Biphasic Sleep: Post Mortem
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I finished the Biphasic Sleep Experiment 4 days ago. I have since slept 2 nights monophasic and 2 more nights biphasic. Here is what I think after having experienced both.
After 2 days of monophasic my midday lul (around 1:30 – 3 pm) decreased. I wasn’t as tired, and after getting up and moving a bit it seemed almost non-existant, as compared to biphasic. But without my afternoon/evening nap, I got tired much earlier than usual, around 1 am instead of 4 am. And instead of waking up early like I always did during biphasic (without trouble) I slept in and ended up sleeping for about 9 hours each day. I switched back to biphasic sleep and again woke up easily.
Biphasic is great for people who have a million things going on and need to get things done. I’ve found that transitioning between biphasic and monophasic isn’t difficult after the initial transition. I usually just add an hour and a half of extra sleep the first night of the transition.
My complaints about biphasic are that my naturally low energy times of the day are really low energy. Once I get over that hump though the rest of my day is normal. I’ve tried napping, eating, and drinking coffee, and while these help, it’s still not the same as a regular monophasic day. Also it becomes apparent that biphasic isn’t very social friendly. If I went out with friends for the evening and didn’t nap I usually crashed. If I followed biphasic my fiance missed me at night. It is a great way to squeeze more time into your day, but sometimes you actually miss your time in bed.
Things I loved about biphasic were the extra hours in the night. From 12 am – 4 am the world is completely silent. I read, worked, wrote, and learned without distraction. It’s easy to be in the zone when you don’t have to worry about phone calls, emails, and other distractions. Also it was nice being an early riser for the first time in my life. For these reasons alone I will be continuing biphasic during the work week. Weekends will be a recovery time (in case I need it) and just time to relax. Should I choose to sleep more during the weekend, it won’t be the end of the world.
Overall the biphasic experiment was a great success. It proved to be a fun, challenging experiment and was probably my favorite personal experiment to date.
If you have any questions about my biphasic experiment or my experiences, leave them below in the comments field and I will address them ASAP.
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Ibrahim,
First of all, thank you for making yourself the guinea pig and sharing your biphasic sleep experience with the world! Maybe there are only a few of us crazy enough to be interested in this sort of thing, but I found your journal here to be quite helpful.
That is, i am *almost* convinced enough to give this a 30-day trial. I would like if you could tell me, though, how well you think this would work with an intense training/exercise regimen, sometimes twice a day: You said you exercise regularly, and that on those days more sleep was required. I like to cross-train weights, MMA, running, and surfing.
How much sleep do you think someone like me should allow, if given a 90-minute nap during the afternoon?
Dan, I think this sleep pattern could surely work with an intense workout regimen. Modifications would likely have to be made though. I would recommend making the amount of sleep an even 6 hours if possible, with a 90 minute afternoon nap and a 4.5 hour nightly sleep. More important than the 4.5 hour sleep is the nap though. I noticed that skipping the nap had devastating effects, while shortening the nightly sleep wasn’t nearly as difficult.
It’s kind of a trial and error thing, you just have to find what works for you.
Cool, thanks Ibrahim. I think i am about to get started on a biphasic trial of my own.
Did you see my other question Re: time between nap and core sleep? For example, if i wake up from 90-minute nap at 18:00, do you think i should have enough energy until core sleep at 02:00?
I will try different things, of course– just wanted to pick your brain.
Dan, I think 8 hours between the 90 minute nap and the core sleep might be a bit of a stretch. But try and see. Maybe if you were able to throw a 15 minute cat nap somewhere in there you could make it work. Who knows. I’d love to hear how it goes though!
Ibrahim,
Your ‘universal man’ sounds really interesting. However, I’m not convinced yet about how good it would be for the body in the long term. I’ve read a little on the brain science of sleep and while I can’t pretend to know much, it seems that the idea that a certain amount of ‘deep sleep’ is needed for the body to go through repairs and other functions is pretty common.
Although the deepest sleep does take place within these first three hours of the night – and I can get these from your schedule – surely the body misses out on something in getting 3 hours less sleep?
It’s something I’d love to try – just a little dubious … I guess the weekends are really necessary for crashing?
Very interesting experiment, there has been some coverage of this over the last year by the bbc with some presenters trying a biphasic sleep pattern.
There was also a documentary by the bbc again on the use of dexedrine in modern life and the effects and uses it can have to enable modern living, one such example was an American man who was running his business instead of going to bed he would go back to work for a further 8 hours a night, all aided by dexadrine.
Worth a look if you can find the documentary.
are you still continuing with this pattern, biphasic during the week, monophasic on weekends?
how difficult is the transition? I want to try this exact pattern, and would really appreciate your experiences with it.