body slips into REM sleep right away. Since you’re only napping for 20 minutes each time, almost the entire nap is spent in REM sleep.

There are several variants of polyphasic sleep, including the Everyman method and the Uberman method. All of the Everyman types involve a large chunk of core sleep (still much less than eight hours) supplemented by several naps throughout the day. The Uberman method abandons the core sleep chunk altogether and uses six 20-minute naps for a total of two hours of sleep.

While the Everyman method seems to be the sane choice for someone just starting out, I’m going straight for the Uberman. The reason is simple – I want more time. Sleep is something I wish I didn’t have to do. With the Uberman method, I won’t have to do much of it.

I’ll be journaling my experiences with this sleep method as I go along – the results will most likely be recorded over at Bodybuilding.com, or maybe even here. According to Steve Pavlina’s reflection on his own polyphasic experiment, I’ll feel like a complete zombie for around a week. So anything posted during the next week may or may not feature infantile grammar and ideas even a hippo would dismiss as ridiculous. I apologize in advance. Hopefully this experiment will give me more time and boost my productivity. There’s only one way to find out.

Update: Ha, I never ended up doing this. It’s actually really hard to create a schedule that works for this type of sleep when you’re an RA. I won’t be an RA next semester (Spring 2012), so once I get my schedule set, I’ll see if this type of sleep schedule makes sense.

15 comments so far - add yours!

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Rebecca March 13, 2012 at 4:42 am - Reply -

I honestly don’t understand WHY people would want to try this!?! I’ve been googling advice and this page pulls up.. I just started a full time job after being laid off for months, and I went from being able to sleep for 10-12 hrs ( I LOVE sleep), to only being able to sleep for two hours at a time! It’s killing me!! My job is 2nd and 3rd shift and my internal clock must just be really confused.. Can anyone explain why they would want to do this to themselves?! LOL
- Thomas Frank March 15, 2012 at 11:15 am - Reply -
  
  The draw for doing something like this is getting more time, so it’s especially attractive for entrepreneurs and people who just have a lot of projects to work on. It works better than simply sleeping for 3 hours because you spread out the naps throughout the day.
  
  However, after doing a lot of research, I’ve decided Uberman isn’t really a good option. However, doing something like a Siesta schedule can be awesome.
Reuben Mann November 15, 2011 at 8:29 pm - Reply -

Haha, wow, what a thorough answer. Thanks.
College Info Geek November 15, 2011 at 12:10 pm - Reply -

Thanks for the tips, Corey – I’m thinking of trying this next semester if it makes sense with my schedule.

Reuben – the most comprehensive source of info that I know of is PureDoxyk’s book on the subject: http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/the-ubersleep-book/

Steve Pavlina also tried it out and published an extensive journal that’s worth a look. http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

When I was researching this, I found that there’s definitely a lack of true scientific study on the subject. Most of the data out there is personal account.
Reuben Mann November 15, 2011 at 12:10 pm - Reply -

Any scientific papers on this? This is interesting.
Corey Conner November 15, 2011 at 12:10 pm - Reply -

I tried this in high school. The Uberman just wasn’t possible. However, I found that four hours of sleep at night, then an hour nap in the afternoon worked really well for me. I think it’s all about experimenting and finding what works for your body and, usually more difficult to figure out with polyphasic sleep, your schedule.
Michael Plis June 23, 2011 at 12:13 am - Reply -

Thomas are you still planning on doing this in the fall?
- Thomas Frank June 23, 2011 at 2:22 am - Reply -
  
  The way my schedule ended up being, I actually won’t be able to do it. However, I ended up getting Wednesdays and Fridays completely free from class and work, so I think that makes up for it.
  
  If you want to read an awesome account of polyphasic sleeping, look up Steve Pavlina’s journal about it!
Stefan March 5, 2011 at 5:05 am - Reply -

AWESOME! I am really wondering what you'll experience. I think every once in a while to adopt the same schedule, but with obligate things you will have to miss nap-time every once in a while and I think that will bump you out big time. Please keep us up to date, as I am really curious
- Thomas Frank March 5, 2011 at 9:53 am - Reply -
  
  Thanks for the comment, Stefan! I've been doing a lot of research on this type of sleep since I wrote this post. It seems that there are different adaptation periods for each type of sleep – Uberman seems to take most people a month to fully adapt to, while Everyman will take 2-3 months. I've come to the conclusion that, since I'll be working a 9-5 internship this summer, it isn't worth it to try polyphasic sleep this semester. However, I'll be signing up for next semester's classes soon, so I'll be able to tailor a schedule that allows me to do Uberman. I honestly can't wait for next year so I'll have time to try it!
- Thomas Frank May 15, 2011 at 3:03 am - Reply -
  
  Thanks for the comment, Stefan! I’ve been doing a lot of research on this type of sleep since I wrote this post. It seems that there are different adaptation periods for each type of sleep – Uberman seems to take most people a month to fully adapt to, while Everyman will take 2-3 months. I’ve come to the conclusion that, since I’ll be working a 9-5 internship this summer, it isn’t worth it to try polyphasic sleep this semester. However, I’ll be signing up for next semester’s classes soon, so I’ll be able to tailor a schedule that allows me to do Uberman. I honestly can’t wait for next year so I’ll have time to try it!
Linda March 2, 2011 at 3:31 pm - Reply -

your girlfriend appreciates that you will wait until spring break!!! She doesn't want to deal with a zombie Thomas
Ryan February 28, 2011 at 12:27 pm - Reply -

Good luck with the experiment, I've had friends attempt the polyphasic sleep cycle and the crash of the first two weeks looked absolutely brutal. It'll be interesting to see if a college student could successfully get on the uberman.
- Thomas Frank February 28, 2011 at 12:45 pm - Reply -
  
  Thanks! I'm a little worried about my exams this week, but I still want to give this a try. I'll also be experimenting with certain types of nutrition while on this sleep schedule as well.
- Thomas Frank May 15, 2011 at 3:03 am - Reply -
  
  Thanks! I’m a little worried about my exams this week, but I still want to give this a try. I’ll also be experimenting with certain types of nutrition while on this sleep schedule as well.