I did not gather objective evidence of the differences in my cognition before and after polyphasic sleep, but any differences are small enough that they’re invisible to me and those who live with me.
I think Wozniak is only evangelical about the Uberman schedule being a horrible idea. He states in his 2010 update that the Everyman 3-hour core sounds “pretty sustainable”.
I tried the Everyman-3 for 1 day & found it completely intolerable. I slept for 3 hours late at night, took a nap before work, at lunch, & when I returned home. All day I was basically useless. I felt as if I had the Flu. My mood was severely depressed, my head felt as if it were in a vice, & I was “zoning out” continuously. If this only lasts a few days, I think I could push through it, but my main consideration is that if I make a mistake at my job or miss some minor detail, someone could have a serious reaction or die. For this reason I feel like this is an unacceptable price to pay.
Is there something I’m missing or is this only viable for people who are either unemployed or have work that is not cognitively demanding?
The first couple times I tried it, I had the exact same experience, though it took me a little longer to give up. What really helped me finally adjust was using nootropics. I had a lot of success with piracetam + choline + l-theanine after each nap, sometimes adding coffee when I needed it. I also used modafinil every other day for the first two weeks (I wouldn’t recommend this though, since most people can’t sleep on it).
The coolest thing about the modafinil (and to a lesser extent piracetam, etc) use during this period was that I could really see the difference between my sleep deprived self and my normal self, since modafinil completely erases all of the effects of sleep deprivation. On my previous attempts I did feel very useless, but I didn’t realize the extent to which I just couldn’t do things until I took modafinil on a particularly difficult day—it felt like someone gave me an entirely new brain. So it’s really clear to me how much sleep dep actually impairs my ability to do things.
Thanks for sharing your experience, it is valuable data to have. From what I’ve read most people recommend NOT using stimulants & nootropics because they can damage sleep. Interesting that you were successful with it. Just out of curiosity, what sleep schedule are you on now & how long have you been doing it?
With regard to the piracetam combo, yes I still use that regularly. With modafinil, I wouldn’t say regularly, since it’s a little expensive to keep that up. But I didn’t actively stop using it. I pretty much use the same amount as I did when I was monophasic—i.e when I have it, I take it on a semi-regular basis.
I have scheduled a week off of work to adapt to polyphasic sleep, so I don’t have to worry about making mistakes while sleep deprived.
Following Matt’s advice, I am not just adopting my desired schedule of everyman-3, but instead temporarily adopt a “uberman-12” schedule, that is, 12 20 minute naps a day, 1 every 2 hours. The idea is to train myself to get REM sleep during the 20 minute naps, because that is all the sleep that is available, while running off of reserves of slow wave sleep. I am going in expecting 3 hard days before I start getting the REM, at which point I start backing off the naps to 1 every four hours (standard uberman) until I run out of slow wave reserves at the end of the week when I add in the core and cut back to 3 naps a day.
I will also be skipping lunch and dinner on the day of my first night of adaption, which is supposed to help me adapt to a new sleep schedule. And keeping up an exercise routine. And I will have friends help keep me on schedule.
This sounds like a good plan. I admit I didn’t do much research before giving it a try. I found a blog here where the author seems to be attempting a similar approach. The last entry is “Night 45” & he still seems to be struggling to adapt, so I would be cautious that scheduling 1 week may be on the optimistic side.
PureDoxyk writes about the adaptation periods in her Ubersleep book. She claims that the Everyman cycle takes a longer time to fully adapt into than the full Uberman. She says that it should take about a week of adaptation to feel mostly normal. She also tested her cognitive skill with a memorization test, and only got back to the pre-adaption level after 6 weeks, even though she was feeling subjectively fine after 3 weeks.
Yah—Wozniak is fairly well known in the polyphasic community for having very strongly held views that are directly contradicted by the experience of polyphasic sleepers. See for example http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2006/11/01/an-attack-on-polyphasic-sleep/.
I did not gather objective evidence of the differences in my cognition before and after polyphasic sleep, but any differences are small enough that they’re invisible to me and those who live with me.
I think Wozniak is only evangelical about the Uberman schedule being a horrible idea. He states in his 2010 update that the Everyman 3-hour core sounds “pretty sustainable”.
I tried the Everyman-3 for 1 day & found it completely intolerable. I slept for 3 hours late at night, took a nap before work, at lunch, & when I returned home. All day I was basically useless. I felt as if I had the Flu. My mood was severely depressed, my head felt as if it were in a vice, & I was “zoning out” continuously. If this only lasts a few days, I think I could push through it, but my main consideration is that if I make a mistake at my job or miss some minor detail, someone could have a serious reaction or die. For this reason I feel like this is an unacceptable price to pay.
Is there something I’m missing or is this only viable for people who are either unemployed or have work that is not cognitively demanding?
The first couple times I tried it, I had the exact same experience, though it took me a little longer to give up. What really helped me finally adjust was using nootropics. I had a lot of success with piracetam + choline + l-theanine after each nap, sometimes adding coffee when I needed it. I also used modafinil every other day for the first two weeks (I wouldn’t recommend this though, since most people can’t sleep on it).
The coolest thing about the modafinil (and to a lesser extent piracetam, etc) use during this period was that I could really see the difference between my sleep deprived self and my normal self, since modafinil completely erases all of the effects of sleep deprivation. On my previous attempts I did feel very useless, but I didn’t realize the extent to which I just couldn’t do things until I took modafinil on a particularly difficult day—it felt like someone gave me an entirely new brain. So it’s really clear to me how much sleep dep actually impairs my ability to do things.
Thanks for sharing your experience, it is valuable data to have. From what I’ve read most people recommend NOT using stimulants & nootropics because they can damage sleep. Interesting that you were successful with it. Just out of curiosity, what sleep schedule are you on now & how long have you been doing it?
I’m still on the Everyman-3, and have been for about 7 months now.
Do you still regularly use nootropics and/or stimulants or was that just to get you through the adaptation period?
With regard to the piracetam combo, yes I still use that regularly. With modafinil, I wouldn’t say regularly, since it’s a little expensive to keep that up. But I didn’t actively stop using it. I pretty much use the same amount as I did when I was monophasic—i.e when I have it, I take it on a semi-regular basis.
I have scheduled a week off of work to adapt to polyphasic sleep, so I don’t have to worry about making mistakes while sleep deprived.
Following Matt’s advice, I am not just adopting my desired schedule of everyman-3, but instead temporarily adopt a “uberman-12” schedule, that is, 12 20 minute naps a day, 1 every 2 hours. The idea is to train myself to get REM sleep during the 20 minute naps, because that is all the sleep that is available, while running off of reserves of slow wave sleep. I am going in expecting 3 hard days before I start getting the REM, at which point I start backing off the naps to 1 every four hours (standard uberman) until I run out of slow wave reserves at the end of the week when I add in the core and cut back to 3 naps a day.
I will also be skipping lunch and dinner on the day of my first night of adaption, which is supposed to help me adapt to a new sleep schedule. And keeping up an exercise routine. And I will have friends help keep me on schedule.
This sounds like a good plan. I admit I didn’t do much research before giving it a try. I found a blog here where the author seems to be attempting a similar approach. The last entry is “Night 45” & he still seems to be struggling to adapt, so I would be cautious that scheduling 1 week may be on the optimistic side.
PureDoxyk writes about the adaptation periods in her Ubersleep book. She claims that the Everyman cycle takes a longer time to fully adapt into than the full Uberman. She says that it should take about a week of adaptation to feel mostly normal. She also tested her cognitive skill with a memorization test, and only got back to the pre-adaption level after 6 weeks, even though she was feeling subjectively fine after 3 weeks.
Yikes. 6 weeks of impaired cognitive function would be psychologically difficult for me to deal with, I think.
Even when 3 of them are weeks where you wouldn’t notice the impairment unless you were specifically testing for it?
Well now that I know I can’t un-know. Point taken though, I imagine the 1st 3 weeks would be bad & the last 3 more bearable.