Ever since I first read about the Uberman sleep cycle back in the early naughties, I have been somewhat obsessed to try it out, mainly due to it’s abnormality, the lack of knowledge about the subject (and as such prone to lots of biased negative talk) and the massive time benefits this presents.
My main reasoning for doing this experiment is to give me extra time to do things that my present lifestyle just doesn’t allow. As a working professional, my job takes up a fair portion of my life, and on occasions all of it. This extra time is not aimed at gaining more for additional work that needs doing, but to increase the quality of life for things I’ve had to sacrifice as a consequence.
A polyphasic sleep pattern can increase waking time up to around 22 hours, enabling enough time to cook decent meals (I’m a vegetarian, and unfortunately my diet can be effected on occasions whenever I feel too tired to cook), increase the quality of relaxation, and deal with personal tasks which sometimes get postponed and forgotten - I seem to always have a lot of them. By doing this, I can increase my health simply from my willingness to eat healthily and exercise on a daily basis which I currently feel I can’t do due to time constraints or feeling too tired. If you think about it, regular sleeps should be more efficient for your mind, as it does not need to cope with large lengths of time in between whatever it is it needs to do.
Some may say why not just use time management techniques? Well, I guess this is a form of time management technique, I love to be different and attempt things that can improve life or efficiencies that others disregard simply because they’re not standard/normal. 
People tend to say that it isn’t natural, and that it could have long term damaging effects, however, many animals live this way throughout their lives, and children are actually born polyphasic and remain this way for the first few years of their life until otherwise trained and able to go such large lengths of time between sleeps (eventually reaching the average 16 hours).
There is a certain amount of preparation which needs to be done before attempting a sleep cycle alteration. I have attempted this several times, but all have been half hearted, and if there’s one thing that is pretty obvious, you need full devotion to train your brain to accept a huge change to the fundamental way it works. This is why I’ve decided to make a full blog devoted to the lead up preparation, and cycle by cycle data in order to both help others achieve the same state, and to give me tasks which I can perform step by step while I’m too groggy to be able to think straight. Also, as this is an experiment, some of these step by step tasks are designed to test my mental ability at the start, middle and end of each cycle, and also physical data like weight, hydration, body fat, and food consumption. If there is any other data or tasks which people think may be useful, please let me know.
Below is a list which must be completed over the coming months before I attempt the switch over.
- Stop drinking alchol - Unfortantly, as nice as it is, it probably won’t help and I want to lead a healthy lifestyle too.
- Stop drinking caffine - Juices, smooties and water from now on.
- Arrange a date - Prefreably over a bank holiday to minimise loss of productive time at work (Easter is looking ideal)
- Inform everyone of the change - You can only do this with the support of others. Without it, it can be near on impossible.
- Arange tasks to perform, both general and cycle by cycle for the first fortnight.
- Arrange food to be cooked and eaten. State time when it should be cooked, and which cycles it can be eaten in. Also arrange snacks/smaller meals as more food is required and being unprepared can be a danger while in transition.
- Create a dedicated blog for the experiment.
Personal
Personal, Polyphasic sleep, Silly Conventions
