Getting started

With so much information, polyphasic sleep can be confusing. This page is to guide you through the material and get started with polyphasic sleep.

Communities

The easiest way to learn abut polyphasic sleep and get advice about starting is by asking in the subreddit or Discord chat.

Choosing a schedule

First, read through the Scheduling overview page, and then pick a schedule that you can fit in to your work/study schedule and read more on the schedule page. Be sure to fully consider things such as scheduling consistency and dark period. Also, make sure you have enough time to stay adapted after the potentially grueling adaptation; according to community experience, at least one month is needed to adapt to most schedules.

Preparation

Before starting the adaptation, there are several things you should do to minimise the difficulty.

• Recover from sleep debt. Going into adaptation with pre-existing sleep debt lengthens the most difficult part of it (Stage 3).
• Quit drugs, including alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis. Any of these drugs will greatly reduce the quality of your sleep, potentially making your adaptation impossible. Caffeine also has a strong negative effect on most schedules, and it is best to limit consumption to an insignificant amount.
• Get used to wake up from alarms immediately. A snoozing habit is an easy way to oversleep and ruin your adaptation.
• Create a long list of things to do when you are tired. All the extra hours you have will work against you when you get sleepy. These things can include:
  • Exercise
  • Household chores
  • Video games