Intro to Polyphasic Sleeping

Hello World!

I'm a college senior, 21 years of age. Last week I walked into the office of the internet startup where I work as a web developer and ran into a friend & coworker who was just about to lay down for a 30-minute nap.

Last year I got hooked on Steve Pavlina's personal development website, especially the stuff that he wrote about his insane college schedule (I'll save the college productivity posts for another time). I ran across the concept of polyphasic sleeping and was captivated.

Polyphasic sleeping in a nutshell is the practice of taking many small naps around the clock and only spending an aggregate 2-6 hours of time actually asleep during the course of your 24 hour day. Some people only 6 hours a night but end up having a lot of trouble with productivity and staying alert during the time they are awake. This system of sleep supposedly lets you feel more energetic without needing the extra zzzz's...

Ok enough of a sidetrack for now -- if you want more information on polyphasic sleeping, check out Steve Pavlina's stuff or else start at Wikipedia. Another famous blogger who chronicles her encounters with polyphasic sleep patterns is PureDoxyK.

So back to my friend passed out at work for a 30-minute nap. It turns out that he was in fact starting up a new trial period of polyphasic sleeping along with his prior roommate. Last year he made it 10 days into this crazy sleep schedule before the experiment fell apart. I was very intrigued that other people knew about this and were interested in trying it, and almost agreed on the spot to do it.

Only problem is that I'm an engineer, with a schedule that is SUPER busy and would be pretty unforgiving if the whole sleep schedule went to hell and cost me a couple of days in recovery time. This is a realistic possibility. So I figured I'd watch his progress and see how things went.

Three days later, I saw a couple other coworkers (btw almost all of us are college students) napping. I didn't think much of it, since we're an internet startup where students are putting in long hours and sometimes just need to crash for pick-me-up naps. But then I heard that they were starting a polyphasic sleep schedule, too! This was too much for me. I HAD to find a way to accomodate this phenomenon into my schedule and give it a shot, before I graduate. Because we all know once college is over, you're no longer young or fired up about crazy ideas like this... ok maybe that really isn't true. But now is the time!

I've decided to adopt a version of the "Everyman" sleep cycle. For now, look it up on wikipedia or check out PureDoxyK for the details.

I really don't know how long this is going to last -- maybe a couple days, maybe a couple years. I'm going to give it a crack in a very very concerted effort to regain some time during my day. I've just got too much to do in the standard 16-18 hour day and if I can figure out a way to stay awake and alert longer, I'm willing to try almost anything...

Here's to the Everyman sleep experiment!