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| This is the most popular and up-to-date model of polyphasic [[Template:Adaptation to Polyphasic Sleep|adaptation]] at present, which was developed in the polyphasic community.
| | Scheduling sleep is a complex topic that involves many aspects and must be done in accordance to one's individual needs. With a poorly designed polyphasic schedule, you will experience crippling sleep deprivation and most likely never adapt, wasting weeks or months of your life. This page details the current consensus on scheduling. |
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| Most popular polyphasic [[Template:Polyphasic Sleep Schedules|schedules]] are based on natural human sleep patterns . It's, first of all, [[biphasic]] schedules, which were wide spread both before modern time and nowadays; [[Everyman]], which uses the mechanism of power [[naps]]; [[Dual Core]], which is based on [[Segmented]] sleep pattern, popular in the pre-industrial society; and schedules with even more [[cores]], which are based on a similar mechanism as Segmented sleep. [[Monophasic]] sleep became popular relatively recently, after the industrial revolution.
| | == Sleep stages == |
| | [[Wikipedia: Neuroscience of sleep |Sleep]] is a complex phenomenon that causes physiological changes all over the body. However, it mainly affects the brain. According to the electrical activities in the brain, sleep is divided into [[Wikipedia:Rapid eye movement sleep |rapid-eye movement]] (REM) and non-REM (NREM) stages. NREM sleep is further divided into three stages according to the frequency and amplitude of brainwaves. |
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| New sleep schedule requires an adaptation, which includes [[repartitioning]] of vital sleep stages and teaching the brain to use another type of sleep. By the community observations, the process usually is mostly similar for different individuals, which allows us to construct a stage-like model for this. The model contains 4 stages, which gradually transit one into another. The whole process takes roughly 4-8 weeks in average, though in some cases this might be much longer.
| | NREM Stage 1, accounting for 5-10% of total sleep in monophasic adults, is the lightest of all NREM Stages. During this stage, awareness to the external environment and consciousness is diminished. Some people experience hypnic jerks or hypnagogic hallucinations during this stage. A mix of alpha waves and theta waves are present in this stage. |
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| == Stage 1 ==
| | NREM Stage 2, accounting for 45-55% of total sleep, is deeper than the first one. It is more difficult to be awaken from than from the NREM 1. This stage is characterized by K-complexes and sleep spindles, which are abrupt interruptions in alpha waves activity. This stage of sleep also plays a role in maintaining wakefulness over long periods. |
| Staying awake is easy during this stage when [[wikipedia:Sleep_deprivation|sleep deprivation]] still hasn't kicked in. Falling asleep usually is difficult for naps and easy for cores, assuming the person isn't [[Insomnia|insomniac]] and the scheduled core doesn't start earlier than the habitual sleep before. Repartitioning hasn't started yet, so the sleep quality is the same and in monophasic sleep, presumably with 90-minute uncompressed cycles. This stage is also beneficial for adjusting to new sleep habits.
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| The duration of Stage 1 is shorter for the schedules with a low total sleep time or for individuals with preexisting sleep debt. This doesn't shorten the whole adaptation process though, usually just making Stage 3 and 4 longer. Insomniacs might find skipping this stage helpful since it's much easier to fall asleep on the later stages, but generally this isn't recommended. The benefit of falling asleep faster doesn't compensate the higher risk of oversleeping and longer period of having intense sleep deprivation symptoms.
| | NREM Stage 3, accounting for 15-25% of total sleep, is the deepest of all sleep stages. This stage contains primarily delta waves, which are high-amplitude and low-frequency. Hence, this stage is also known as slow-wave sleep (SWS). It is very difficult to wake up from this stage; attempts at doing so tend to result in sleep inertia -- a period intense grogginess and impaired cognitive function. This stage of sleep plays a critical role in the maintenance of the brain through the glymphatic system. This process takes about 30 to 60 minutes of continuous NREM3 to complete, and could be hindered by schedules containing only short naps. |
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| == Stage 2 ==
| | REM, accounting for 20-25% of total sleep, is characterized by high frequency, low amplitude activity that resembles that during wakefulness and rapid eye movements. In this stage, muscles are also paralyzed and body temperature becomes unregulated. Vivid dreams are also often experienced during this stage, and the muscle atonia (paralysis) prevents the sleeper from acting them out. |
| This stage is mostly similar to the first one and can be distinguished from it by the sleep deprivation symptoms, which become more apparent, albeit not intense yet. Random tiredness dips start to occur more often throughout the day. Falling asleep usually becomes a bit easier, as sleep pressure keeps increasing. Similarly to Stage 1, this stage is shorter on the difficult schedules.
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| == Stage 3 == | | == Sleep reduction through polyphasic sleep == |
| By Stage 3, sleep debt accumulates enough to cause intense sleep deprivation symptoms, which often leads to oversleeps or noticeable difficulty of staying awake. The intensity of this stage depends on the schedule though, and might be very mild for [[non-reducing]] schedules or insanely hard for the ones with an extreme sleep reduction. Stages repartitioning starts by this stage, so the sleep structure might be messy temporarily. It's much easier to fall asleep and much more difficult to wake up, wakes often are accompanied by a strong sleep inertia.
| | SWS and REM (collectively termed ''vital sleep stages'') are the most necessary for the body, and in general cannot be cut. When a sleeper does not get a sufficient amount of SWS or REM, the respective pressure starts to build up. As the pressure builds, the body starts to favour that kind of sleep over others. At some point, this can lead to sleep-onset REM (SOREM) and sleep-onset SWS (SOSWS), which enables a sleeper to gain the required amount of SWS and REM in a shorter amount of time. Moreover, when sleep is restricted, vital sleep stages displaces light sleep (NREM 1 and 2), which further reduces the amount of total sleep needed to sustain the body. |
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| This stage is longer for the schedules with a low total sleep time or for the attempts with pre-existing sleep deprivation. Sometimes Stage 3 starts after only a few days passed considering these condition. Therefore it's recommended to go through a [[recovery]] process to reduce sleep debt before attempting a new schedule. | | However, as NREM 2 gets reduced, the ability to stay awake for long periods diminishes. This is why schedules with less total sleep time (TST) need more sleeps spread throughout the day to be sustainable. Taking a ~20-minute nap or a ~90-minute single-cycle core helps a polyphasic sleeper sustain wakefulness. Maximum wake gaps are dependent on the schedule, time of day, as well as the sleeper's individual needs. With gaps too large, one will always experiences bouts of tiredness during it and be unable to fully adapt to the schedule. |
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| == Stage 4 == | | ==Circadian rhythm== |
| After sleep is efficiently repartitioned and mostly stabilized, sleeper enters the last stage of adaptation. This one usually closely resembles the first two stages, as the sleep deprivation symptoms finally become less intense after Stage 3. This stage should not be confused with the adapted state, since some microsleeps or even oversleeps are still highly possible without the necessary caution. The main reason is sleep debt, which still isn't fully recovered, often REM debt and a bit more rarely SWS debt. This stage is the last step for sleep stabilization and recovery, and adaptation is reached after the sleeper met the criteria, listed in the next section.
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| Some schedules might not be adaptable for a specific sleeper, this usually leads to never reaching adapted state after being stuck in a [[Alternating Stage 3/4|loop of Stage 3/4]]. Albeit Stage 4 sometimes is just much longer than average, usually either because of a high sleep debt or because of excessive [[flexing]].
| | ==Minimum sleep threshold== |
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| == Adaptation signs == | | ==Sleep block lengths== |
| The polyphasic community has established some signs of adaptation, which help to distinguish adapted state from being on other stages. Adaptation usually is reached after gradually going through the above mentioned stages and staying on schedule for at least 4-8 weeks. These signs include:
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| * Feeling alert and rested throughout the day, no memory loss, stable mood and appetite
| | ==Consistency== |
| * Waking up easily after every block of sleep, little-to-no [[sleep inertia]]
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| * Falling asleep easily, having a short sleep onset (a few minutes for naps, <15 minutes for cores)
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| * Naturally waking up without alarms. This sign usually requires sticking to a schedule for a long time, and can never be met on the extreme schedules, thus isn't a necessary criteria of being adapted.
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| * Having increased dream recall and much denser naps, which usually feels long. For some people with a naturally low dream recall ability this sign might never appear, thereby being an unnecessary criteria too. Worth mentioning, it is possible to initially have dense REM dawn naps on some extreme schedules such as [[E3]].
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| A sleeper usually is considered adapted to a schedule after 1-2 weeks of the adaptation criteria being stable.
| | ==Schedule lines== |
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| == Alternative adaptation models == | | ==Everyman vs Dual core/Tri core== |
| It was noticed by some [[Template:Polyphasic Sleepers|polyphasic sleepers]] that sometimes this adaptation model might not match the real experience. This section describes a few types of such cases.
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| === Easier adaptation ===
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| Some people reported easier adaptation, usually almost without noticing Stage 3 or intense sleep deprivation symptoms in other words. Usually this is the case for non-reducing schedules with a structure, which is close to natural. The examples include Biphasic schedules ([[BiphasicX]] in particular) and sometimes other more exotic forms, usually also non-reducing. This actually is still on of the cases of the 4-stages adaptation model, being much milder because of the lower amount of sleep debt.
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| === Linear adaptation ===
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| Other case was reported by some sleepers, a difficult start of the adaptation, with the signs gradually getting more and more mild as time goes. This case was met both on extreme schedules and on the easy ones, usually with pre-existing sleep deprivation and [[random]] sleep. This phenomenon can be explained by partially or fully skipping Stage 1 and 2, thus starting from the most difficult part. Worth noticing, this adaptation type usually has the same length as the standard one.
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