Uberman's Sleep Schedule

[vikes_28]

OVERVIEW: I posted on my facebook yesterday about how I'm trying to turn my sleeping schedule around. Currently I am sleeping from 6 AM to 3pm everyday. One of my friends posted a link on the my status. This is what this guy did. It seems interesting, and and very beneficial. I may try this. But here it is.

Background

The Uberman sleep schedule is a method of organizing your sleeping time to maximize your REM sleep and minimize your non-REM sleep. The goal of the sleep cycle is that you are actively in REM sleep within a couple of minutes of falling asleep and remain in that state until you awaken. I originally read about the schedule on everything2.

In essence, someone utilizing the Uberman sleep schedule is actively modifying their sleeping habits so that they can immediately jump from waking to a few minutes worth of stage 1 sleep straight to stage 5 REM sleep, as described in this discussion of sleep stages.

It is important to note that there are no studies as to the long-term physical or physiological impact of this sleep cycle. I really don't know if this cycle is causing long-term damage to myself or not, and if this concerns you, I wouldn't attempt the cycle. However, the benefits are fantastic.

The Uberman's Sleep Schedule

Sleeping Hours
The Uberman's sleep schedule revolves around forcing yourself to rely on six twenty to thirty minute naps spread throughout the day for your daily dose of sleep. I stuck to thirty minute naps, currently having them starting roughly at 2 AM, 6 AM, 10 AM, 2 PM, 6 PM, and 10 PM every day.

How & Why It Works
Over the course of a normal eight hour sleeping period, your body moves through a continuous cycle of five distinct sleep stages. Of these, stage 5 REM sleep has been found to be the part of the cycle that provides the benefits of sleep for your mind.

Essentially, the trick of the Uberman's sleep schedule is to trick your mind into entering REM sleep as soon as you drift into a sleeplike state. Unfortunately, the only real way to do this is through sleep deprivation of sorts.

Adjusting To This Schedule
Adjusting to this schedule (as you might imagine) will make you feel like you've put your body and mind through a blender for a few weeks. Here are some general tips for adjusting that I found to be greatly helpful.

* Do the adjustment when you are in complete control of your schedule. I converted to the cycle during a three week vacation; it would have been impossible to get through a normal work day while adjusting to this cycle. I was by and large a zombie.
* Find a large project to work on while adjusting. If you don't keep busy, you will revert to a normal sleep cycle. In my first failed attempt at switching (on vacation more than two years ago), I didn't have an ongoing project to keep me focused.
* Use physiological "tricks" to teach your body the cycle. I found that using a dawn simulation trick worked nicely. Every time I went to lay down, I set my monitor to wait thirty-two minutes, then begin running a program that had a strobe effect along with some excessively loud music. I also used two alarm clocks, and during the day I would adjust my blinds such that the sun would start shining in my face roughly a half an hour later. These would force me to become somewhat conscious for a while, which was all I needed to keep going.
* Days 3 to 10 are the hardest and least productive. I spent the adjustment period working on two projects, one involving programming and another involving writing. At the start of day three, I stored a backup of these projects because I knew that my thought processes were starting to become nonsensical and bizarre. For the next week, I continued to "work" on the projects, but utterly failed to make any sensible progress (interestingly enough, the fiction I wrote in this period was entertaining in a Thomas Pynchon meets The Electric Company kind of way). Don't expect to be hugely useful during the actual forced adjustment to compressed REM sleep.
* Convert to a more nutritious diet. I've found that drinking a great deal of orange and apple juice makes the Uberman schedule easier to follow, as does eating plenty of vegetables and avoiding fatty foods like the plague.

You will discover that after day ten or so, you will automatically begin waking after about thirty minutes. Quite often, I find that when a dream ends, I just awaken automatically. Although I still use an alarm clock, I now do my 10 AM, 2 PM, and sometimes 6 PM naps at work on my breaks without an alarm and have no problem waking up from them, feeling utterly refreshed.

Benefits

The obvious first benefit is more free time. I currently clock in between two hours and fifty minutes and three hours and ten minutes of sleep per twenty four hour period. Compared to my previous sleep cycles (roughly nine hours a night), I have an incredible amount of time to do things that I wished I had time to do before I switched.

Although the first benefit is pretty much the only reason you need, I also found that switching to this cycle makes me feel generally healthier. As I noted, I started off this "experiment" by switching to a more healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables. After my body finally adjusted to the quick batches of REM (about day eight or nine), I began to feel truly GREAT! I actually feel more energetic at this point than I did before this started.

Drawbacks

One drawback is that I hit a wall if I stay up for more than about five hours without a twenty to thirty minute nap. My concentration and energy seem to vanish in a matter of minutes and I absolutely have to go take a nap. This can create some problems in social situations, but one can somewhat shuffle the naps around to adjust for this.

Another drawback is that my appetite is substantially larger and I will often crave strange things that I don't recall craving in the past. One great example of this is grape juice; I now drink this regularly, but before I switched I don't recall ever wanting it. My speculation is that my body isn't producing enough of some chemical that it would normally produce in stages 3 and 4 deep sleep.

Other Effects

One particularly noteworthy effect (I consider it a benefit, but others might consider it a drawback) is that all of my dreams are very intense and I find myself remembering them as well, down to minute details. Personally, I don't have any difficulties handling the imagery that my dreams produce, but many people have difficulties with their dreams in a normal sleep schedule - if that is the case, Uberman is simply not for you.

Conclusion

Uberman's sleep schedule is a potentially dangerous way to increase your waking hours. Although I found success with it to this point, there still may be physical and psychological dangers that I have not yet met, and there may be grave difficulties for others attempting the cycle.

Here is the link if you think I'm bs-ing you:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720

[nrk]

Didn't Kramer do that in an episode of Seinfeld?

[TitanHope]

I have insomnia. I can't understand how some people fall asleep so easily. I struggle to fall asleep once, let alone 6 times a day.

Good for that guy though.

[nrk]

Originally Posted by TitanHope

I have insomnia. I can't understand how some people fall asleep so easily. I struggle to fall asleep once, let alone 6 times a day.

Good for that guy though.

I have a hard time going to sleep as well, doesn't matter how much sleep I've had I always stay up late. But that isn't insomnia. I have heard of a condition, which I can't recall the name, where you have a hard time going to sleep because you think you haven't accomplished enough in the day. That is often how I feel before I go to bed.

This guy shouldn't have changed his diet before starting this. Who knows if it's partly because of his diet or his sleep schedule.

[Caddy]

6am till 3pm is bad vikes.

[vikes_28]

Originally Posted by Caddy

6am till 3pm is bad vikes.

At this point I work part-time overnights. I work from 10 PM to 4AM every night. Its a natural sleeping schedule, but its just flipped. I want to try this cause it seems like it would be a lot better than sleeping for 9 hours during the day. I hate sleeping while its bright out. Everyone naturally sleeps better during the night, since its dark. I really really wanna try this. If it makes them feel as good as they say, it'd be awesome to have 22 hours to be awake and do stuff.

[CashmoneyDrew]

Originally Posted by nrk

Didn't Kramer do that in an episode of Seinfeld?

That's the first thing I thought of when I read this as well.

[Staubach12]

Once I get up I don't nap very often. I just don't get tired. Sounds cool though. And yes, Kramer did this.

[Rosebud]

The Da Vinci sleep schedule? If you can fall asleep easily do it, I need at least a half hour just lying in bed, and that's when I'm drunk, before I even start sleeping, although I do hit deep REM sleep quickly.

[TitanHope]

Two Benadryl + Two Percogesic = Slightly drowsy for TH.

Both are over the counter, not prescription or street.

[yo123]

Edit- Holy fail.

[Gay Ork Wang]

One drawback is that I hit a wall if I stay up for more than about five hours without a twenty to thirty minute nap. My concentration and energy seem to vanish in a matter of minutes and I absolutely have to go take a nap. This can create some problems in social situations, but one can somewhat shuffle the naps around to adjust for this.

thats why im not going to try it

[Cicero]

I have no sleep schedule. I end up sleeping at all kinds of random hours of the day. Like right now, I'm awake at 5:15 in the morning. I laid in bed for an hour and forty-five minutes and no dice. Trying to fall asleep once at a certain time is already almost impossible, there is no way I could ever fall asleep 6 times a day. That's not natural at all either.

[LizardState]

Originally Posted by TitanHope

I have insomnia. I can't understand how some people fall asleep so easily. I struggle to fall asleep once, let alone 6 times a day.

Good for that guy though.

Hints for beating insomnia:

Travelers across many time zones/day or flying east frequently sit in front of bright lights up to 2 hrs daily before leaving to condition themselves. The eyes/optic nerves & brain have to receive 2 hrs. minimum of daylight to maintain a regular sleep cycle.

Stay out of bed unless you're tired or sick, habits like lounging around in the daytime in your bed directly lead to insomnia at night.

Yoga & other exercise & meditative relaxation techniques actually work, take them seriously & try them.

Get warm & relaxed in bed, cold keeps you awake.

Don't take job & relationship problems or a rewind of the events of the day to bed with you, you have to relax & purge worrying, negative thoughts & stress/anxiety to go to sleep. It's hard, I had to take 2-3 yrs to learn this when I had killer insomnia with a high-stress job at age 29-30, the younger you are, the easier to condition yourself to this..... when you're in your teens & 20s you can miss a night's sleep & handle it fine, look at college students with all-nighters, but not so easy to adjust when you're older. Think about something boring (counting sheep? lol) when you lay there & can't sleep, I do the US states in alphabetical order with their capitals, everybody screws it up when they get to the M-states, nobody can remember Missouri's capital unless you live there (it's Jefferson City btw). Or just count the damn sheep.

Two Benadryl + Two Percogesic = Slightly drowsy for TH

Yeah, Benadryl wipes me out too, I take it for allergies but have to take it after 6 PM. Be very careful with sleeping meds, ****** is the most effective, doctors call it The Hammer b/c it's like 95% effective in putting you to sleep. But it's prescription for a reason, it killed Heath Ledger (that's why its censored here?). ******-CR is for people who wake up in the middle of the night & can't get back to sleep -- it really works. Don't ever mix with any kind of alcohol in your stomach, very dangerous. Going to the doctor for the script s/b a last resort, all sleep medications can be habit-forming.

Good luck.

[Giantsfan1080]

As Rosebud said this is the Da Vinci sleep schedule which is what Kramer was trying to follow. Didn't Kramer fall asleep in the hot tub in that episode?

[yourfavestoner]

Originally Posted by TitanHope

I have insomnia. I can't understand how some people fall asleep so easily. I struggle to fall asleep once, let alone 6 times a day.

Good for that guy though.

You need to get yourself some devil's flower.

[LizardState]

Originally Posted by Giantsfan1080

As Rosebud said this is the Da Vinci sleep schedule which is what Kramer was trying to follow. Didn't Kramer fall asleep in the hot tub in that episode?

Yeah Kramer did fall asleep in it after the power went out & the heater went off, woke up shivering.

[CJSchneider]

Something I have learned from my time in the military:

-THE WORLD'S GREATEST SLEEP METHOD -

When you are tired enough, you WILL sleep.

/thread

[CC.SD]

Just sleep like a normal person mayne.

[MichaelJordanEberle (sabf)]

Sounds dumb to me. Basically that schedule wants you to sleep for a bit during your shift. Good luck with that. Also I wouldn't wanna be awake for 21 hours. Sleep is awesome.

[Go_Eagles77]

I would be incredibly bored with that amount of free time.

[DoughBoy]

5 hours of sleep a day is good enough for me. Even though I sleep for like 11 hours on weekends.

[CashmoneyDrew]

Man the worst time for me sleeping wise was high school. Why do the older kids have to wake up at 6 am and have classes start at 7 am? We stay up later than those little grade school pricks who go to sleep at 8 or 9 pm, yet their school doesn't start until 945 am. It's the most backwards thing ever. And people wonder why high school grades and test scores are so low.

Seriously though, I couldn't even begin to fall asleep in high school until at least 11 pm. That means I got less than 7 hours of sleep a night and then I have to wake up and take pre-calculus/trig first thing in the morning. It's amazing I made a B in that class.

[TitanHope]

Originally Posted by yourfavestoner

You need to get yourself some devil's flower.

Dunno what that is, but knowing you YFS, it probably doesn't mix well with my meds. ;)

[NotRickJames]

Originally Posted by VoodooMonkey

Man the worst time for me sleeping wise was high school. Why do the older kids have to wake up at 6 am and have classes start at 7 am? We stay up later than those little grade school pricks who go to sleep at 8 or 9 pm, yet their school doesn't start until 945 am. It's the most backwards thing ever. And people wonder why high school grades and test scores are so low.

Seriously though, I couldn't even begin to fall asleep in high school until at least 11 pm. That means I got less than 7 hours of sleep a night and then I have to wake up and take pre-calculus/trig first thing in the morning. It's amazing I made a B in that class.

It was literally the same thing for me in high school. Just another reason why high school sucks ****.

College is much better for people who cannot force themselves to go to bed at ridiculous early hours.