CR and Polyphasic Sleep

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Hi Marcrates

That's an interesting question. People report anecdotally that they need less

hours of sleep because of their CR practice, but they usually mean needing one

hour less that what they needed prior to CR.

A lot of us might have done polyphasic sleep at different times of our lives. I

observe parents of newborn babies do it. Those of us in professions have done it

while in college when the demands or our studies required us to stay up long

hours producing something. But unless you're self employed, carrying on with the

practice you suggest is really not possible. Where would one take a 20 minute

nap every 4 hours at one's employer's offices? It would be interesting if

someone practices a modified version of that, working professionally 12 hours in

a job, then spending the evening attempting the polyphasic sleep, with the

intent of creating something, or studying a new skill on the computer

Wikepedia has a blurb on it. It's curious that the blurb is on architect

Buckminster Fuller. It is interesting to me because I'm an architect as well.

And Bucky Fuller lived a long life.

" In an early mention of systematic napping as a lifestyle, Buckminster Fuller

advocated his " Dymaxion Sleep, " a regimen consisting of 30 minute naps every six

hours, which he said he'd followed for two years. The short article about

Fuller's sleep in TIME in 1943 also refers to such a schedule as " intermittent

sleeping " , and it states:

" Eventually he had to quit because his schedule conflicted with that of his

business associates, who insisted on sleeping like other men. " [8]

Within the last decade, several bloggers have experimented with alternative

sleep patterns intended to reduce sleep time to 2–6 hours daily in order to

get more wake time. This is purportedly achieved by spreading out sleep into

short naps of around 15–45 minutes throughout the day, and in some variants, a

core sleep period of a few hours at night. People who have tried and given up

living on just ultrashort naps often give social reasons, similar to Fuller's

above. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep

One last comment. When I was going to join the monastic order of the carthusians

in my 20s, I learned that they institute polyphasic sleep in their daily

schedule. They sleep from 7:00 pm to 1:00 am; go to a 2 hour midnight mass, then

return to sleep from 3:00 am to 6:00 am. They are considered one of the most

rigorous and ascetic religious orders. The movie, " into great silence " documents

an example of this in Grenoble, which also discusses their CR-like vegetarian

diet. But then, the monastic life is not the life of us professionals.

Cheers,

Arturo

CR and Polyphasic Sleep

Posted by: " Marcrates " mvl1234@... Marcrates

Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:49 am (PDT)

I'm wondering if anyone here who practices CR has ever practiced, or

is currently practicing, any form of polyphasic sleep schedule. If

so, I'd like to know your experiences, positive or negative. I was

considering attempting the Uberman sleep schedule, and wanted to know

if anyone else had tried it under CR, or if there are any established

medical concerns (either from personal experience, or from medical

research).

If you don't know what that means, you probably can't answer the

question. But for everyone else, polyphasic sleep includes ditching

the monophasic " single block of sleep at night " that lasts 6-9 hours

in favour of napping several times a day - the most famous and widely

practiced is probably the " Uberman " sleep schedule, where you take 20-

30 minute naps every 4 hours.<snip>