I keep getting asked a few of the same questions so I thought I’d take a post to gather my thoughts on biphasic sleeping, also known as napping.
1. You sleep… when exactly?
I sleep twice in a day. The first time being sometime in the early evening (around 8:30) and this block of sleep is only for 90 minutes (at least, thats the plan, see #4). After my first block of sleep I’m extremely refreshed and ready to go another few hours. I set myself to be back up by about 6 so I either go to sleep again at 1:30a or 3a. Note these are in 90 minute increments again.
2. What does 90 minutes have to do with anything?
The 90-minute cycle actually refers to one complete sleep cycle. This includes going through REM sleep; the most important part of sleeping. Since I don’t force myself to wake up in the middle of a sleep cycle I’m much more refreshed and it’s much easier to actually get up.
3. Is it hard to get up at 6 every day?
Surprisingly, no. I used to have trouble getting up at 8 or even 9 every day. I’m convinced it was because I was constantly pulling myself up out of the middle of a sleep cycle. Our brains get stuck down in ’sleep world’ and have a hard time unnaturally coming back up.
4. Do you ever screw up your sleeping schedule?
On occasion, yes. It’s funny but sometimes I’ll mis-set my alarm and find myself taking a 3 or 4.5 hour nap. I actually wake up naturally at 3 or 4.5 hours. I smile because people who thought I’d be ‘back in a few’ or would ‘call them in an few hours’ end up going to sleep that night slightly confused. They know its something nap-related. Oh well. I just adjust my second sleep period. For example, last night I went to bed at 9:30p and woke up at 2a. Oops! I ended up working until 5a, slept until 6:30 and, well, here I am! I had a midterm at 9:30 and have felt fine all day.
5. Do you ever sleep in?
To me, “sleeping in” is anything more than 6 hours. My body is pretty good at waking itself up automatically after a REM cycle (end of a 90 minute increment). On Saturdays I treat myself to 7.5 or 9 hours of sleep. People who advocate 8 hours of sleep are nuts. Seriously.
6. Does this interfere with your (social) life?
Nope. If I’m not in a place where I can’t just decide to take a nap then I simply don’t that day. I will just sleep 6 or 7.5 hours that evening and pick back up the next day. It seems like the simplest solution and hasn’t given me any problems. I do start to yawn quite a bit though as the night wears on..
7. Are there any side effects?
Increased productivity, smaller todo piles, less magazines to read on my bookshelf (hopefully this will carry over to books). But seriously, there have been no medical side effects whatsoever. This is far from anything radical like polyphasic sleeping.
8. Would you try polyphasic sleeping?
I’ll try anything. I don’t see it as something feasable for me at any point in my life. I may be wrong though. If I ever have the ability to control my schedule like that (30m naps every 4h) then sure, I’ll give myself a month or so to try it out.
9. Where did you even hear about this?
I find neat stuff online. This happens to be one of those things…
I stumbled upon the concept of non-monophasic sleep in the comments of a recent Slashdot article about no-sleep drugs. I read about polyphasic sleep on Wikipedia, but found that there wasn’t a chance that it would work with school. From there I got to biphasic sleep, and if what people say about it is true, I’m going to give it a try. I’ve got some questions I’d like to be answered before I attempt my journey with biphasic sleep. If you have the time, that is:
How long time did it take for you to adapt? Also, did you feel any drowzier during the first time?
When you have to skip your nap, is it difficult to recover? I think I’d have to skip it at least once a week.
Thanks for your time,
Tim.
Hey Tim, I’d say the entire adaptation took a few weeks. Since then my body is very familiar with only sleeping for approx. 90 minutes in the afternoon.
I skip the nap very often and it has no bearing on me as long as I get more sleep at night. I always do a 1.5h nap then 4.5h at night and if I only got 4.5 at night after missing a nap it’d be pretty hard the next day. Especially two days in a row.
Devin, thanks! Your answers and this FAQ were very helpful. I’ll tell you whether I succeed or not in a couple of weeks. Cheers.
Me and a friend are guinea piggig for an experiment on poly and bi-phasic sleeping, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Also, how long do you sleep in totale?
Hi Kerns, I sleep for a total of 6 hours on a weekday and anywhere from 6 to 9 on the weekend.
Quick question, i assume you add falling asleep time to the 90 min. periods? so during the nap, if i took 10 min. to fall asleep, i would be in bed for 100 min.? Thanks for your help.
Exactly right, Doug. It’s all an approximation anyway but adding a few minutes is certainly needed.
Hey Devin, I was curious as to whether you’re a lucid dreamer; and if so, has a biphasic sleep cycle had any effect on that?
Hey Bengt, I actually did start having lucid dreams. It was very obvious that the sleeping was making my dreams more real and more memorable. Now when I wake up I can remember a number of my dreams where previous I never really noticed if I had dreamt or not.
Hi Devin
I am just wondering. I am a student now in yr 10 and I was wondering if I would feel better and more concentrated
Hi Chris, I think it really depends on your daily sleep. If you’re doing 3 hours at night and a 1.5 hour nap that might not be enough sleep. I tried that and it wasn’t. Tacking on another 1.5 hours somewhere (either the nap or at night) is probably a good place to start.
My schedule moves around and varies every day of the week so I’ve found there doesn’t need to be a fixed time for any of this. As long as I get my nap somewhere in there I’m happy. ;-)
Devin, I finally got to trying biphasic sleep out. I’ve slept biphasically between 6 and 7.5 hours a day for a week now, and I just feel a bit tired after waking from the nap. Thanks for your help.
Interesting website.
I have been doing biphasic sleep for many many years. In high school I would sleep at 3 am wake up for school, come home and sleep some more- repeat, this was done for all 4 years, on weekends i try to sleep normal. I would average 6 hours a day of sleep. In college my sleep schedule would vary on and off biphasic sleep patterns. For my job I have been reverting back to the biphasic method.
My problem is that I stay up too late and biphasic sleep is the only solution for a world that thinks 8 am is a good time to start the day. The simple solution would be to sleep earlier, however it is easier said than done. I suffer from high blood pressure which may be caused by my irregular sleep patterns – I am fit, have perfect cholesterol, the cardiologist can’t find out what is causing this and therefore I am being medicated (lotrel).
Other possible side effects: Lethargy, decreased productivity- when I wake up my mind is groggy, mood swings. I would not advise Biphasic sleep for anyone.
I would love to sleep like normal people do but I often find myself awake late into the night. At one point in my life I even worked the grave yard shift. Sleep is not some kind of joke if you can sleep normal (7-8 straight hrs/day) then do so.
Hi Lawrence, thanks for sharing your experiences. While slightly concerning, I’m glad to note I haven’t noticed any of the side affects you mention. I’ll certainly remain keen to this development.
Thanks again for stopping by..
He Devin, thanks for posting on my blog. I was wondering about the effects you might have if you skip a nap, but you already answered that question :). It’s also interesting to see that you don’t have a fixed schedule, unlike some other biphasic sleepers. That was one of my fears, because I know that I’m not going to be able to have the same schedule every day. Do you think that if I’m for instance on a 6hour of sleep per day ( 4.5 1.5 nap) and that I skip the nap, I should get a 6 hour core sleep the next day to counter balance the effects I might experience? Or just keep my 4.5 regular core sleep? Thanks for your help!
Cactus
P.S: This FAQ is great :)
Hi Cactus, no my schedule varies. I’m a big proponent of the bi-phasic sleep cycle but I also strongly support the notion that sleep cycles dictate the quality of your sleep.
What you described it what I do every other day. I nap one day to get 6 hours, the next day I don’t nap and simply sleep from 12-6am. I don’t think there are really an ‘effects’.. people have been napping since the beginning of time. ;-)
Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you so much, it’s actually a great relief for me since I was afraid I couldn’t follow the schedule and therferore quit the biphasic sleep :)
Whatever works for you and keeps you rested! ;)
Hello,
I am interested in trying a biphasic sleep schedule, but I don’t want to reduce my sleep hours, I just want to get 7.5 daily hours in an easier way. I naturally nap most days. Would extending my 20-30 minute nap to 1.5 hours, and then sleeping 6 at night be a feasible option. Since I might only want to use this for days when I would get up earlier, could I only use this a few times a week and normally stay with 7.5 straight hours? Also, would the adjustment period for this type of pattern be less?
Hi Max, your 1.5 nap 6 sleep sound perfect. This is what I like to do some nights and its extremely restful. You should no problem switching between a nap day and a non-nap day, I do it all the time.
As far as adjustment, a week or two may be necessary for your body to realize you’re taking a set nap. Since you’ve already been napping it might not even be an issue. I’m sure you’ll be find.
Let me know how it goes. :)
Heyy, I’m considering biphasic sleeping but have a few problems; one being that I don’t fall to sleep easily and it often takes me two or three hours to get to sleep if i’m not completely exhausted when i get into bed. Did you just force yourself to have only 4.5 hours of sleep at night until you could nap in the evening?
I’m hoping to sleep 5:30-7:00 and 1-5:30, but I’ve found I need much more sleep since I turned sixteen, so would it be okay to sleep 7.5 hours every night? And did you find you felt you needed to sleep less when you took up this sleeping pattern?
Thanks :)
Hey Aimee, I definitely needed to sleep less when I did biphasic sleep because I was getting rest twice a day. In other words, I had enough energy to keep going until bed time late at night. I think if you try it out for a bit and see what it takes to make you tired.
Then again, if you can’t fall asleep very easily the napping might not work very well for you.
Good luck!
I sleep 7.5 hours now. I was planning on first sleeping 6 hours at night and 1.5 in the day time to get my body used to bi phasic. Then, once I’m already there, decreasing to 4.5 and then 1.5.
I was wondering though,
If you sleep bi phasicly, do you notice that you need less sleep overall? Thus- will this plan work and I still have the same energy? Did you need more sleep before you went biphasic?
How long does it take to get to the point where I would only need 6 hrs point?
Not sure if you know about this, but I’ll ask anyway. If your core sleep includes the hours 10-midnight (the time when the human body has more restorative sleep then the other hours) do you notice that you need less sleep because your sleep is more restorative?
Do you exercise? Do you think this does or doesn’t contribute to your amount of sleep you need?
Great article! If this works, it will be one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
Hi Jo, I think the point of biphasic sleep answers your first question: the two phases means you need less sleep. :)
I don’t remember how long it took me but probably a month or so of consistently teaching my body to wake up every ~90 minutes. I was never more/less tired than I previously had been.
I don’t know about that 10-midnight concept because our sleep patterns are all a bit different. I don’t think my body is capable of telling what time it is… what if I were to travel to a different time zone?
Under what circumstances would you not recommend biphasic sleep? There may be many people who could benefit from this, including me, however some people really would have problems with this for example irregular shifts, sleep that is not always undisturbed(do you have to be sure that all the sleep you do get is undisturbed?)
I would love to improve my sleep but there seems to be a lack of reports on the internet from qualified people to convince me of this, and I really can’t afford to make a life changing decision without more support.
Is there anywhere you can point me that medically reinforces the practice of biphasic /polyphasic sleep?
I’m not sure how to answer that, Nick. I’ve found no definitive medical opinions on sleep. While one doctor says you need at least 8, 9, maybe 10 hours a day, there is another telling you that it’s a myth and too much sleep can actually harm you.
In it’s simplest form it’s just a nap in the middle of the day making up for less sleep at night, right? So, as you mentioned, if you screw up that nap you might have a hard time for the rest of the day.
Try getting your normal sleep at night (in some multiple of 90m like 6 or 7.5 hours) but work a nap into your schedule, too. Then cut back your time at night and see how that works.
Hello there
I’m also a biphasic sleeper
But instead of going straight from 8 hours mono, I went down to 6 (4.5 core, 1.5nap)
And whenever I feel I’m ready to go down to 4.5 (3 core 1.5nap) I wake up dizzy, This has happened twice.
Do I just stick it out for the two week adaption period, or should I stick with 6 hours.
How much do you sleep biphasically?
I’d stick to 6. I never made it a habit to only get 4.5 in a day. I could maybe do it once or twice a week but I wanted to make sure I was getting enough sleep.
Thanks for the reply =]
Another question I have is:
Wen you have say an operation, or a cold, or anything really,and a doctor says for you to get some rest. Would you convert back to monophasic until you’re healed?
Haha if a doctor told me to “get some rest” I would sleep biphasic… but like 6 hours 6 hours if possible, haha.
But seriously, I would still try to get in a nap especially when I’m told to sleep more.