The Uberman sleep schedule. (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720)

I'm curious to know whether or not anyone here has tried using this kind of polyphasic sleep schedule. The general consensus seems to be that getting less than eight hours of sleep a night is severely detrimental to muscle growth, though this (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/hu/groups/sleep/karger.htm) article suggests that sleep does almost nothing for tissue regeneration.The author notes that "there is little or no evidence that outside the brain any other organ undergoes any heightened degree of repair during sleep," and he goes on to say that other organs--including muscle--"undergo their restoration equally effectively (and probably more so) during relaxed wakefulness."

Any thoughts?

He's wrong.

I wouldn't put very much faith into an article with so many spelling errors!

Hmm... I didn't notice an abundance of spelling or grammatical errors in either article. In fact, I found both to be very well-written. The one on sleep phases, in particular, cites several resources.

And frankly, "he's wrong" isn't very helpful. :confused:

Unless you're self-employed or work at home, I don't see how this is a practical idea. The author himself isn't sure it's healthy and disclaims his actions saying that he's not sure if there are hidden perils in this technique. I wouldn't even attempt this. Doesn't seem feasible to me.

I'm sure there are stranger techniques out there in successful use, as few and far between as the users may be. Evaluate for yourself and decide.

-R

This is the bit that concerns me:

"One drawback is that I hit a wall if I stay up for more than about five hours without a twenty to thirty minute nap. My concentration and energy seem to vanish in a matter of minutes and I absolutely have to go take a nap. This can create some problems in social situations, but one can somewhat shuffle the naps around to adjust for this."

Some problems in social situations? Clearly this guy has no job and never drives.

Hubladon

Wasn't DaVinci a polyphasic sleeper? supposedly how he got so much done. He never slept for more than 15 or 20 minutes at a time every couple hours. I'm sure it's an exaggeration to some extent but hey, something to think about...

I don't think Da Vinci was jacked though.

I'm curious to know whether or not anyone here has tried using this kind of polyphasic sleep schedule.?

No, I am leery of this, on first read. But you can jump in and report back, your results. I will continue to believe our muscle cells and others are repaired or built during sleep.

There is Science and junk science, in these days of net and press, it is hard to tell difference.

I heard Maggie Thatcher is also supposed to have sucessfully used this idea too.

I think to just dismiss it as being wrong outright is pretty unfair, I'm sure a lot of people would look at you funny for eating six meals a day, or counting every macronutrient you consume!

I found this site pretty interesting:

http://polyphasic.blogspot.com/

The JSF of sleep? Maybe :p

i have a friend in california who does something similar to this. she pointed me towards it a while ago..because i have trouble staying awake at parties/clubs past 3am...

she basically sleeps 5am-9am and 5pm-9pm
and she says it gives her the best parts of the day to be awake and full of energy...
i think its a wicked idea...also i think that your only in deep sleep for the first couple hours of sleep? so spliting up your sleep might be good!...but i aint no scientist...hell i can only just tie my shoes...and sometimes they get away from me.

i have a friend in california who does something similar to this. she pointed me towards it a while ago..because i have trouble staying awake at parties/clubs past 3am...

she basically sleeps 5am-9am and 5pm-9pm
and she says it gives her the best parts of the day to be awake and full of energy...
i think its a wicked idea...also i think that your only in deep sleep for the first couple hours of sleep? so spliting up your sleep might be good!...but i aint no scientist...hell i can only just tie my shoes...and sometimes they get away from me.

Due to work scheduling, I used to sleep like this (5a to 9a and 5p to 9p) and after a while it took its toll on my health. It may work for some people but it didn't work for me! I would experience heart palpitations, extreme fatigue, intestinal problems, mood swings, sometimes hallucinations. Not a good time! When I finally quit the second fulltime job, a month later all symptoms went away. I need all or at least most of my sleep in one straight shot!

Heh, asking about this on a site dedicated to fitness which seems to have a rough general consensus on what's right will get the idea torn apart.

When I was starting a company, I considered doing this very heavily. At worst, it would require a complete resetting of my sleep schedule, something my body could take once or twice. I got into researching "user experience" from people's blogs.

First thing I noticed, no one had success. They never managed to get into the loop, even though they tried multiple times.

Second thing, you're wearing your body out. Assuming you regenerate faster (or even the same amount as eight consecutive hours), the car's in the garage for and hour and a half a night. 22.5 hours a day of activity? That's gotta shave a few off the end of your life. You'd HAVE to regenerate quicker.

Heh, asking about this on a site dedicated to fitness which seems to have a rough general consensus on what's right will get the idea torn apart.



Epecially if you put it in the weight training forum instead of the off-topic discussions forum.

I didnt read the article. But, I did survive on much less sleep then most for several years. When I started my hosting company, I handled just about everything. I had clients in several time zone's. I wanted the company to provide excellent service to everyone. I wanted to network and promote my company all the time. I would stay up till 4 or 5 am, every night and be up by 7-9 am every morning.

I've always had a tough time falling asleep - ever since I was a kid. After living like that for a few years, I had enough staff that I didnt have to put in so many hours, but I couldnt get back to a regular schedule. My mom was very concerned and bought me all kinds of natural sleep aid stuff, but none of it works. The only problem with that schedule was that I would occassionally crash hard, and sleep for like 12 or 14 hours straight. And I could crash at any time 2pm... 9pm... 3am. Didnt matter when. I probably crashed like that every 2 weeks or so.

I also barely remember those years - they are literally just a blur. I put on about 30-35lbs too. Otherwise, no health problem that I know of came up.

lostmind:

DAAAAAAAMN! with that kind of motivation you could be the fucking HULK if you channeled it into fitness 100% I feel like a lazy shit now....thanks.

If you need to stay up for that long, it's probably healthier in the long run to use meth-amphetamines :lol:

Well, maybe not... I remember someone's blog a while ago and this guy recounted that he started having intense cravings for grape juice. He later discovered that grape juice contains a chemical similar to that found in the brain. He postulated that perhaps this style of sleeping depleted the brain of this chemical. I don't know about you, but my years of experimenting with my brain chemistry are behind me :cool:

Didn't Kramer (from Seinfeld) try this?

If I remember correctly he fell asleep while making love to his girlfriend. She thought he was dead and had her Mafia-esque cousins tie him up in a bag and dump him in a river :lol:

I dont really buy into it, it just doesnt seem natural. I get a good 8-9 hours per night, feel great during the day and with planning get everything done. So why mess with a good thing, especially when you cant predict the long term side effects?

We had our first child, a baby boy, December 1st.

My wife and I are both trying this method of sleep.

Trust me, it doesn't work. :d_eek:

Ha ha Stecman, too funny. I so understand ( two kids later) 12 years ago when I was in my first year or two of college, I was going to school full time and doing janitorial work at 4 .am. every morning. Well, I lived with a bunch of loud obnoxious girls that didn't go to bed until after midnight every night, which meant that even if I went to bed at 9 p.m., I didn't get to fall asleep until about midnight. I then had to turn around and get up at 3:30 to get ready for work. One thing that I found is that after I got done with work at 8 a.m., I couldn't come home and take a nap or anything, because I was SOO tired, I would fall into a really, really deep sleep and have some sleep apnea, and stop breathing. Every time I would try to take a nap in the morning after working, I would have nightmares about not being able to breathe and someone would be choking me in my sleep. I would try and tell myself to wake up, but my eyes were so heavy I couldn't do it. When I would finally muster enough strength within that sleep zone to wake up, I was exhausted and it scared me so bad, I didn't want to go back to sleep.

Anyway... so long story. I only have issues with the sleep apnea if I take a nap. So I never or rarely ( once every three months or so) take a nap. And the rest of the time just sleep from about 11:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.

This article I read yesterday is kind of related to this topic - and interesting. Because along with increasing girth, our nation has gone through a period of decreasing sleep. Could they be related? What is especially good about this study related to this forum is that it was done in healthy young men:

(for easier reading - leptin is a hormone that suppresses appetite/weight gain, ghrelin is a hormone that does the opposite, or more clearly with respect to fat loss leptin=good, ghrelin=bad.)

Dec. 7, 2004 — Sleep deprivation alters hormones and increases appetite, according to the results of a brief randomized study published in the Dec. 7 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. The editorialists suggest that getting enough sleep may help reduce weight gain.

"Total sleep deprivation in rodents and in humans has been associated with hyperphagia," write Karine Spiegel, PhD, from the University of Chicago in Illinois, and colleagues. "Over the past 40 years, self-reported sleep duration in the United States has decreased by almost two hours."

In this two-period, two-condition crossover clinical study, 12 healthy men were randomized to two days of sleep restriction (four hours per night) and two days of sleep extension under controlled conditions of energy intake and physical activity. Mean age was 22 ± 2 years, and mean body mass index (BMI) was 23.6 ± 2.0 kg/m2. Outcomes were daytime profiles of plasma leptin and ghrelin levels and subjective ratings of hunger and appetite.

During sleep restriction, there was an 18% decrease in the anorexigenic hormone leptin (P = .04), 28% increase in the orexigenic factor ghrelin (P < 0.40), 24% increase in hunger (P < .01), and 23% increase in appetite (P = .01), especially for energy-dense foods with high carbohydrate content (increase, 33% to 45%; P = .02).

Study limitations were small sample size, lack of generalizability, and lack of measurement of energy expenditure.

"Short sleep duration in young, healthy men is associated with decreased leptin levels, increased ghrelin levels, and increased hunger and appetite," the authors write. "Additional studies should examine the possible role of chronic sleep curtailment as a previously unrecognized risk factor for obesity."

The National Institutes of Health, the University of Chicago, the European Sleep Research Society, and the Belgian Fonde de la Recherche Scientifique Medicale supported this study. The authors report no potential financial conflicts of interest.

In an accompanying editorial, Jeffrey S. Flier, MD, and Joel K. Elmquist, DVM, PhD, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, wonder if controlled studies should be designed to measure the effect of sleep-promoting interventions on appetite and body weight. However, they note that this study does not prove a cause-effect relationship between the hormone levels and hunger and dietary intake. Other factors, such as cortisol or orexin, may affect sleep and body weight regulation.

"If the findings prove to be reproducible and generalizable, and the hormonal changes of leptin and ghrelin due to sleep curtailment cause changes in food intake over time, we might add sleep duration to the environmental factors that are prevalent in our society and that contribute to weight gain and obesity," the authors write. "Although recommendations to get both a better night's sleep and more exercise might superficially seem to be at odds with each other from the perspective of energy expenditure and energy balance, these simple goals may well become a part of our future approach to combating obesity."

Ann Intern Med. 2004;141:846-850, 885-886

Interesting post bisous. I wonder if there wasn't some evolutionary benefit for this physiological effect, like maybe your body would need to store more fat to offset the extra energy expended when you stay awake longer. Nowadays we just stay awake longer to sit on our couches and watch digital TV, so the benefit is clearly lost.

The other thing that struck me is that I understand that obese people tend to suffer from interrupted sleep. If poor quality sleep makes you store fat, then the situation will only get worse.

I'm a sleep tech. I work nights in a sleep disorders center,

this is a stupid idea :mad: the body needs 8-9 hours of sleep a night.
notice I didn't say 7-8 but 8 at a minimum. I don't care how you "feel" after 5-6 hours of sleep. your body needs more. there are 5 stages of sleep. you need them all in the right amounts there are various sleeping disorders related to getting too much or too little of the stages.
do your body a favor and let it get the sleep it needs.

BTW did you know you die without sleep?