Lack of sleep is associated with high BP, diabetes, weight gain and premature death. :eek: Dying ain't much of a livin'
"I heard it was genetic. Most people need to get 8 hours in order to function. Maybe 6 hours if you train yourself. But 4 or less, you need to be genetically endowed. Probably something to do with the amount of REM sleep one needs." If I was genetically endowed I would likely sleep less also. Sorry, but that was just a big fat pitch
Sleeping is when humans are at the most vulnerable. Clearly mother nature says we need to spend 1/3 of the day in this state for a reason.
Take plenty of naps, and i agree, your body will adjust, but at the same time its hard on the body. But do whatever you have to do to succeed. Its not like you will be doing it for the rest of your life. And try to get a workout in there when you can too.
I've read a bit about this, it's called polyphasic sleeping, where you take multiple naps throughout the day. Rumor has it famous people like Da Vinci did it. The most extreme is called the uberman/superman sleep schedule where all your sleep are short naps as opposed to one main longer sleep cycle along with one or more naps. The research on death and health risks with lack of sleep are focused on just one sleep cycle per day. Not much research is done on polyphasic. Here's some research from a UC medical sleep clinic which shows 7hrs on average is ideal for monophasic: http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2002/02_08_Kripke.html Here's some interesting info on polyphasic sleeping: http://www.dustincurtis.com/sleep.html http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/kjkla/iama_person_that_sleeps_for_only_30_minutes_at_a/
Did that for a couple of years, when I was in my early twenties; working 3 minimum wage jobs to pay off some bills. It was definitely very hard on the body, and I lost a bunch of hair And guess what, they didn't grow back :eek: It definitely got rid of the bills real quick, though Schaefer
In Western civilization before the Industrial Revolution, segmented sleep was the dominant form of human slumber since time immemorial, according to A. Roger Ekirch, a historian at Virginia Tech. Over the course of nearly two decades of research, Ekirch discovered extensive evidence of this sleep pattern in a wide variety of documents, dating from the ancient world until the nineteenth century. Typically, individuals slept in two discrete phases, bridged by an intervening period of wakefulness of up to an hour or more. Peasant couples, who were often too tired after field labor to do much more than eat and go to sleep, awakened later to have sex.[1] People also used this time to pray and reflect,[2] and to interpret dreams, which were more vivid at that hour than upon waking in the morning. This was also a favorite time for scholars and poets to write uninterrupted, whereas still others visited neighbors and engaged in petty crime.[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep
Be aware of how your attitude might change with lack of sleep. If I get less than 7-8 hours sleep a couple days in a row I can be a very grumpy bastard and I get the blues easily.
I'm like this as well if I only sleep once. But I found if I take a nap, I feel great (maybe even better) with 5-6 hours of sleep.