The Uberman Sleep Schedule. Has anyone ever heard of it? Basically it's a system that replaces your nightly sleep with a series of short naps throughout the day.

The general term for this is polyphasic sleep, meaning "many sleep phases". This is pretty much how early humans slept, until permanent settlements were made. This gave them more time to be active, and that meant more time to hunt. When they began to have food more readily available, people started sleeping through the night, and eventually fell to the wayside.

The Uberman Schedule is a polyphasic sleep schedule designed to give maximum rest and maximum active time. The theory is this: a full sleep cycle is one and a half hours. A half hour each of light, medium and REM sleep. The Uberman gets you fully rested with half hour naps by putting you directly into REM sleep. This takes time though. You will need at least a week of adjustment, during which you will take 5 or 6 evenly spread out half hour naps, and be dead tired. After a week of this, your body will realize that this is the new norm and when you nap, you will go directly into REM sleep. Pretty cool, right?

I tried this a few weeks ago. I have not been able to nap since I was 5, so I'm already at a disadvantage, but I decided to give it a go. It went pretty well for a couple days. I actually felt pretty good, even though I couldn't sleep during the day. However, on the fourth day, I fell asleep at 7 AM and slept for three hours. The next day I slept for three hours at 5 AM. After that, I was just done. I am going to try it again, and I will keep you posted on the results.

In the meantime, what do you think of this?

We have actually discussed this in one of my methods courses. It sounds very interesting, but I just don't know how I would possibly fit it into my own schedule once I have a teaching position. Despite what a lot of people tend to believe, teachers work hours outside of the class time (if they are doing their job right). Given the school day is 7 hours give or take a few, and teachers typically spend another 2-3 hours of doing prep work at home, and I would have to work in having kids down the line, I need my 6 hours of sleep because I won't be able to get enough short naps in spread out equally through the day

I think I've heard about this several years ago, that taking short naps throughout the day to leave you more rested through the day/night. This sleep cycle would great for bodybuilding and I also read about this being used with pro bodybuilder Jay Cutler a few years ago. He would workout then eat work out later then go to sleep to speed up recovery. Wake up, go for a run, go back to sleep, etc. It had to be a strict regimen, but it apparently worked for him.

I think it sounds plausible. But most people won't have the time in their schedule to actually take 5/6 naps in a day. 

Saying that it's probably a lot better than my sleeping pattern which consists of this basically

Monday - Go bed at 4pm wake up at 7pm
Tuesday go bed at 5am wake up at 12pm
Wednesday don't sleep
Thursday go bed at 6am wake up at 12pm
Friday don't sleep
Saturday go bed at 4am wake up about 2pm (lazy day lol)
Sunday Don't sleep

So yeah yay! For horrible sleeping patterns. And please let us know how this sleep schedule effects you and if it actually works..

good luck

No way, I'm no bat, or early human. I'm normal, I tend to sleep at night with 6-8 hrs of sleep usually only 6 or 7, though. Unless it is the weekend then, I sleep 10-12 hours . Sleep feels too good to try this for me, but I don't know, it could be fun I guess.

I don't ever feel like I need the time, and I've got no time for naps. Plus I like sleeping in...

I don't know. It does sound like a better system once you're adjusted, assuming you have the time for naps.



Picture relevant. I'm not even sure of something like that works, but it'd be cool to have a 28 hour day