(07-16-2011 01:12 AM)Extropy Wrote:  What do you guys think about the stuff he writes about sleeping circles and reducing your total sleep time? I heard Obama does something like that and only sleeps 4h a day.

Well Neil Strauss tried and failed to do so in 'The Game'...

Steve Pavlina has been talking about it for years and he famously tried polyphasic sleep for a number of months. Gave it up though because it disrupted his social life too much. Fair enough. He's now currently trying biphasic sleep and seems to be enjoying it more. I intend to try it myself when I finally settle back down to a routine.

As for Obama on 4 hours sleep? I don't believe it. I've met a Buddhist monk who claimed he only needed a few hours of sleep each night but then was always using tiredness as an excuse and always had a large cup of Starbucks with him. I think he was a fraud anyway.

I have heard of other gurus in various areas Eastern spirituality who need very little sleep, and I do believe that is possible. My mother is actually studying a healing focused practice in China right now and she mentioned that her teacher needs only a few hours sleep. That I can believe. But it takes years, if not decades, to get to that point.

I can believe the Obama 4 hour sleep thing. I heard the same thing about Giuliani - and this is from people who worked with him. Some dudes just don't need much sleep. I can go for weeks on 5 hours sleep and be ok, and from what I understand as you get older you need less sleep.

But performance inevitably drops for most people with that much sleep. They just don't notice the drop until they recover.

Nearly all top performers get 7-8 hours sleep + a nap. (deliberate practice/mastery studies)

performers in what?

I never heard that about Obama, but I did hear that about Bill Clinton. My brother worked for Congressman Kucinich and said the same thing. If you read the piece David Foster Wallace wrote about John McCain, he says the same thing about him.

I've talked to people from the military who say that sleeping 4-5 hours a night can be conditioned. I worked a summer job for a guy who used to be a Marine and he said that in the Marines you're only allowed to sleep 5-6 hours a night. He said after spending 10 years in the Marines, he still never sleeps past 5AM, no matter how late he stays up.

I read somewhere that they've found that 1-2% of the population just naturally needs about half the sleep of anybody else. I know I've run into a couple like this in my life and heard of a few others. I had a friend a few years ago who honestly only slept 4 hours a night. We'd go out partying until 4AM and by 9AM he was already out the door and doing stuff. I know Brett on this forum's roommate in medical school is the same way.

Some deliberate practice studies: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html

There is also interesting research about lack of sleep (5 vs. 8h) and worse p-ratio (fat loss vs. muscle loss) and significantly increased appetite and stress resistance.

If it works for you, great. Just saying that those seem to be very few, who don't notice the difference when sleeping only half the usual time. It's more useful (for most attempting this IME) to get their priorities straight first and act on them.

Very interesting. I think you can condition yourself to need less sleep but I'm very cautious about the long-term results of it on your health.

On the other hand, sleep seems to be one of those areas where you can't really trust your body to just do it's thing. Letting it get as much as it wants may actually not be that good for you. I remember when I slept more than 8 hours every night in college but still ended up napping in my Law lectures in the afternoon.

I'm very excited to start my biphasic sleep trial, and I'll share what I find. The two things I'm aiming for are to have no noticeable drop-off in focus/attention span, and to have little to no fogginess when I wake up and through-out the rest of the day.

Some good links to get you started:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/healt...-here.html

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10...sic-sleep/

Where else then the Steve Pavlina forum .

on the 4 hour body: the guy just wanted to make money but hey he's richer then all of us togetheer .

Eros: let us know how the bi-phasic sleeping thing goes. Polyphasic sleep never enticed me, but bi-phasic is really attractive to me. Its flexibility would fit perfectly with a lifestyle of regular traveling and staying up late.

(07-17-2011 01:00 AM)crazyhorse Wrote:  Some good links to get you started:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/healt...-here.html

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10...sic-sleep/

Where else then the Steve Pavlina forum .

on the 4 hour body: the guy just wanted to make money but hey he's richer then all of us togetheer .

Right - so why follow his advice on anything other than "how to make money without actually providing value in exchange"