The next question that one ought to consider if you are thinking about doing a polyphasic schedule to gain productive hours, is whether you are able to fall asleep quickly. While you save time by cutting out some of the Non-REM sleep, if you have difficulty falling asleep, or if you have an elaborate bed-time ritual, any gains that you make on saving sleep, will be lost in the pre-sleep routine. On the other side of it, your morning routine needs to be efficient as well. The more efficient your sleep schedule, the more efficient your extraneous routines need to be.
For an uberman schedule, where you are sleeping in six 20-minute blocks, for a total of 2 hours of sleep a night. However if it takes you more than 30 minutes to take your nap from the time you switch from productive activity, and more than 30 minutes to resume productive activity when you get going after your nap, then your effective time becomes something like 8 hours, and you have lost nearly all the gains that you have made. I find that it is easy to lose 30 minutes of productive time before a nap. My routine involves using the bathroom, doing dental care, take stuff out of my pockets, check my alarm (if I have set one) and then going to bed. I am luck in that I typically fall asleep in under 5 minutes. So my "pre-nap" routine takes about 15 minutes. However, I ALSO tend not to start a new project within about 30 minutes before a nap, so I lose some productive time there. I figure that on average I lose another 10 minutes. So my nap routine, which is pretty simple and relatively quick eats up 25 minutes three times a day.
My waking routine involves making a pot of coffee, while I do the dishes, and then having a cup while I check my email. I am doing some multi-task items in there, but I would guess that I have about 10 minutes of dedicated "morning" routine. Since did a similar routine once a day when I slept monophasically, versus the three times a day now, I lose a hidden 70 minutes in the combined before and after nap routines. This makes my adjusted "awake/ non-sleep routine" time 18.0 hrs a day vs the monophasic 15.3 hrs a day. Which is only a 18% gain, or an extra 1.25 days a week. Still worth doing, but only if the negative effects are relatively minor.
If you are considering a polyphasic routine, be honest with yourself on how long your sleep-oriented routines are, including the time it takes you to fall asleep. The average time to fall asleep in the US is around 30 minutes, which completely negates any benefits of an Uberman or Everyman schedule, and severely minimizes the benefits of a triphasic cycle.
For an uberman schedule, where you are sleeping in six 20-minute blocks, for a total of 2 hours of sleep a night. However if it takes you more than 30 minutes to take your nap from the time you switch from productive activity, and more than 30 minutes to resume productive activity when you get going after your nap, then your effective time becomes something like 8 hours, and you have lost nearly all the gains that you have made. I find that it is easy to lose 30 minutes of productive time before a nap. My routine involves using the bathroom, doing dental care, take stuff out of my pockets, check my alarm (if I have set one) and then going to bed. I am luck in that I typically fall asleep in under 5 minutes. So my "pre-nap" routine takes about 15 minutes. However, I ALSO tend not to start a new project within about 30 minutes before a nap, so I lose some productive time there. I figure that on average I lose another 10 minutes. So my nap routine, which is pretty simple and relatively quick eats up 25 minutes three times a day.
Mmmm... Coffee.
My waking routine involves making a pot of coffee, while I do the dishes, and then having a cup while I check my email. I am doing some multi-task items in there, but I would guess that I have about 10 minutes of dedicated "morning" routine. Since did a similar routine once a day when I slept monophasically, versus the three times a day now, I lose a hidden 70 minutes in the combined before and after nap routines. This makes my adjusted "awake/ non-sleep routine" time 18.0 hrs a day vs the monophasic 15.3 hrs a day. Which is only a 18% gain, or an extra 1.25 days a week. Still worth doing, but only if the negative effects are relatively minor.
If you are considering a polyphasic routine, be honest with yourself on how long your sleep-oriented routines are, including the time it takes you to fall asleep. The average time to fall asleep in the US is around 30 minutes, which completely negates any benefits of an Uberman or Everyman schedule, and severely minimizes the benefits of a triphasic cycle.
I'm really interested in trying circadian triphasic this january, but I'm not great at getting to sleep (takes 10-30 minutes typically, longer if I'm not mentally drained). Any advice to improving this?
ReplyDeleteyou are so crazy analytical. thank you. i have a feeling your posts will be super helpful in getting started with/planning out my polyphasic sleep cycle!
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