Because you can survive with 2 hours of sleep, screw that 8 hours minimum!
Sleeping in Work. Photo from foxnews.com
Sleep is a shitty waste of time. 8 hours of sleep entraps a third of your day and all you do is nothing. That time can be used to consume miles of productivity and/or leisure, but we just lie down and succumb to weakness.
Sleep is important, I know that. It is our natural defense against stress. It regenerates our body cells for optimal function and it feels damn good to be well rested. We cannot take it out entirely, but we can reduce it to save more time.
8 hours of sleep is called the monophasic sleep cycle, and it is very inefficient. In that cycle, we sleep once a day but it doesn’t mean that all the 8 hours are used effectively. Real sleep, the deep trance where we dream and truly begin resting, is happening during REM stage. To get to the REM stage in the 8 hours sleep cycle, we have to remain put and count sheep before we got there. And once you get to REM stage, it doesn’t last until you wake up. It only amounts to 20% of your 8 hours sleep.
Polyphasic sleep cycles only need 2 hours of sleep, most if not all is in REM stage. It means that there’s no waiting for the dream to visit us because it’ll arrive right away. The dreams you’ll have, reportedly, will be more vivid and you’ll feel relaxed and your mind is more clear every after waking up.
There are four Polyphasic sleep cycles to choose from, which was succinctly explained in HighExistence. Just to give you an idea, there is the Uberman sleep cycle where you sleep 20 – 30 minutes every 4 hours throughout the day. See, you’ll feel refreshed six times a day and you have the whole day freed!
The one caveat is the terrible transition from monophasic to polyphasic. If you shifted to polyphasic, you won’t have REM in your firsts 20 – 30 minutes naps. Your body is not adjusted to the new cycle yet, but in time, your body will learn to have REM on every nap you’ll have. Your body will adapt to the new cycle just like moving to a place in different time zone – it takes a while but it’ll happen. Until your body mastered having REM on every 20 – 30 minute naps, you’ll feel tired because technically, you may not be dreaming.
Not many people have tried this. We don’t know the long term effects of this. There are accounts, people like Steve Pavlina who tried it and reported being totally fine or more than fine after gaining more hours of their lives. Some people visit doctors and remained in full health. The only thing they would caution is during the transition because it’ll be tough.
Honestly, this is enticing. Infants live in a polyphasic sleep cycle but lost it when they grew up as they learned monophasic. But the world adults live in is not ready for it. If you are maintaining a career, you cannot really sleep every 4 hours of work or else get thrown out of your building. I also take calculated risks, and I haven’t learned enough about this 2 hours sleep so I won’t jump to it just yet.
Just imagine the wonders you could do with additional 6 hours everyday! Do you think polyphasic will work for you?
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