The Uberman Sleep Cycle? No, thanks.





The reason why you and me are talking about ‘sleep hacking’ in the first place, attributes to the existence of the Uberman sleep cycle. Sleep hacking had slowly started emerging in the 2000’s but it was only when Steve Pavlina successfully attempted it in 2005, did the word spread throughout the Internet.


The fact that we humans can function normally by napping only 20 minutes every 4 hours, which totals up to 2 hours of sleep a day mind you, generated a lot of awe and fascination among sceptics. Considering the fact that Steve Pavlina has over million visitors monthly, the word spread pretty quickly. And before you know it, the Uberman sleep schedule had developed an entire cult of followers and sceptics alike.


Many got inspired to try the Uberman sleep schedule themselves and soon you could see other bloggers attempting the Uberman sleep cycle and posting detailed logs of the same on their websites and the readers posting their own written logs on various networks.



Catching up with the bandwagon

I was new to the concept of sleep hacking back then but just like everyone, I was quite fascinated with the possibility of getting my sleep down to the bare minimum required and soon I started my own attempt at the Uberman sleep cycle.


The Everyman sleep schedule and the Dymaxion sleep schedule were practically ignored back then because no famous Internet celebrity like Pavlina had tried it out yet. The reason why you see so many sleep hackers attempting the Everyman sleep cycle lately is because of its mention on the book ‘The 4 Hour Body’ by Tim Ferriss.


So yes, I started my attempt at the Uberman sleep schedule straight away and before I tell you how well it went, which it didn't,  I have to confess that my first attempt lasted for about 10 days roughly and I was the one who was solely responsible for the failure.


Despite having read about various sleep hackers failing on direct transitions and the slower adaptative transitions having higher success rates, I considered my will power to be above ordinary and that my will power alone would be sufficient to transition into the Uberman sleep cycle. Yeah I know, my bad.


What I really want to talk about instead is about my second attempt at the Uberman sleep cycle after a period of 6 months or so. I was smarter this time and eliminated the dependency on my will power completely. Instead of starting the Uberman sleep schedule directly, I instead developed a slow step-by-step method to transition which helped me progressively decrease my sleep time, while giving myself sufficient time to adapt to each transition.


And the method did help. After 4 months of sticking with my progression and slowly transitioning into the Uberman sleep cycle, I had finally successfully adapted to the two hour sleep life, the Uberman style. But sadly, the reality of my big mistake soon rained over my joy of transitioning into the Uberman sleep life.



The Uberman Sleep cycle? No, thanks and here’s why…

Living on the Uberman sleeping schedule is a big feat for most sleep hackers, I wouldn’t say that it wasn’t a big achievement for me either, it surely was a milestone in my life. But with the big feat came even bigger problems which finally made me give up the Uberman sleep cycle completely. And here are the reasons why…


1. Getting 6 naps a day is next to impossible: If you have even a ‘slightly’ active life, getting 6 naps a day is not possible. When I hang out with friends or go to work, rarely am I done within 3 to 4 hours. Luckily during my Uberman sleep life, I used to be at home for long periods of time. But you can stay confined in your home for only so long, you got to get back to your real life sooner or later right?


Most people I know have to stay out of their homes from morning to late in the evening. I guess it’s not very different for you either. Tell me how are you going to get a nap every 4 hours? How will you find a peaceful place to nap every 4 hours? How are you going to build an active personal, social and work life around a sleep cycle that requires you to sleep every 3 hours and 40 minutes?


2. More difficult to transition to: Going from one core sleep a day to six naps a day is more difficult than going from one core sleep to three or four naps a day. Call it common sense, call it basic mathematics, simple logic or call it whatever else you wish to. But sadly this is one more important fact that most sleep hackers attempting the Uberman choose to overlook.


The mentally projected life on the Uberman sleep cycle seems pretty fantastic but it is only when you actually attempt it in reality do you actually realize how uncomfortable a six nap a day schedule is for your body, mind and brain.


3. You are more likely to miss a nap: If you are on the Uberman sleep cycle, at least few naps will clash with your daily routine. Monophasic and biphasic sleepers have a giant core sleep hence they can make up for most changes in their sleep schedule. Whereas those on other polyphasic sleep cycles can adjust their schedule in such a way so as to avoid any clashes with daily routine. But the Uberman sleeper has no option other than to either skip naps, which is not possible or give up the Uberman sleep cycle completely.


4. You will disrupt your family life: Not only will your family members be creeped out with your 6 nap a day schedule, your constant demand to have a nap every 4 hours or so will start irritating them. Which means increasing discouragement each day and long lectures for you to give up “these crazy experiments” once and for all.



A Better Alternative To The Uberman Sleep cycle

My main intention behind hacking my sleep was to add more time and value to my life. It surely wasn’t to keep worrying when and where I will be getting my next nap.


After I finally gave up my successful Uberman sleep schedule, I had to look for an alternate sleep cycle that gave the same result as the Uberman sleep cycle but one which would let me enjoy my daily life with all the extra free time in my hands.


Soon I ended up on a sleep cycle which I had surely read of before but hadn’t seen any positive reviews or success stories about: The Dymaxion sleep cycle. Most people rejected it without even trying it because it had somehow got the title of the most toughest sleep schedule for someone to get accustomed to and most newbies without having much knowledge about it decided that it was something that was not worth giving a second thought about.


I however decided to read about it further more. And it did seem pretty promising. Dymaxion sleep is basically getting four 30 minute naps every 5.5 hours. Here is what your sleep schedule looks like on the Dyxamion sleep cycle




Which meant:

-Easier to build a social life around 4 naps. It is easier to fit 4 naps in your schedule than 6 naps.

- Since there are 2 naps less compared to the Uberman sleep cycle. The Dymaxion sleep schedule is easier and faster to transition to.

- On the Uberman sleep cycle, the duration between two consecutive naps was only 3 hours and 40 minutes. Whereas on the Dymaxion sleep cycle, the duration between two consecutive naps is 5 hours and 30 minutes.



Attempting the Dymaxion sleep schedule.

I had learnt my lesson from my first Uberman sleep transition failure when I had tried it out right at the beginning of my sleep hacking journey. So I knew a progressively decreasing transition is the key to success. So I created a slow adaptative progression and stuck to it. I had just given up the Uberman sleep schedule a month ago before trying the Dymaxion sleep schedule. But I chose not to take any risks and starting decreasing my sleep slowly from scratch i.e. 7 hours a day of monophasic sleep. 
And it worked out pretty well, not only did I successfully transition into the Dymaxion sleep cycle, I have been living the 2 Hour Sleep life ever since then. Over the years, I have further optimized the method and have made it even more simpler to implement successfully in one’s life irrespective of that person's past experiences with sleep hacking.


So I guess I will sum this post up suggesting those who wish to try out the Uberman sleep cycle to really question if whether all the effort they put into transitioning into the Uberman sleep will be worth it? Can you really build a decent life around a six-naps-a-day schedule?
If your answer is "No" to those questions but you still wish to reap the benefits of a 2 hour sleep life, then here is something wonderful I made for you.



Proved: 8 Hour Sleep Is Not Optimal










Eight hours - Where did that come from?


Right from our childhood, it has been drilled within our minds that eight hours of sleep is the optimal amount of sleep that each one of us must get every single night.


We were expected to go to bed by a certain ordered time and to be awake by a certain ordered time, every single day. Even a grumpy little request like “mom, but, umm just half more hour of TV please” was not acceptable.


The eight hour mantra has been chanted repeatedly to the extent that it has now been ingrained in our minds that anything slightly less than eight or nine hour of sleep equates to negative consequences like mood swings, low immunity, illnesses, hunger pangs, sleep debt, low energy, fat gain, death and on goes the list.


So I assumed if eight hours of sleep is so stressed upon and considered so essential, some really accurate and powerful studies must be backing it. So I headed over to the Internet search engines to read more about it and to find out where this age old piece of wisdom stems from.


And I did spend a couple of days reading, not about the  studies I was interested to find out more about, but rather searching for at least one concrete study to exist which proved that eight hours is the most optimal duration of sleep for everybody. But all I managed to find out was vague recycled sentences like:


- “Studies say teens need 10 hours of sleep a day whereas adults need close to 8”
- “For most adults the optimal sleep time is 7-8 hours”
- “Lack of sleep affects cognitive function. You should aim for at least 8 or 9 hours of sleep as suggested by studies”


And none! I mean literally none of these sites which use the word “studies” to support their claim, ever linked to the actual study. Not one of them bothered linking to the study on which they base their entire claim.


Anyone who has ever questioned things like why we sleep, how much sleep we need to function optimally, why we need exactly eight hours or what happens if we don’t get our eight hours each night knows the answer is not as easy as one might assume it to be.
Six year study Shows correlation between more sleep and increased death rate 
Researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and the American Cancer Society collaborated on a study, which appeared in the February 15, 2002 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, a journal of the American Medical Association.
The impressive study was conducted on over one million adults ranging from the ages of 30 to 120 over a course of six years. And what they found out was something contrary to the popular eight hour myth.
The study found out that people who sleep for only 6 or 7 hours a night had lower death rate than those who slept for 8 hours or more, and also from those who slept 4 hours or less.
Even those who slept for 5 hours a day lived longer than those who slept for 8 hours a day.
Read the entire study here
Hence we can conclude the following:


1. Although there is no evidence to support the myth of 8 hours of sleep being the ideal sleep time, there is some research backing up the statement saying that sleeping less can actually be more beneficial.

2. It is also possible to draw the conclusion that the study correlates weak constraints i.e. maybe people who are more healthy need less sleep and hence they also live more. But this again further proves my initial statement that, 8 hours is not the optimal sleep time for everyone.

3. If the correlation showed in the study is accurate, it proves that you do not need 8 hours of sleep to function optimally. You will actually function better on lower sleep.

Will I die sooner on a polyphasic sleep cycle?
If you read the above linked study correctly, a particular line should have caught your attention.
"Individuals who sleep 8 hours or more, or less than 4 hours a night, were shown to have a significantly increased death rate"
Now, why would I post such a study on a site that teaches you to sleep for only two hours a day?
I expect these questions to come from the general readers rather than those already acquainted with polyphasic sleeping.
The first thing that you have to realize is that, sleep is not uniform in nature and that it consists of various stages of REM and NREM stages of sleep.
So whenever any statement or accusation related to the consequences of sleep deprivation is talked about, 99.99% of the participants in these studies are people who sleep monophasically. The pattern of sleep stages during polyphasic sleeping are different than the pattern of sleep stages during monophasic sleeping. Those who sleep like me, like Steve Pavlina or Tim Ferriss or the other sleep hackers out there are never a part of these studies nor have any concrete studies ever been performed on sleep hackers alone.
Hence, whenever you read anything related to sleep deprivation, keep in mind that you are reading about your everyday nine hour sleeping Joes and Janes. The polyphasic sleeper’s internal sleep process is different than the average monophasic sleeper’s. Read more about it here.



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