Uberman's Sleep Schedule

[MrMxyztplk]

New question: I plan to go to sleep normally on Tuesday. On Wednesday night, I'll start. So suppose I plan to take my first 20 minute nap on Thursday at 1am but when I lie down to sleep, I don't fall asleep in the 20 minutes, or I fall alseep after 15 or more minutes. What do I do?

[samsdmf]

I only go to about half my classes, giving me (usually) a 5 day weekend. So I think I'll try it this coming Wednesday/Thursday. That way, if it fails, I can can get back on track before the next week of school, losing at most one weekend.
Go for it!

Question: Will I need like 4 alarm clocks to make sure I wake up (at first)? Is there a chance I sleep right through just one alarm clock ringing in that tough period?
What i did was have a radio alarm clock to go off and a buzzy alarm one, the radio was a bit akward to set though so I dont use that any more, you may need somthing constant for your first few days though. What I have done mroe recently though is set my phone alarm to go off and put it over the other side of the room, this thing is annoying as anything so I couldnt sleep with it going even if i wanted to, however often now I dont even need an alarm to wake up after a few days.

Also, do you have any suggestions for how to get out of bed on those first few days? I imagine the want to stay in bed and sleep some more will be very strong.
Yea, the annoying phone alarm over side of room works great, also I thought a lot about this when I started and tried a few methods to help me get up, first one was have smelling salts by my bed and sniff them when I woke up- this works really really well getting e up but made me feel sick and gave me a dodgy headache, so i stopped that.
I then tried strong mints, they didnt work I abandoned them after falling asleep and waking up an hour later with a mint melted on my cheek.
The survivor method though whihc I still use today to get up after a late night even in my monophasic schedule is a garden watering thing... I duno what they are called but they are used for watering plant pots and spray a very fine jet of air, a couple of hits to the face of that makes me feel alert enough to get up and go.
I guess its preference really, if you can survive the smelling salts they rule.

New question: I plan to go to sleep normally on Tuesday. On Wednesday night, I'll start. So suppose I plan to take my first 20 minute nap on Thursday at 1am but when I lie down to sleep, I don't fall asleep in the 20 minutes, or I fall alseep after 15 or more minutes. What do I do?

This may happen, tell you the truth I would just get upa nd do somthing else, wait for 5am- or try again in an hour. Regardless of sleeping 20 mins or not you will have a pretty sucky next day but it will be survivable, Thursday day will be pretty sucky but as long as your a person that can operate with low amounts of sleep you should get through it.
Probably the worst time for you will be friday early morning but its uphill from there.

Some notes: you can oversleep a bit, if you say take an hour one day it will lengthen the schedule but it wont throw you off, as long as you can get to sleep on the next 20 min session (eg you oversleep on the 1 o clock- you must still get the 5 o clock) you wont be too bad at all. Id say all I think it does it extend your adjustment period, so its not advisable but it wont kill your whole thing.
Another thing I did was if I was feeling like I couldnt go on (first and second time I did it, day 2 early morning!) was to take 2 xtra 20 min naps. Eg one at 12- one at 2- one at 4 and one at 6... this helped a bit but its probably just the difference between the length of the nile and the amazon.

MrMxyztplk: Try and stick with the schedule, you WILL feel awful quite a lot during the first few days, but keep the goal in site. Remember it is only going to last for a few more days and mark Sunday in your head as the objectie day, from here I guarantee it will begin to feel much more natural and you will be able to reap the benefits more.

Id like to see some tests done that will be pretty constant- Im thinking of waiting till after xmas and making a mini documentary (film student) on me trying to get back into the polyphasic sleep pattern- pprobably by then my body will have adjusted to normal sleep and It would make interesting viewing.
I never really did that much to test how much my thought levels went down- it may have been more than I think. If i make the film/video blog I would probably play some games that require different skills, take some high scores (tetris, minesweeper, sudoku, pub quiz things) so at least there would be a very very small amount of science to the short term effects

There is actualy a book by called why we nap about a guy who did it. I cant remmber his name (stotci or somthing) and I have never read it, its pretty rare. May be of use to some

EDIT: I officially nominate this the 'Ask Samsdmf about sleeping like a caveman thread.' As i seem to be the only person in the world ever not to have an Ask me thread.

[PokerAmateur4]

I just found a copy of "Why We Nap" by Stampi, the only real scientific volume on Polyphasic sleep I could find. Can't wait to read through it.

[MrMxyztplk]

I've been trying the Uberman schedule since Thursday midnight (i.e. I'm finishing day 3 and moving into day 4). I think it's going pretty good. I don't feel too tired anymore. From what I've read, it looks like I'm right on track to being back to normal by Monday and beyond normal shortly after.

I found this blog , which was probably the most helpful source I've found (despite being informal).

[PokerAmateur4]

MrMx and others, how old are you? I am concerned that maybe I'm still growing and this will mess with it. I'm trying to read a lot about sleep to figure out if this is a good idea health wise.

[MrMxyztplk]

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MrMx and others, how old are you? I am concerned that maybe I'm still growing and this will mess with it. I'm trying to read a lot about sleep to figure out if this is a good idea health wise.

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I'm 22. I thought about the health aspect of it, but even if it cut your life short, it would have to cut it REALLY short to make it not worth doing. You yourself pointed out that you get more years in your 20s vs. living longer, which translated into getting extra years in your 70s or older.

I don't think you'll find anything near conclusive on how healthy or unhealthy this is. Since this lifestyle interests me (enough to try it temporarily anyway), I figured I'd just see where it takes me. Besides, I could really use the extra time per day given the projects I have lined up this semester at school. And I doubt doing this for a few months would have any serious longterm consequences.

[PokerAmateur4]

Yeha I wasn't concerned about the cutting life short thing for exactly why you mentioned. I just don't want to be shorter than I have to be. So perhaps at like 30 or whatever, maybe a better idea? When do you stop growing entirely? Ever? When do you stop growing significantly?

Edit: Yeah it's hard to find anything conclusive about sleep, let alone polyphasic.

[Klompy]

Obviously you must be really short if you're that concerned about an extra half inch or something, Who cares?

[PokerAmateur4]

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Obviously you must be really short if you're that concerned about an extra half inch or something, Who cares?

[/ QUOTE ]I'm like 5'11''. yeah 1/2 inch I don't care about, u have a link to somewhere that the great majority of people don't grow much after a given age as a young adult?

[Slappz]

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I found this blog , which was probably the most helpful source I've found (despite being informal).

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I just read through his entire "experiment" and he makes it sound very intriguing, I'm gonna give it a shot when summer comes around.