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The Polyphasic Sleep Experiment
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which you quote as a driving reason.
Maybe theres a reason that people go with accepted norms...maybe its because alot of the time this is the most efficient way of self development.
Looking at your profile on your blog and your list of favourite books rings alarm bells. How to lead or interact with people is not learned from books, especially when it comes to business and money. Without even looking at the " The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" or "25 Ways to Win with People" I guarentee you are setting your self up for a fall if you put to much weight on them.
On the marathon, it isn't necessarily correct to say that you will run a quicker time if you aim at 2.12 rather than 3 hours, depending on how you go about it and on what timescale. If you train unrealistically to try and hit 2.12 you will be less likely to get anywhere at all. If it's a target for years down the line and you train sensibily towards a 3 hour marathon in the interim, well, that would not be such a problem.
Has polyphasic sleep been used before in conjunction with athletic training?
i once had to sleep in a lab as part of my Bsc
To ensure id be able to sleep with a load of people watching me, i stayed up all night on the previous night
result was a hugely increased proportion of stage 4 sleep
Sleep deprivation in my personal experience, and also form those Edinburgh experiments also induces paranoia
Not convinced about the 2:12 marathon time from a "no racing background". How do you know that a 2:12 is even achieveable if you've never tested yourself to know what sort of speed you're likely to run at? Some people, regardless of how hard they train, are just not genetically made up (VO2 max levels, lactic thresh-hold etc) to be super-fast. And lets be serious for a minute...a 2:12 marathon time would be up there with the best of the best in the world, a top 10 finish in last years London Marathon and a guaranteed selection for the World Championships for example. Are you seriously telling me you expect to be that good with no racing background and with no evidence to back this goal up?
I think you should see a professional coach for advice and get a VO2 max test done to see if you're not totally deluding yourself.
Good luck with the sleep experiment though - I'll follow the blog with interest.
'burnout': physical or mental collapse.
I've never even considered that anyoone could do something like this, and yet its got me thinking loads.
Just about everyone here seems to think thats its unnatural, I'd say, just stop for a moment and think about why 99.99% of people have the conventional 7-8 hours each night sleep pattern that we do.
Social convention, because everyone else does it is probably the biggest factor, on a deeper level it probably boils down to convenience (getting all your days sleep out in one load) and I think most fundamental of all is safety. As a species and on an individual level we know that we CAN take 8 hours solid sleep without being eaten.
Perhaps polyphasic sleeping is the evolutionary natural way to be sleeping. Perhaps we should feel much much better sleeping in this way because our bodies could be wired that way anyway. It doesn't seem unreasonable that when humans were evolving and when we were at a much more precarious point in our existance that we would sleep in such a pattern because our survival depended on it.
Perhaps only when we took firm steps to constructing bigger communities and eventually cities did we revert to our present day patterns of sleeping.
Anyway I could be way off, but I dont necessarily buy the assumption of burnout that everyone seems certain would happen.
Still, logistically its a very tough experiment, best of luck Road Runner!
Then I realised it was just a mistype. Feeling a bit tired, ed? That monophasic approach not working for you? ;-)
It could be interesting to see how it compares to NFR's experiment.
Julz - EXCELLENT post!
DG - please do have a dig - I'm not sure how much you will find, but it wouldn't surprise me if you did find something - there are several historical figures who practiced this method of sleep, such as Thomas Jefferson and Leonardo da Vinci.
I've updated the blog. The experiment is on hold until tomorrow evening as I've got to drive 70miles home tomorrow from a mates house.
[b]http://www.jfleck.com/polyphasic/[/b]
http://www.jfleck.com/polyphasic/
Hmmmmmm. Watch those railway bridges.
Ok. Tidy.
I remember something about sleeping at night because our night time vision deteriorated, and becoming 'paralysed' during REM so as to not attract predators, although I imagine there will be much more accurate info in textbooks aimed at degree level and above!
Don't know where that came from.
That is of course, not my opinion, but still.
There have been occasions when I've woken up with 4-5 hours sleep only, felt terrible then had 1 hour's sleep in the evening and felt fine again. However, it's not something I'd like to make a habit of.
You'd end up looking like poo very quickly methinks.
The first thing to go when I'm knackered is my ability to form coherent sentences. Spoonerisms about, words get mangled etc. I end up getting the giggles for no reason. Not something I'd like to re-visit any time soon.
(vague recollection of fairly recent documentary on sleep disorders)
I've often heard of people who simply get through life only having one 4-5 hour period sleep a night anyway. From my memory, there was an article in one of my old FHMs about achieving this, something to do with cutting caffeine and alcohol out of your diet entirely, as well as eating lots of fresh veg (i think), and then your body goes into a comatose type sleep straight away. Takes a while to get there, but if it works, very worthwhile (more time for other stuff) and more "socially acceptable" if you like, not that you seem to be bothered by all that jazz.
Just a thought....
(Yawn)
Polyphasic_sleep' target='_blank' rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Polyphasic_sleep