I made yesterday a time schedule for the 5 work days, monday - friday. I am going to experiment if it's possible to sleep only 4 hours a day. So I got more time after work, for development (3 hours a day) and MCSE/HBO study (4 hours a day). I was wondering of course if 4 hours sleep is healthy. I practice b.t.w. every morning meditation. I saw a couple years ago a tv program, about Japanese children who only sleep about 4 hours a day, because of the much homework they get from school. For me this will be a big challenge, because if this succeeds, I can be sure that I will get things double faster done then normal.

I doubt if 4 hours of sleep is healthy. I know of several studies that suggested that people who have 5 hours each day have weaker immune system & appetite than those who sleep 7 hours.

unless you use your weekend to replenish your weekly sleep hours, i'm afraid youll only inflict damage to your health.

I forget the term for it but the Japanese also have a problem where people spontaneously *die* from stress. I'd be careful about what habits of theirs you adopt :)

Karoshi - Death from overwork.

I never short-change my sleep simply because it's not a time savings for me. Maybe I'm just weak, but if I don't sleep well the night before I'm too scatter brained the next day to do any real work.

You cannot catch up on lost sleep. I would say only having four hours sleep a day would be very dangerous for your mental and physical well-being.

There is a certain rare disease that affects only a handful of people around the world that means they can never go to sleep. The result? Their health gradually deteriorates to the point that after a few weeks they lose the ability to walk, after a few months they die.

Now that may be the extreme example, but it shows how missing sleep can adversely affect you.

Well, I've heard of or read about "successful" people who seem to do well on very few hours of sleep, but they are probably the exceptions to the rule (though maybe that's why they're exceptional?). For instance, it's my understanding that Bill Clinton only gets a few hours of sleep a night. I'm certainly not one of those people though. :) If I get less than 6 hours a night, my productivity drops off significantly.

I'd say try it for a week and see what happens. If you can do it without any ill effects (and without artificially propping yourself up with caffeine or other drugs), extend your trial for a little longer. You might be one of those people that doesn't need as much sleep as the 'average' person and there's only one way to find out. Just be sure to listen to your body!

Originally posted by kerchen
Well, I've heard of or read about "successful" people who seem to do well on very few hours of sleep, but they are probably the exceptions to the rule (though maybe that's why they're exceptional?). For instance, it's my understanding that Bill Clinton only gets a few hours of sleep a night. I'm certainly not one of those people though. :) If I get less than 6 hours a night, my productivity drops off significantly.

I'd say try it for a week and see what happens. If you can do it without any ill effects (and without artificially propping yourself up with caffeine or other drugs), extend your trial for a little longer. You might be one of those people that doesn't need as much sleep as the 'average' person and there's only one way to find out. Just be sure to listen to your body!

I will give it a try this week. I start at monday 24/11 and finish hopefully with success at friday 28/11.

Originally posted by svero
I never short-change my sleep simply because it's not a time savings for me. Maybe I'm just weak, but if I don't sleep well the night before I'm too scatter brained the next day to do any real work.

Exactly. I always stayed up late finishing assignments in school and that only put me in a terrible cycle where I never had enough energy to get the stuff done faster and get enough sleep. I could have gotten better marks and slept soundly simply by not procrastinating.

These days I get anywhere between 6 and 10 hours of sleep, and I try to hit the 8-9 hour mark whenever possible (I'll pass out and sleep for 10 if I slept 6 the night before). As a result, I can maintain energy through most of the day and I can actually feel like I'm part of the world, instead of being stuck in that drifty zombie haze that results from lack of sleep. There are so many other parts of your day that can be optimized, with much greater savings and without sacrificing your health.

Someone on these forums posted an excellent article on sleep before, which made a very convincing argument against reducing sleep.

In college, and later in the professional world, I heard stories from my colleagues about how little sleep they got (especially during college). Makes great stories.

The reality, though, is this: People exaggerate. A lot.

If/when getting no sleep is "cool", then you can hear all sorts of stories of people and how little sleep they get on a regular basis. It's just one-upsmanship in a conversation. "You think *you're* tired? Hell, man, I had to get up five times last night to walk the damn dog...and I didn't even get to bed until 3am. Getting up at 6am to get to this miserable workplace was just horrible..."

It's like that Monty Python sketch with the rich guys sitting around talking about rough they had it when *they* were children: "We had to get up 2 hours before we went to bed...our parents would kill us just around midnight and dance on our graves...and then it was off to work in the mines..."

I struggled for *years* to sleep as little as possible. I learned a couple things:

1. I can, if I force myself, endure a *lot* of pain.

2. I'm stupid to do it.

Never cause yourself unnecessary pain. Just be content with the same 24-hour day the rest of humanity endures, and learn how much you really can get done a little bit at a time, one day at a time.

-David

Originally posted by DavidRM
1. I can, if I force myself, endure a *lot* of pain.

2. I'm stupid to do it.

two days ago i was awake for a day an a half. I dont remember much of that last half day, but my friend told me i sent him an sms saying "I didn't know that lack of sleep could be so painful..."

:)

During my stay with the Finnish Air Force I enjoyed several occasions of hard physical and mental labour combined with limited sleep. The longest single session must have been a camp of two weeks where a companion and I were organizing a evaluation track for the new conscripts. We slept between 5-7h per night working practically from dawn to dusk. As David mentions, this is possible, painfull and you can do it for short periods like this without loosing too much of effectivity. But it is very, very taxing.

My natural sleep pattern is about 8-9 hours of sleep. This gives me peak performance in work and play. After the camp described above I slep for 14 hours straight, woke up for a few hours and slept 10 hours more. We were told that the sleep deprivation caused by going through the full army training will linger on in the body as residual effects for one to two years. This matches my observations of people returning to civil life, it usually takes 6-8 months before they attain their previous levels of activity.

So in summary, I would recomend sleeping until you awake by yourself. If you get up too late, start turning in earlier. I usually wake up at about 6 o'clock without any special arrangements.

Studie show that the lack of sleep, reduce your brain activite by 20-30%.

If you sleep 8 hour: 24 - 8=16 hours of 100% activies
If you sleep 4 hours: 24 - 4=20 hour at 80%=16 hours of 100% activies, but it's paintful, and the number of mistakes made increase.

People who succeed and not sleep much, have natural ability, and don't need the same amount of sleep than us. They don't need alarm-clock to wake them up. We are not egal on sleeping's activity. And people like that, don't succeed because they don't sleep, they succeed because they are successful...

I remember i read somewhere that driving after 18 hours of not sleeping is equivelent to drunk driving, and that someone at the US was convicted for it.

Cant find the article right now, should be somewhere at CNN/BBC...

Originally posted by Lizardsoft
Someone on these forums posted an excellent article on sleep before, which made a very convincing argument against reducing sleep.

I think you might be referring to the article that I posted. Here it is again:
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm

I understand Thomas Edison slept only 2 hours a night, but took frequent 15-minute cat-naps in his lab.

There's an African tribal culture in which the men sleep an average of only 2 (or was it 3) hours per night. The women sleep a little more.

The "8 hours of sleep" thing didn't exist until the Industrial Revolution, when factories began breaking the day into shifts. 3 time shifts of 8 hours each worked conveniently. One of those periods was for sleeping, naturally. Prior to this (and currently in agrarian societies), the amount people slept was more determined by seasonal changes. During the summer, it was 5-6 hours a night. During the winter, it is around twice this. When it's dark, you sleep.

Once upon a time I was a very light sleeper. I had frequent bouts of insomnia, I would thrash around a lot at night, and I'd sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to get back to sleep (my wife still has this latter problem). Due to my work schedule, I ended up sleeping only about 5-6 hours per night. Sometimes less

My body adjusted. When I was on a real sleep "deficit", I'd crash on weekends and sleep about 10 hours or so. I guess this runs contrary to the thought that you can't "catch up" on lost sleep --- I don't know if it did me any good or not, but I sure felt better by Sunday. I thought it was really strange how my body "knew" it was Friday night :)

Now I regularly sleep an average of 6 hours a night. I don't get insomnia anymore, and I've become a fairly heavy sleeper. So long as I get to bed very close to my "usual" time, I wake up quite naturally about 5 hours and 45 minutes later. This is kind of annoying on Saturday mornings when I'd like to sleep in - but when I wake up... BOOM, I'm awake and not going back to sleep.

I am of the belief that your body CAN be trained and adjust to all kinds of different sleep schedules - within certain limits, of course. The key word is "schedule" - your body likes to work within a particular rhythm. If you constantly disrupt that schedule, it's going to mess you up.

I slept on monday about 5 hours. I wake up automatically (without alarm/radio clock). And I felt very fresh and the mental + body health was just as stable as normal. So I didn't notice any strange negative difference. I sleep b.t.w. on the "work" days (monday - friday), normally each day about 6 hours (total of 30 hour). In the weekends I sleep mostly about 8 hours a day (total of 16 hours). I stay up earlier because of meditation activity, which takes time to practice every morning. So that's why I sleep about 6 hours. Before (when I didn't meditate) I slept about 7 hours. But I noticed that when I meditate the mind and body becomes very strong. So I didn't need that one hour extra sleep. I was suprised that on monday I didn't missed one hour sleep, from 6 to 5 hours.

I've found that if you throw your schedule off, it usually takes about a day for you to notice it. Take that for what it's worth from a guy who's done a few too many all-nighters in his life.

Likewise, it normally takes 2-3 weeks for your body to adjust to a new sleep schedule. Until then, it's a disruption of the previous sleep schedule. When I started my new job, I was fine the first day getting up about 2 hours earlier than I was used to. But for the next two weeks I was struggling.

Originally posted by Coyote
I've found that if you throw your schedule off, it usually takes about a day for you to notice it. Take that for what it's worth from a guy who's done a few too many all-nighters in his life.

Likewise, it normally takes 2-3 weeks for your body to adjust to a new sleep schedule. Until then, it's a disruption of the previous sleep schedule. When I started my new job, I was fine the first day getting up about 2 hours earlier than I was used to. But for the next two weeks I was struggling.

The normal sleep schedule of 6 hours is working very well. I am doing this already about 6 weeks.

Originally posted by johnson
Before (when I didn't meditate) I slept about 7 hours. But I noticed that when I meditate the mind and body becomes very strong. So I didn't need that one hour extra sleep.

I've read that you can replace some sleep with meditation, since you get many of the same benefits from mediation if you are good enough at meditation. Supposedly something like an hour of deep meditation can replace 2 or 3 hours of sleep. So theoretically, if you meditated 1 to 2 hours a day you could get away with only sleeping maybe 2 or 3 hours each night. If you really knew how to meditate very effectively of course.

Here's some links that back this:
http://users.pandora.be/dhammakaya/repository/faq036.html
http://ajayan.com/faq.htm

There is also evidence that meditation also improves the quality of sleep that you get:
http://e-ssentialhealthnetwork.com/page.cfm/96
http://www.ayurvedahc.com/Library/12Tips/12TipsSleep.htm

Some interesting stuff is happening with medication used for Narcoleptics.

Apparently you can more effectively not have sleep with with the medication.

"A powerful pill that helps patients feel like they got a good night's sleep, even if they didn't, may soon become more widely available."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/DrJohnson/GMA031009Sleepless_society-1.html

One way that I've found to get better use of sleep that you do get, is using a Meletonin supplement. It's great if you have a hard time sleeping. It helps you get a nice deep sleep without all that "weirdo" effects of some stuff. It's cheap and you can find it at any grocery store in the heath food section.

I have a bottle of Melatonin, but only ever used it once. I'm pretty much ready to go straight to sleep, quickly to deep-sleep, shortly after 1:00 AM (which is when I normally knock off what I'm doing and start getting ready for bed). I'm up and at 'em by 7:00 (more like 6:50 most mornings... 10 minutes before the alarm goes off).

I understand tranquilizers and other medical sleep aids actually inhibit deep & REM sleep - so while you getting sleep, your body & mind aren't getting the rest that you really need.

The link that damon posted has some great info in it. I read it when he first posted it, and one thing I learned from it was the idea of simply going to sleep when you experience a rapid increase in drowsiness, however long it takes for that to occur. If you go to sleep at a regular time, you might not always be ready for sleep. But I tried only going to bed when I reach that rapid increase in drowsiness. Now I always fall asleep within 3-5 minutes and wake up refreshed. Usually I read before going to bed, so if I'm not sleepy, I just keep reading until I can't keep my eyes open, even if it takes a couple hours.

Originally posted by damon
I think you might be referring to the article that I posted. Here it is again:
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm

Excellent article.

One natural supplement that can help with sleeping is tryptophan, an amino acid found in relatively large amounts in meat and milk. It is a metabolic precursor of serotonin, in other words, the body converts it to serotonin, which is the body's "feel good" chemical.

Originally posted by damon
I think you might be referring to the article that I posted. Here it is again:
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm

That's the one! Totally made me restructure my sleep habits. The stuff about memory is particularly interesting. It seems to be working too, I'm a heck of a better worker and person when I consistantly have enough sleep.

I'm looking for an alarm clock with an "8 Hours Later" setting...whenever I turn the alarm on, I want it to go off 8 hours later...optional "4 Hours Later" and "6 Hours Later" settings would be nice too... ;)

-David

@David: Many wristwatches have a countdown timer that can be set to 8 hours. If you have one of those and your watch alarm is enough to awaken you, you could try that. I'm not aware of any standalone alarm clocks with a countdown alarm though.

Melatonin is great stuff, not only for sleep induction but for many uses. You can see a bunch of abstracts at this Life Extension page (http://www.lef.org/prod_hp/abstracts/php-ab200.html) -- not that I advance the Life Extension Foundation as an unquestionable authority.

Tryptophan is better for getting to sleep, but a contaminated batch imported from one Japanese manufacturer in the '80s prompted the ever-vigilant FDA to ban all sales of tryptophan dietary supplements for human use. (Read about the ban.) (http://www.lef.org/fda/fdaban95.html) An essential amino acid, present in all cells of your body, and if it weren't you would die -- banned as unsafe for humans. You can still order it for veterinary use, or buy it with a doctor's prescription -- and of course tryptophan is naturally present in turkey, milk, and many other foods.

The narcolepsy medicine mentioned above is Provigil (http://www.provigil.com/patient/index.asp) (modafinil), a Schedule IV (i.e., pretty harmless) prescription medication. (Here's more about it.) (http://www.modafinil.com/) Very interesting stuff, apparently safe, but so new that I'm wary.

Provigil is apparently among the first of many forthcoming drugs with similar action but lesser side-effects. The military is funding a lot of research here, with the supposed goal of a soldier who can stay awake for a week without ill effects.