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Hey Everyone,
I’ve just started season 3 and have been reading through the opening chapter pertaining to time management and the like. In 1-7 the concept of ‘polyphasic sleeping’ comes up, and, although the link to the original post is dead, I did a little reading up on the ‘everyman 2-nap’ method and immediately noticed the rather evenly split debate between people online about whether or not it was actually as beneficial as it claims to be. It just so happens that I’m currently in between years at university and have a gap where I could well experiment with a new sleeping pattern, but I was wondering if there were any TextFugu’ers with prior experience that could weigh in as to whether or not it’s a good idea? Without any sterling defence for polyphasic sleeping I’ll likely just forget about it!
Jack
I tried it, but it was incredibly difficult.
Waking up after 4.5 hours of sleep was hard enough. Taking a 20 minute nap was nearly impossible. By the time dinner rolled around I just went and slept because I felt like garbage.
I tried it again a couple days later, and found it equally difficult.
I used to work for a company that had me doing nights. And then I’d have little shuttling jobs to do throughout the day. So I was sleeping for about an hour here and there for several days in a row. I got a lot of things done and made a ton of money, but it burned me out really quickly and I felt like garbage.
All of that said, it’s actually irrelevant what my experience was like. The only way you’ll know is if you try. Just… make sure you don’t have anything important to do for a few days around when you decide to give it a shot. If you give it a try, I’d be curious to see how it goes for you.
I haz a blog http://maninjapanchannel.wordpress.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLQzB-1u-dgCool, thanks for the input! I’ll likely try and find a good few days where I’m free and give it a go. From everything I’d read it was difficult to ascertain whether even trying it would cause me terrible, irreparable damage or not! If I try it and have anything to report I’ll post it up here.
Do you not need to give it a week or two to start working (in other words, stop feeling like death)? I can’t remember, I haven’t read about it in a while.
I tried it but found it really difficult to nap during the day. It would take me ages to get to sleep meaning it was difficult to know when to set my alarm so that I’d get 20 minutes (plus it takes away from that extra time you’re supposed to be getting during the day).
Yeah you’re correct, I probably do have a week or two to experiment, but that does make it seem more daunting somehow. And yeah the nap thing is something else I was wondering about, I assume the idea is that you become better at napping as your sleep cycle changes? (I guess because you’re actually more tired!)
Also, did you find that when you were trying it, you actually spent more time studying/working?
Hah, there isn’t the slightest chance you’re going to be more productive while in the middle of modifying your sleep style.
Here. Read the mouse-over text too. =)
Eh, it was a few years ago now that I tried it so I can’t quite remember. I have a feeling I didn’t get much more done which was also part of the reason I stopped.
Another aspect of the napping I struggled with was actually taking the naps on time. If I’d planned to nap at a certain time each day, often when it got to that time I’d feel “I don’t really want to sleep, I’d rather just stay away awake and do stuff. I’ll just nap later”, which lead to just not napping at all. Even though I was technically gaining more time awake each day, it felt like sleeping during the day was wasting time (even though it wasn’t due to the shortened sleep at night).
Overall, I didn’t really like it, it didn’t work for me. Maybe you’ll have more success though. Try it out and let us know how you found it.
What I really need right now is not to have more hours in the day, but to be more productive in the hours I do have. If I were to be given a couple of extra hours each day, that would just mean a couple extra hours procrastinating ;) I could sleep 8-9 hours a day and still get plenty of studying done since I’m off for the summer, but I don’t because I’m lazy and undisciplined and lacking all motivation (though that applies to everything, not just Japanese).
Ah yes, the act of actually spending that extra time productively! To be honest I don’t exactly spend all my working hours productively as it is, so maybe that’s something I should look at instead… Regardless, thanks for the food for thought!
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