I've adopted a biphasic sleep pattern of sorts by chance. It started by occasionally falling asleep when putting my son to sleep, and when I'd wake up I'd compensate by staying up longer.
After a while I realized it works very well for me to got to sleep for a couple of hours around 8 when he goes to sleep, and then stay up for a few hours before going back to sleep - I usually feel very mellow and relaxed when waking up after my first sleep period, and then very energized after I've been up for a little while. I get far more done this way than by trying to make myself work on stuff at the tail end of a long day. In fact, I'm coming out of my "mellow and relaxed" phase after my first sleep period right now, and is about to start working on a project...
Sometimes I end up "exploiting it" by cutting my total number of hours of sleep drastically, and feel little ill effect as long as I compensate with sufficient rest the following evening.
Occasionally I'll combine this with a 30 minutes nap at lunch time. If not I'll usually spend that time meditating instead.
I did this for the first two years of college-- I'd often sleep for about 3-4 hours each night before class, and then sleep another chunk of time in the afternoon. However, it had the opposite effect on me as it became more and more difficult to go "back" to sleep in the afternoon unless I waited until the evening.
What ended up happening the last year or so is that I started sleeping 5-6 hours per night without a nap, and then sleeping more on the weekends. Surprisingly, this schedule (with morning coffee) got me through classes much better than having a combined total of 8 hours per night.
I started researching sleep to build a sleep tracking app and the theory (there are a number of books regarding this) is that your body can catch up on a certain amount of sleep "debt" within a period of 1-2 weeks. The "debt" is not a scientific measurement but within 14 days, your body has a general idea of how much sleep/rest is missing, and if the debt is made up gradually instead of all at once (and also by going to bed earlier rather than sleeping in), it can actually decrease the effect of drowsiness from past nights.
Actually now that I started working I sleep 7 hours a night and wake up the same time every morning and it's the first time in 6 years I don't need coffee to get through the day.
Disclaimer-- I also referenced a product I built. The app is called SleepBot and it's a very simple mechanism to help people track sleep and get an idea of their sleep "debt" over short periods of time. As David mentioned, sleep has been an untapped market but there's recently been an influx of sleep apps into the market including tackers, sound machines, and alarms. I think what we're seeing is an increased concern for sleep as more of us try to figure out how to improve our health beyond diet and exercise.
> . However, it had the opposite effect on me as it became more and more difficult to go "back" to sleep in the afternoon unless I waited until the evening.
8 here for me is 8pm. So I'll sleep 8pm until somewhere between 10 and 11.30pm depending on how rough the day was, and then get up and stay up anywhere until around 1.30am to 3.30am and go to bed and sleep until 6am.
I don't think I could deal with sleeping in the afternoon - it has to be when it's reasonably dark out, and it definitively helps to have a rough enough schedule and short enough total amount of sleep to be properly tired by the time I go down for the first round.
I rarely sleep more than 6 hour total during the evening/night, but will often catch up with a nap during the day on weekends.
> I also referenced a product I built. The app is called SleepBot and it's a very simple mechanism to help people track sleep and get an idea of their sleep "debt" over short periods of time.
Hey, nice to meet you :). I'm using SleepBot on my phone for over a year now, it's great!
I did this for a year during high school and loved it. That mellow feeling is a very particular state of mind that I really cherish. I've yet to encounter it in any other circumstance. I recall reading on Wikipedia that a number of historic writers are reported to have induced this state of mind for the purpose of writing.
Unfortunately I had to stop because I was keeping my parents awake at night – and now I live in New York and my evenings are always occupied – but I hope that one day when my life calms down I'll be able to return to that schedule.
After a while I realized it works very well for me to got to sleep for a couple of hours around 8 when he goes to sleep, and then stay up for a few hours before going back to sleep - I usually feel very mellow and relaxed when waking up after my first sleep period, and then very energized after I've been up for a little while. I get far more done this way than by trying to make myself work on stuff at the tail end of a long day. In fact, I'm coming out of my "mellow and relaxed" phase after my first sleep period right now, and is about to start working on a project...
Sometimes I end up "exploiting it" by cutting my total number of hours of sleep drastically, and feel little ill effect as long as I compensate with sufficient rest the following evening.
Occasionally I'll combine this with a 30 minutes nap at lunch time. If not I'll usually spend that time meditating instead.