My Sleep Experiment
September 28th, 2007 Posted in Productivity, SleepingI’m at a very unique part of my life. I have freed myself from society for the moment. Nobody tells me what to do except for the occasional nagging of my parents to take the dogs out, clean the dishes, and any other parental power move. Other than that, there is nothing to force me to conform to a 9-5 schedule.
My inkling is that I need to somehow take advantage of this situation because I know it won’t last long. Eventually, I’ll be making so much money that I’ll have to deal with people again.
I know… 
You guess it! I’m going to experiment with my sleeping schedule.
Sleeping has always fascinated me. On one level, I’m just fascinated by the fact that we have no idea what’s going on in our heads. We have amazingly vivid dreams with an ability to become lucid. On the other hand, sleep has a tangible effect on our health and productivity.
I’ve always needed a good 8 hours to feel absolutely great, but that wasn’t always possible in college and in my short consulting career. The worst thing was having to work through extreme fatigue because you didn’t want to send your client the wrong message. This is ironic because if they let me have a 20 min nap, I’d be 10 times more productive.
If you’ve been a long time reader, you know that I have an obsession with productivity. It should come to no surprise to you that I am going to experiment with my sleeping schedule.
There are two types of sleeping patterns that intrigue me. One is called Polyphasic and the other is called free running. Polyphasic sleeping is essentially breaking down your sleep into 3 or more equally spaced periods. For example, one popular method is to nap 6 times a day for 20 minutes each. This means you’re just sleeping a total of 2 hours a day.
Think all that time you will have!
The only problem is that you strictly have to go to bed every 4 hours. This doesn’t lead to much flexibility. There are also concerns for health and memory. Sure, your body will use those 20 minutes naps very efficiently, but your body needs time to rest and heal as well. Also, I’m sure your brain needs time to do some house keeping to make you smarter.
On the other hands, free running sleep tells you to figure out your natural sleeping patterns by sleeping when you are tired and waking up naturally. One interesting point is that we are designed to be biphasic sleepers, which means 2 sleeping periods. Also, our circadian ryhtym is not based on 24 hour intervals. The average free running circadian cycle lasts 25 hours! This means you may find yourself sleeping at different time periods everyday.
This is counter intuitive because you’d expect a human being’s sleeping schedule to match the day and night. However, studies show it’s not true.
I’m all about listening to my body and being as natural as I can. You can already see this with what I eat. I’m going to try the free running schedule as it makes the most sense to me. I’ll put the Polyphasic experiment on the shelf for the moment, but it’s something I’d like to try as well. I don’t see it as a long term solution, but having the ability to only sleep 2 hours a day could come in handy one day.
I’ll end this with a farewell to my alarm clock. I never liked you anyway.
Carl Zetterlund
P.S. Click here for more information on Polyphasic sleeping. Click here for more information about free running and sleep and general sleeping information.
5 Responses to “My Sleep Experiment”
By Ian on Sep 29, 2007
I’m too sleepy to click the link!
How does age affect sleep? I used to really need a good 10 hours in my teens and 20’s. But equally, I had the energy for late nights when I needed it.
Nowadays (37 now), feel like I need less?
Seem to be getting by fine on 6 hours a night.
Do though need to catch up once a week. I naturally wake up and go with that when I do.
Often, anywhere between 2AM and 5AM. Then perhaps twice a week I’ll get 8 hours.
By CatherineL on Sep 29, 2007
Glad you came back from the gym Carl! This is an interesting experiment. I don’t think I would like the six lots of 20 minutes though.
I have similar sleep pattern to Ian - and also tend to wake up too early a lot. I try to aim for between 4am and 5am but often it is much earlier. But, if I miss a lot of sleep, I need about ten hours to catch up.
I am also a similar age to Ian - 38. But we also live in the North of England, so maybe it is the bloody cold weather that wakes us up!
By Carl Zetterlund on Sep 30, 2007
@Ian - I’m not exactly sure, but my father does not sleep much anymore as well… I can only guess that when you’re young, your brain is more susceptible to changes so you need more sleep to sort out memory and such. This could relate physically as well.
@Cath - I tried to do the waking up early thing, but I sometimes stay up all night depending on what I’m working on.
In Houston, I have the opposite problem. I wakeup from sweating in the bloody hot weather!
But the gym is calling me! I’ll try to keep a more consistent schedule. So many things going on right now to the point I spend all my time thinking of what to do!
By Ian on Oct 1, 2007
I can empathise with the sleep. When I was in my teens and early twenties, pretty much every Saturday and Sunday, I’d rarely be up before 11AM - usually a solid 10-12 hours sleep.
I’ve always been an early riser though during the week. Got into it at school - mainly because I wanted the evenings to myself - never did homework, but would get in about 8AM and get it done then. And there was alwasy someone around to help out with the odd answer!
Now, I find it really hard to sleep in at the weekend - but often nap in the afternoon now.
God I’m getting boring!
Better get my pipe and slippers on and doze off by the fire…
By Nabs on Oct 3, 2007
@Carl
I dunno Carl, my Dad is in his early 60s and he puts in about 10 hours. He also has a biphasic sleeping schedule which may be partly the cause.