Comments on: Hacking sleep

By: zxdat114xz

zxdat114xz — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:19:14 +0000

hack toc do

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 02:29:04 +0000

Hello! I’ve read through and I would like to add my two cents. I previously worked at a major pharmaceutical company which currently, at the time of this post, manufactures a drug made for people with sleep disorders and shift work sleep disorders. It helps them stay away with no side effects. While I worked there, there were supposed rumors of the military using this to help pilots stay awake during flights overseas. I do not want to directly name the company or drug, but if you perform a Google search I’m sure you will be able to find it. I have sleep apnea and although I have not been prescribed this drug, I would like to take it. I think that being able to stay awake for extended periods of time would be beneficial. I had surgery for a deviated septum to help with my sleep apnea, but I still feel a little sleepy during the day and I would like to make sure that I won

By: Phi

Phi — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:11:46 +0000

Where can we find more information about these military sleep studies? The ‘power sleep’ technique sounds like an interesting way of improving my already successful adventures into polyphasic sleeping.

By: marshall

marshall — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 18:24:31 +0000

the military cunducted sleep studies and found that the most any one person can endure is about 11 days without any sleep at all they also perfected a ‘power sleep’ tecnique in the early 80s this could sustain special forces personel for weeks it begins by relaxing every musule group in the body one at a time starting with the toes until completly relaxed then focos the mind on one thing and breking the object to the smallest peice posible this (i.e. motor, gun or any other 3D object) would bring you to rem in 5 10 min then ‘power sleep’ for 15 to 20 min this is almost as refreshing as 6 hours of real sleep

By: Stan

Stan — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:16:43 +0000

I’m pretty sure what crazy’s claiming is physically impossible. those would be at least 80 hour cycles… and even if it were physically possible, i doubt any accredited doctor would back it.

By: crazy

crazy — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 05:55:04 +0000

I’ve given up sleep ENTIRELY on weekdays, I sleep only on week ends. The first few weeks are the most excruciating days of the process, but after ive been doing this for a year now.. i feel totally normal. I sleep only on weekends. No joke, u prolly all think im lying. But after you do it enough your body gets adjusted to your new sleep pattern. Its incredible, I get so much done each day. 60% of ur life is wasted sleeping.

By: Abba bryant

Abba bryant — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 03:54:58 +0000

I spent nearly a year working on a 38 on 10 off schedule. I would go to sleep sunday night at 10pm and wake at 8am monday morning. The next time I would sleep was 10pm tuesday night until 8am wednesday. Then I would sleep again at 10pm thursday night and wake at 8am friday. At 10pm saturday I would sleep until 8am on Sunday and allow myself to nap or sleep as needed on Sunday to recover my sleep debt.

At first I had a difficult time waking up at 8am on Sunday and going back to sleep at 10pm – my body didn’t like the short cycle at the end of the week but after 3 weeks of forcing the schedule I found I could wake at 8am Sunday and if needed nap at 2pm until 3pm and still get my body and brain to relax and fall asleep at the scheduled 10pm bedtime.

This allowed me to have 38 hours of wake cycle that ALWAYS overlapped with work scheduling and I found that the 10 hour sleep cycle left me much more restful than any 26 hour cycle or scheduled power napping in order to reduce my total sleep down time.

A few problems I had with the Polyphasic cycle were that I have always needed 20-30 minutes to fall asleep. Even deep relaxation techniques, breathing techniques, soft light/no light/whitenoise couldn’t get this down to a shorter length of time so the polyphasic cycle was actually an hour or so for me. 1/2 to fall asleep 1/2 actually sleeping. It didn’t increase my productive time enough to have to double the off cycle lengths to get the needed sleep in.

The sleep schedule I described above was proposed to me by a friend of mine who adopted it while he was in Navy Seal training. I don’t know if it was their standard or not but he adapted to it and continues to use it to this day.

The math alone makes it appealing over the polyphasic cycle. You can still sleep 10x 3 +/- a few hours. This gives you 30+ hours of rest a week without reducing your productive time or impairing your schedule too much.

Just my $.02 from someone who has tried everything I can to regulate my irregular sleep pattersn.

By: mike sleeper

mike sleeper — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 05:12:00 +0000

For almost a year I slept twice a day approx 4pm-8pm and 4am-8am. After a month or two, I found that 3.5 hrs for each worked fine too (prior to this I normally needed 8-9 hours regularly).

At first it was hard getting awake, but after a couple of weeks it was no different from regular sleep. I felt rested and energized (i used to bike a lot). The hours worked well with a programming job too. Go to work after 8pm, work until 4am. If need be, go in around noon to meet with the non-programming folks.

And then I moved countries, switched jobs and the schedule didn’t work anymore. Nor does it work now I have a wife and kid. I often wish I could go back to it though. It really was a great compromise and gave me an extra hour or so each day. The morning hours were really wonderful too. Very high productivity due to the lack of interruptions – and fewer opportunities for self-interruption!

By: Janet Greene

Janet Greene — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 08:21:35 +0000

I’ve done something similar, totally intentionally.

My fiance just changed jobs…and I work two jobs…and we have one car. One of my jobs has close to the same shift (as his) and is consistant..my other job switches from daylight to nightshift. I work the second job 2-3 days a week, and the consistant one, seven. There are many days that my only times to sleep are for an hour and a half at a time.

I fall asleep quickly for the most part, and I almost immediately go into REM (I’ve been doing this for 3 months). I’ve went to sleep at 7 and woke up, feeling fully rested, having dreamed in 25 minutes. I also can’t easily sleep more than 3 hours at a time (normally I start waking up after 2).

It may not be good for me, and I don’t seek to do this long-term…however, your body will adjust as long as you don’t just stop sleep altogether and deprive it.

I hope one day to find one good job…have long sleep cycles and be even better rested…but for now, I’m very thankful my body has tuned itself to my needs….

By: Max amann

Max amann — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 10:07:47 +0000

FIY, there are many key hormones that your body will not release unless it hits stage 3 of sleep. Some of these chemicals include HGH(human growth hormone and melatonin. These chemicals play a huge role in repairing damaged cells and maintaining your immune system. There are also studies which confirm that REM plays a vital role in sorting and storing information into long-term memory. Just google for “sleep stages” or “impotance of sleep” and you can see for yourself that this might not be such a good idea. Although it is healthy to question the current systems and supposed norms of our world. Keep up the hackin!

By: barnes

barnes — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 03:57:48 +0000

I do this in school, except its every period I sleep for a half hour. =D

By: leftfootbreak

leftfootbreak — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:49:28 +0000

i actualy almost do the opposite. i sleep half an hour and work 2 hours and have a 6 hours night… during those naps i often have my eyes open and go blind being fully alertuntil i shake it of and wake up. my work alows me to do so and lazy or not, it allows me to be calm and take a lot of shits from customers.

By: CygonX

CygonX — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 07:59:01 +0000

I haven

By: Kitty Antonik Wakfer

Kitty Antonik Wakfer — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 00:30:03 +0000

My and my husband Paul Wakfer’s experience with a 28 hour day (6 day week) can be seen at http://morelife.org/personal/28_hr_schedule/
Paul started this lifestyle near the end of 1999 knowing only that there had been sleep experiments with different day lengths for short times and that there was some conjecture that some people’s natural circadian rhythms were more in tune with a bit longer day, 25 – 26 hours. However, he had experimented with different sleeping schedules for himself many times in his life, in an effort to try to make the most efficient use of his time (for example sleeping two 3 hour stretches a day instead of one 7 hour – it did not work because he is too slow at getting going after he awakens). I joined him on this schedule when I joined with him in person in August 2000. More at the above link or follow the MoreLife one below through to our Personal Implementation.

**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational – http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project – http://selfsip.org
Rational freedom by self-sovereignty & social contracting

By: poopc4

poopc4 — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 03:14:00 +0000

after being on the 28 hour schedule for over 2 weeksnow I have givven up. It is just too complicated in the middle of the week to function with the rest of the world, I am a college student, unemployed and I study online acording to my schedule, so I was a prime candidate to follow the 28 hour day. While I loved it, my friends couldn’t handle it. I would only recomend it if EVERYONE were to do it,