There is only one study in this article, and it involves how a group of people adapted to a 14-hour sleep pattern. Other than that, there are no studies of importance here, nothing that confirms concretely that this kind of segmented sleep is effective for humans. It is based on historical hearsay but cannot make a prescriptive judgment. The evidence purely anecdotal. Please be careful in reading things like this tha…
Also, don't Spanish people and sailors sleep in segmented blocks? Not exactly newsworthy, then.
Sleep is weird. If I wake up in the middle of the night and go back to sleep... I feel like ass the next day. If I get less than eight hours I'm pretty tired the next day. But science says that shouldn't happen!? Not enough evidence to suggest that there's any kind of regularity to how humans "should" sleep yet.
It is even more weird than that. From my and some friend's experience: if you sleep more then 9 hours straight, instead of usual 6-8 (this happens on weekends usually), I feel really terrible in the morning - not being able to get out of bed, but in the same time not being able to sleep. Finally when I get out of bed - I feel really trashed for next several hours. So it is not just less than 8 hours makes things wors…
This is why, I find that getting up at the same time on the weekend as I do during the work week actually helps keep my sleep patterns somewhat regular. So, although the idea of an occasional Saturday morning sleep-in sounds good, in practic, I'm better off getting up at my usual 4:45am every day and supplementing with a short nap after lunch if necessary.
Some recent studies showed that an healthy night seems to be no more than 7 hours. Segmented sleep is interesting but I don't think a majority of people could balance that with family and work.
It rather seems that family and work need to be adjusted to balance them with our natural sleeping rhythm.
Assuming that this is in fact out natural sleeping rhythm.
Just get rid of your alarm clock, and wake up when your body tells you to.
I tried this for one semester in college, and never went back to an alarm clock. I decided to face the risk of missing classes, exams, meetings, etc. The result? I got up 1-2 hours earlier most days than I did with an alarm clock. I have been living without an alarm clock for 20 years now; in that time I have overslept maybe 5 times, and on those occasions it was pretty clear that my body was fighting off sickness an…
I have never slept for 8hrs, not even close. I sometimes wonder how people can sleep for that long and what their jobs and life's must be like. After 5-7hrs I usually wake up feeling totally refreshed and ready to go (even better after my first coffee ;))
You are lucky :) Some math - 1 hour a day less sleep than "normal" people give you:
1 hr * 365 days / 24 hours in day ~ 15 days.
And these are 24hours day. What it really should be:
1 hr * 365 days / (24 hours in day - 6 hours you sleep on average) ~ 21 days.
Which is, well, in office terms, work month :) congrats, you got 1/12 life for free :)
now corporations want you to work more than 9 hours per day.
Especially in Asian countries it is considered normal that your workplace demands more than 8 hours. Becoming like that in the USA as well for some.
In Europe, or at least Nothern Europe, it feels like working days are actually becoming shorter. I seem to recall 37.5hrs/w being standard for most office workers, at least in Sweden.
Will have a look and see if I can find a source later!
I only found out recently (well into my adult life) that I am hyper-sensitive to caffeine. One cup of coffee in the morning will keep me up till 3 am at night. This tricked me into thinking that I'm an extreme night owl, and it kept me from ever getting really good sleep. Now, I've quit caffeinated beverages entirely, and I get tired around 11:30 pm every night, and I sleep fantastically well. I wake up naturally aro…
Thanks Charlie! How did you find out that you were hyper-sensitive? In my case, I don't drink colas, but I love that hot coffee in the morning...
For me, it was gradual. I had had random bouts of insomnia for awhile, and realized those correlated with days I had caffeine after 4 PM or so. So I cut back to noon, which improved it, then cut back to the morning, which was even better, and then just cut out caffeine entirely. I've never slept better.
Oh my God. This could change my life. One lifelong problem I've got is sleeping. I have great trouble falling asleep, and my sleeping patterns are very uncommon: some days I sleep 12 hours, some 5, but I'm usually very tired because of this. However, I used to think I had a "gift" of being really creative and having my best ideas just before sleep, just waking up, and during insomnia episodes. However, I've discovere…
You're definitely not alone. Extraordinary insight and creativity, rich, vivid, inspired and out-of-the-box thinking, are typical for "twilight" states, when you're floating between waking state and sleep; not fully awaken to the outside world, but not fully unconscious either. The only problem is replicating and maintaining these states. It is sometimes possible to remain fully aware in what is essentially a full-on…
Thanks for the insight. As a matter of fact, I do meditate :) From my experience (nothing scientific), to replicate these states, what you need is to shut down your rational mind. You see, everyone has in there mind a small voice going "hey, I like this lamp" or "mmm I forgot to do something". This voice is your rational, conscious part of your "self". However, it's not your entire "self". Meditation aims at quieting this "voice" (it's really hard, and I'm not there yet). Once its quiet, you've got "space" for actual inspiration to come in, and once this happens it's amazing, and can happen in many levels. That's why meditation is a mystical experience. Mystical means that it is not possible to communicate via ideas, just by personal experience. If you get good at it you can actually control you emotional states and LISTEN to them, bringing you a lot of wellbeing in many ways. (ok, I'm waaay off topic, sorry).
There is only one study in this article, and it involves how a group of people adapted to a 14-hour sleep pattern. Other than that, there are no studies of importance here, nothing that confirms concretely that this kind of segmented sleep is effective for humans. It is based on historical hearsay but cannot make a prescriptive judgment. The evidence purely anecdotal. Please be careful in reading things like this tha…
Also, don't Spanish people and sailors sleep in segmented blocks? Not exactly newsworthy, then.
No, we don't. In Spain, some people take a quick 30-minute nap after lunch, but I wouldn't call that sleeping in segmented blocks.
Sleep is weird. If I wake up in the middle of the night and go back to sleep... I feel like ass the next day. If I get less than eight hours I'm pretty tired the next day. But science says that shouldn't happen!? Not enough evidence to suggest that there's any kind of regularity to how humans "should" sleep yet.
> If I wake up in the middle of the night and go back to sleep... I feel like ass the next day.
If you wake up because you have to, or if you just happen to wake up in the middle of the night naturally?