I’ve been fascinated with alternative sleep schedules since I was very young. My initial interest turned to a fascination when I realized the only positive long-term reports were usually from people trying to sell something: Their book, a sleep plan, or just using their sleep cycle as a social hook to impress others (influencers, basically). All of the forum reports started out optimistic and then ended in disappointment with basically nobody enjoying them after a long time.
One of the common themes was that people would think their lives were better at first. A sort of placebo effect. They’d push through the adaptation phase, which was miserable, and when they adapted they felt slightly better. Often this improvement (relative to the miserable adaptation period) was mistake for an absolute improvement because it had been so long since they had a normal sleep schedule.
What was really interesting was that most people reported some variation of the same thing: They didn’t realize how much they disliked the alternative sleep schedule until after they stopped it. Some people stuck with it for a long time until life forced them to change (job, marriage, etc). It wasn’t until they went back to normal that they realized how much better it was to just not fight the sunlight and night time that drives us.
It would be interesting to see how this person feels at some point in the future if they go back to a normal sleep schedule.
Fight the sunlight? What the hell do you even mean?! I don't have a 24-hour sleeping schedule naturally. I can force myself into it, but I'll feel miserable because I have to fight my own body to not "fight the sunlight". Some people start naturally getting drowsy in the evening every day, yes, sure. Good for them. I'm not one of those people.
So I'm very much with the author here and I might actually try 28-hour days because what I have for the last 10 years is a mess.
> Fight the sunlight? What the hell do you even mean?!
Are you not getting much sunlight? I can understand the reaction to being told something that doesn’t match your experience. But. The link between sunlight and sleep for most life on earth is pretty well established science, and has a name: Circadian Rhythm.
Have you ever tried camping for a week? My sleep tends to drift when I’m working indoors a lot, up late at night a lot, during winter, etc. But if I spend multiple days outside, it starts to align with sunrise almost immediately.
Both of these links say that Circadian Rhythms tend to drift and be longer than a day on average in the absence of sunlight.
I'm not getting much sunlight. Especially now. But I was getting plenty when I lived in Dubai for several months. Didn't change anything much, my sleeping schedule was still slipping. So no, your theory is wrong.
Non-24-hour sleep/wake disorder is not something one can fix like this. I would if I could. I've had this problem since my late teens.
Fair enough, but it’s called a disorder for a reason. It’s still reasonable for people to talk about the known link between sun and sleep by default, and not assume something’s wrong with you, right? It sounds like you were already aware what it meant before asking?
I think they mean that light exposure has been causally linked to wakefulness, which I'm sure is a statistical thing and not an absolute thing, meaning your experience is still valid even though it's different. Your indignation made me chuckle though, I appreciate the tone.
For the few weeks that I'm required to go back to a "normal" sleep schedule, I long every day to go back to my 28h schedule.
I might at some point in the future try moving back to 24h for a longer period of time, but I'm planning to stick to the 28h schedule for at least a couple more years before I do this, and I'll keep doing the yearly updates to document things.
I did one of the more extreme sleep schedules for a little over a year. Generally I was happy I did it, and there are tons of times that I wish I could again, but external pressure prevent me from doing it again.
I always try to dissuade people from it. It's difficult to get into, and difficult to maintain. It plays hell with a social schedule where people expect you to be awake at certain times.
No one is selling anything. There are many of us who benefit remarkably from what you're calling an "alternative sleep schedule" (I'm not specifically talking about 28-hour day entrainment like the blog author, but whatever works for each individual based on their own idiosyncratic circadian rhythm)
Many of us have periods where we have to go back to 24-hour schedules due to external factors, and sleep quality and duration suffer as a result. For myself, in the winter when my schedule is a little >27 hours, when I enforced waking up at 8 AM Monday-Friday for a 9-5, my schedule might go something like this:
> Sunday night: Sleep 7-8 hours starting at midnight.
> Monday night: Sleep 5 hours starting ~3 AM Tuesday.
> Tuesday night: Sleep 2-3 hours starting at ~5 AM Wednesday. Sometimes with exhaustion I may then be able to fall asleep at 5-6 PM (Wednesday) but often would stay up til closer to midnight-2AM. Regardless, when I fall asleep I likely will wake up in 1 or 2 hours and be unable to go back to sleep, as my body doesn't believe it's in the sleep phase.
> "Wednesday night?": There isn't really a Wednesday night except on the occasion where I managed to sleep more than 2 hours. Sometimes I'm up all night with no nap; more than half the time I can't sleep more than 3 hours. Occasionally I'm actually able to stay asleep during what my body thinks is a nap to pay off sleep debt.
> "Thursday night?": Exhausted from having slept no more than 9 hours in the last 48 hours, and usually closer to 3-4 hours, I'll collapse around 5-7 PM from exhaustion and sleep until midnight-5AM.
> "Friday night?": Often I'm ready for sleep by 5-8 PM and will sleep 8-9 hours. But I'll also occasionally try to sleep less and push myself to go out at 9-10 PM if there's an event happening. After being more active and if I slept less than 4 hours I can usually pick up another 1-3.5 hours of sleep after 4 or 5 AM.
> Saturday night: If I got a full night's sleep, or went out Friday but slept a little bit after, I may be more energized, so this is the more consistent day for weekend plans. If sleep was poor I'll try to sleep an hour or two early in the evening before going out and then sleep 3 AM to 9 AM or so. If I didn't have Saturday plans I may go to sleep at 8 PM and sleep til 5 AM.
> Sunday night: Usually fall asleep somewhere around midnight but who knows? I could be up til 3 AM depending on how the weekend went.
All told I would probably get an average of ~5.5 to 6 hour of sleep per 24-hour day, but with significant periods running on very little sleep.
Now that I work from home and have few meetings, my schedule may look more like the following:
> Sunday night: Sleep from midnight to 7 or 8 AM
> Monday night: Sleep from 3 AM (Tuesday) to 10 AM (in time for my 10 AM Tuesday meeting).
> "...": Sleep Wednesday from 6 AM to 1 or 2 PM (Wednesday)
> "...": Sleep Thursday from 9 AM to 4 or 5 PM. Stay awake for my 10 AM meeting Friday.
> "...": Friday I have a meeting from 10-11, then often coordinate with coworkers til noon, but as late as 2 PM (rarely later). So I sleep after and wake up any time friday from 7 PM to 9 PM, go out feeling relatively well-rested.
> "...": Saturday if I have plans I take a nap then go out and fall asleep around 3 AM until 10 AM.
Sunday I probably won't be able to sleep at midnight. Tuesday my 10 AM meeting this week will probably interrupt my sleep phase, but I can usually go right back to sleep after.
All in all on this schedule I get longer periods of uninterrupted sleep, get an average closer to 6.5 hours of sleep per 24-hour period, and never have periods of 48 hours where I only sleep 2 hours, so my overall energy and focus over the week is much better.
One of the common themes was that people would think their lives were better at first. A sort of placebo effect. They’d push through the adaptation phase, which was miserable, and when they adapted they felt slightly better. Often this improvement (relative to the miserable adaptation period) was mistake for an absolute improvement because it had been so long since they had a normal sleep schedule.
What was really interesting was that most people reported some variation of the same thing: They didn’t realize how much they disliked the alternative sleep schedule until after they stopped it. Some people stuck with it for a long time until life forced them to change (job, marriage, etc). It wasn’t until they went back to normal that they realized how much better it was to just not fight the sunlight and night time that drives us.
It would be interesting to see how this person feels at some point in the future if they go back to a normal sleep schedule.