Beating Sleep Deprivation

Sleep deprivation can have serious effects on your health.

-Impaired moral judgement
-Memory loss
-Tremors and aches
-Impaired immune system
-Hallucinations

Dealing with sleep deprivation is really difficult. I never overslept consciously. Some of the things I do to deal with sleep deprivation:

-Don't wear comfy clothings. Wear tight jeans or something like that.
-If you are standing in a room and if there is a bed inside there, get out of there. You will "lie down a bit" and sleep eventually
-Drink water
-Take a cold shower
-Don't read a book. You will fall asleep quickly. That happened a lot to me.
-Listen to metal music or anything that makes a lot of noise.
-Drink caffeinated drinks

But the best things to do when you are in zombie-mod are these:
-Jogging. This really helps. Go outside and take a walk when you get up from your nap. Be careful, when you are in the zombie-mod you sometimes forget what were you doing

-Let's assume something happened and you are stuck in a room. If there is TV watch it but don't watch it like stupid. Think about everything you see. Watch commercials and find their flaws.

-Think about everything. Play games that require attention. Count how many steps does it take to the bathroom.

-Shout. That helps a lot. Look at the mirror and scream. That may sound a bit hardcore but you are trying to be polyphasic. Nothing is hardcore after that. If you are sick of adapdation period you can shout like "THIS [bleep]ING SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK" You will feel better.

Tips and Facts

Some interesting facts on polyphasic sleep and useful hints about adapting

1. Food clock

You know what circadian rhythm means. It's roughly 24 hour cycle which goes like this. Well, there is also a "food clock". I will skip the science stuff and enlighten you with the fact that if you do a fasting for 16 hours your food clock will reset. Which means you will start waking at the time when you had your breakfast.

if you want to start waking up at 2:00 am, you should start fasting between 10:00 am or 2:00 pm the previous day, and don't break your fast until you wake up at 2:00 am. Make sure you eat a nice healthy meal to jumpstart your system.

So, if you are having trouble staying awake in the morning or night. Just change your clock. Works good for jetlag too.



2. Sleeping on a chair
Oversleeping is the worst nightmare of every polyphasic sleeper at the adaptation period. Nobody wants to leave a comfy bed and face with the real life out there. This is why most polyphasic sleepers sleep on chairs or on the floor. If you have just started your polyphasic quest it will be difficul to fall asleep on a chair. But if you are at the zombie-mode you will fall asleep while you are standing up anyway so just find a chair and sleep there. Who needs beds when you are polyphasic right?




3. Classical conditioning
Your subconcious mind is your enemy. To beat your enemy you must practice. When you get up from your 20 minute nap, going all "I'm very self-disciplined! I will use my will and make my mind conscious instantly" won't really help you. Hitting that snooze button and sleeping for "5 more minutes" is what most of us do. Practice getting up from your naps. Go take a nap. You don't have to sleep just think you are asleep for 20 minutes and just daydream. Believe it or not, doing that at the preparation period will help you a lot. If you are thinking I'm crazy, Behold. Using isochronic tones will help your chances with avoiding oversleeping. The idea is, you start listening to certain "tone" that will make you sleepy for 20 minutes. You nap while listening to that. After 20 minutes you switch to another tone which will make you alert. What is a isochronic tone? I guess you can call that a "brainwave entrainment" you can mess with your brain using isochronic tones. You can find a huge list here

Dymaxion and Everyman

Dymaxion is one of the most difficult schedules. First person who succeeded at this schedule was Buckminster Fuller. He slept for 30 minutes every 6 hours. That's how dymaxion works. Eventually he had to quit. Suprisingly the reason of becoming monophasic again wasn't sleep deprivation. The reason was peer pressure. Usually the reason of quitting is social problems. It's hard to become polyphasic in this monophasic world. Anyway, back to topic. After that most people who tried dymaxion failed. People who tried it and Uberman both, said that Dymaxion is far more difficult than Uberman. Myself, I think dymaxion is very difficult to succeed. 30 minute naps are less likely to suit you than 20 minute naps. 6 hours of gap between naps are difficult to endure. One other thing; I said Uberman isn't flexible and you will feel like shit if you miss a nap. Dymaxion is even worse. If you miss a nap you won't feel like shit. You will feel like bullshit (or holy shit) Don't be scared if you were planning on Dymaxion. Fuller did it for 2 years. So you might be able to do it too.


Everyman has got, as you can see, a 'core' sleep. It's like normal sleep just a bit shorter. Everyman is kinda like Siesta but more complicated. Everyman is very flexible. It's so flexible you can set it however you like. It is considered as "less hardcore than others" You won't feel very zombie-like at the adaptation period but it will take more time to feel alert like monophasic people. Uberman takes around 2-4 weeks but it is very difficult to adapt. If you can't handle Uberman but got a lot of free time everyman is better. Now, about the flexibility: I know a guy who experimented with some everyman schedules. He said that the best schedule he had was 4x20+1x170. That means you have 4 naps 20 minutes each and you have a core sleep for 170 minutes. Sometimes people make it 2 core sleeps and 2 naps. I came across a schedule where you have a core sleep for 4 hours and take only one nap. But if it works for someone that doesn't mean it will work for you too. As I said, everybody's system is different. You should create your own schedules and find the one that fits better your lifestyle. A word of advice, 15-20 minutes of naps are the best. If you make it like 30 it will be difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.

Introduction and Uberman

This part is for people who doesn't know much about polyphasic sleep.

So, let's forget the "we need 8 hours of sleep each day" crap. We need 1.5 hours of REM sleep. Other stages of sleep aren't really that important. But to get to the REM sleep first we need to go through these stages right? Wrong! We can just skip them. To skip them we just need to sleep polyphasic. Which means we need to take naps. Naps are usually 20 minute because that fits humans perfect somehow. Also "4 hours awake 20 minutes nap" schedule fits better. That is called Uberman (more like Übermensch)
An example of Uberman:
00:00 - 00:20
4:00 - 4:20
8:00 - 8:20
12:00 - 12:20
16:00 - 16:20
20:00 - 20:20

Uberman and monophasic (normal) :


You take 6 naps each day. 20 minutes per nap. That makes 120 minutes. But we need only 90 minutes. That 30 minutes isn't a waste. At the "adaptation period" going 90 minutes straightaway is pretty hardcore. You will use that 5 extra minutes to fall asleep. When you are over the hump you will be able to sleep almost anywhere. Your brain will set itself offline when the time is right and you won't need that 5 minute anymore. Some people cut that 5 minutes but some don't. 20 minutes fits perfectly I don't think that's not worth the risk. However, Leonardo Da Vinci slept for 15 minutes every 4 hours. But also, there is a volunteer who decided to follow Leonardo's footsteps. He didn't manage to perfectly adapt like him though. He only managed to sleep 30 minutes each nap. With 6 naps that makes 3 hours. As I said: "Some schedules will work for you, some will not." Everybody is different and everybody has a "perfect schedule"

Uberman sleep schedule isn't flexible. If you miss a nap you will feel like shit or maybe oversleep. Oversleeping is common during the "adapdation period" and it will definietly set you back. You have to get back on your feet and keep up the fight.

Okay, I told you the Uberman but there are some other schedules as well. I will only tell you the important ones. you can see them below.Ciao