Uberman: The Sleep of Champions

TheaterAddict is an innovator in the art of catchin' Zs—but will you be brave enough to try this method?—Sparkitors

Do you have a crazy schedule? Are you constantly tired because you just can't fit in 7 hours of sleep a night? Sparklers, I have a solution: Polyphasic sleeping.

Polyphasic sleeping is where you hack your brain into only sleeping 2 hours a day. And  no, it’s not unhealthy, but there is a trick to it. Normally, when you sleep for 6-8 hours, your body gets roughly 2 hours of REM sleep. This is the fifth cycle of sleep, and it's by far the most important stage, because it’s the one where your body and mind regenerate and rest.

Your body only needs two hours of REM sleep per day—but we have to sleep those other hours in order for our body to go into REM. So someone came up with the brilliant idea to trick the body into REM sleep: instead of sleeping all night for 6-8 hours, sleep every four hours, for 20 minutes. This means that six times a day, you have to take a 20-minute nap. This is only 2 hours of sleep a day. And yes, this is proven: Google it. You’re just tricking your body into thinking it is always going to get a limited amount of time to sleep, so it goes into REM. There’s rumors that Thomas Edison, Einstein, and DaVinci practiced Polyphasic sleep, although there’s no exact proof.

However, there are some significant drawbacks. The first week is like hell. You’re extremely sleep deprived, and you want to murder someone. Pick a week to start this when you don’t have much to do (I’d advise doing this in the summer, rather than the week you have to finals.) Also, you have to be very exact about the “every four hours” timing. If you miss a nap, you’ll be tired for the rest of the day. And, unfortunately, due to school or jobs, sleeping every four hours is a problem for most people. The last major issue with Polyphasic sleeping is that it can isolate you. Usually, unless you’re in college, there’s not much to do at night, and you don’t want to get depressed with as the PM hours drag on and on. Did I mention nights last FOREVER?

Also, if Uberman, this type of Polyphasic sleeping, sounds a bit impossible to you, there’s the Everyman option as well. You sleep for four total hours on the Everyman. Three hours of core sleep, and then three twenty minute naps throughout the day.

We're officially not trying EITHER of these, because we are cowards and wimps. Will you be giving Polyphasic sleep a shot?

Related post: What to Do When You Can't Sleep