I Tried the Most Extreme Sleep Cycle — Here is What Uberman is Like
You may have never thought about this — but there are a lot of different sleep cycles. We can distinguish monophasic and polyphasic sleep. Monophasic is what most of us do: one period of sleep, typically at night. Polyphasic is multiple episodes of sleep throughout the day. Today most humans stop sleeping polyphasic when they grow up. However, there is historic and scientific evidence for biphasic sleep. Such a pattern can still be found in cultures with siestas. Here is a list of the most relevant sleep cycles:
I like to learn from the extremes. If it is people, I like to learn from the freaks. Naturally, I gained interest in the Uberman cycle after discovering discussions on sleep cycles.
So one day, I just had to try. At the time I lived in India. We had a private office at a coworking space. They even had a shower in there! So I grabbed a roll-up mattress and moved into the office. My schedule looked like this:
6 naps each 30 min equally divided over 24h.
I decided to go for the slightly longer naps for two reasons. Firstly, it made keeping track of time and when to sleep easier. Secondly, I am not very good at falling asleep quickly, hence I gave myself an extra few minutes.
I did this while full-time working on my company. How did it go?
Logistics
To get started, I wrote down when exactly to take naps. It is important to be awake during certain times e.g. lunch break of colleagues. I also had to make sure I have enough alarms. I easily wake up from alarms. But I knew that the sleep deprivation of the first days will make this difficult. If you forget to wake up once, you are back to square one. The first day, I lay down for naps, but did not fall asleep right away. As my sleep deprivation grew more intense I fell asleep faster. This is one big aspect of Uberman. It teaches your body to go into deep sleep asap.
Once I got used to the new schedule all my habits changed. I would only go home every 1.5 days to change clothes or wash them. I would then do one or two naps at home. The advantage was that this was quiet during the day. Showering and brushing teeth was possible at the coworking space. I had food delivered to the office, like before. However, my appetite dramatically increased. This makes sense since I was awake for 21 hours and I kept doing sports.
Changing my sleeping pattern changed my day planning. The strong focus on time-boxing made planning a priority. I realized how much time food, sports, etc. takes and speed it up.
Performance
How was my work performance? It varied a lot. On the Uberman cycle thinking in days is not helpful. Instead, one has to think in 3.5h blocks of wake time. For some of these blocks I was highly focused during others not so much. There are certain tasks that go well with the Uberman cycle. Repetitive and exciting tasks go well. So does coding. Being patient and interacting with lots of people — not so much. I had no commutes, only delivered food and 21h of wake time. Since most of my tasks were coding related, I was super productive.
Leisure
Socializing with people that are living normal lives, working normal jobs is tough. Keep in mind — you only have 3.5h before having to take the next nap. Going on lunches with people or working together is fine. But most evening activities from parties to cinema are off-limits.
What did I do with all my time? Clearly I did not spend 21h working. Because I had so much time, I found plenty of time for activities I otherwise skipped, like writing my diary. Furthermore, I used computer games to keep me awake during the toughest times. This became an integral part of my Uberman experience. After all, there is no problem in wasting 2h daily on computer games if you have 21h.
Feeling
I was extremely motivated because extreme measures give extreme results. In this case, I got into a totally different lifestyle and headspace very quickly. The general feeling was actually the biggest effect of Uberman. If you have seen “Limitless” — it feels kind of like this. When the sun goes up in the morning and the streets get busy you are in the office. When hours later the first people arrive at the coworking space — you are awake. When they take their lunch break — you are working. When they leave and when the sun sets — you are in the same office. And then comes the night, when everyone else wastes their time sleeping and you are still there. The 30 min naps are so short you don’t feel like anything changed since you laid down. Same people around, the sun is in the same position. It made me feel unstoppable. This also had a large effect on work.
Sustainability
Is this sustainable? Probably not — at least not for me. I stopped after 10 days because I was getting a cold. The sleep deprivation and long hours at the office with AC left their marks on me. Uberman has two problems:
- Nobody really knows what health side effects it may have in the long run. But it does feel very taxing. But there are people who say it will take weeks to really adjust to it.
- It is not compatible with most other people’s lives. However, if one’s entire social environment did this, it would make it much easier.
What did I learn?
My napping skills massively improved. I was able to fall asleep faster even months after the experiment.
- This is a very intense experience from overcoming the urge to sleep, to the sensation of limitlessness. I would do it again for a very fixed time if I had the right project to work on and the right environment. By right project, I mean tasks that are exciting and time-consuming. The right environment means a shower, kitchen, office and bed in one place.
- I don’t think this is a viable long-term option. But other polyphasic sleep cycles might very well be.
- In some way, I learned to appreciate sleep more. As they say: you only miss something when it’s gone.
The verdict
I can only recommend giving this a try — at least for a short while. The different experience of time and work is exhilarating! Ideally, do it for a concrete project with lots of fast-paced and repetitive tasks. Make sure you have lots of loud alarms. Even if you have a strong wake-up routine like me, chances are your body tries to rebel and claim its sleep.
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If you are into quantified self topics, drop me an email at jan@delphi-analytics.de with your learnings & experiments.
