Re: [polyphasic] was Who's Starting this Winter?, now Spouse help!

[Karoline]

I was planning on starting 12/26 -- but the spouse who'd been supportive realized that he was actually completely freaked out about it being dangerous, and especially so as I'm in health care.  I could've sworn that I remembered reading someplace a list of suggestions on how to reassure family/friends about this, but can't find it.  

Do we have any hard science anyplace or is it just purely anecdotal?  I've been able to find a couple of articles about Claudio Stampi, but mostly pretty vague stuff.

We've come up with 2 things that help address his concerns: 

1) since I'm in health care, I won't be taking a 7-10 days off, but closer to a month since he's concerned about me hurting people during sleep dep.  (Me?  Less concerned.  I've treated family at 2am while half asleep, and most med students routinely pull 24-36 hour shifts and are far far more sleep deprived than I expect I'd be after 10 days or so of adaptation.)  Taking a month off is decidedly tougher to do, but I do have someone who can partially cover for me.

2) Designating either him or my father to be my off-switch as recommended in Ubersleep -- to let someone else declare it's not working for safety sake.  I'm leaning towards dad.  The man's monophasic but probably sleeps 3-4 hours/night anyway and has for decades.  

But these two aren't enough: He wants something scientific before he's not going to completely freak on me.  Any suggestions?  (And just telling him to read Ubersleep probably won't help.  "Anecdotal evidence.")

Thank you!

Karoline

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 2:51 AM, Bobrobyn <Bobr...@gmail.com> wrote:

With the upcoming holidays coming up, who else is starting a
polyphasic sleep attempt?  I remember reading about people saying they
will during the winter break, and have even chatted with a couple on
IRC.

I started one at the beginning of the year that ultimately failed, and
am starting again with Uberman now.  My nap schedule is 12-4-8 AM and
PM, 20 minutes apart.  I'm going to be vigilant at keeping the
schedule up this time.

This is actually my first day of this attempt.  Good luck to me I
guess.

Any other starters out there this holiday season?

--

-----------------------------------------------------
Karoline Gostl, Licensed Acupuncturist
NCCAOM Certified in Chinese Herbology
www.HealingMaven.com
Serving Forest Hills (Queens), NYC

[Scott Helvick]

Have him read Stampi's book, "Why We Nap."  That's the biggest (actually, *only*) collection of scientific studies on polyphasic sleep that I'm aware of.

[Netopalis]

Karoline,
I can understand your husband's viewpoint - my initial reaction to
Polyphasic was a "No way...", but I've since come around and am
currently on Day 3. As Scott said, Stampi is the only credible hard-
scientific source on the subject. There WAS a documentary on PBS back
in the mid-to-late 90s that I found streaming online, and it did
feature a lot of Stampi's work. However, two caveats about that:

1) Stampi didn't advocate polyphasic for general use - that was
something that the internet picked up. He was advocating it for
people to use in short spurts, mostly for long-distance rowers. The
documentary is about a painter who tries it, but it doesn't quite go
as well. The whole concept of adaptation phase, the Everyman schedule
and much of the other advice on this forum is anecdotal in nature and
not scientifically proven.
2) The documentary's subject quit after 42 days, rather forcibly. He
was tired of being out of sync with everyone else and generally unable
to put up with the weirdness of it all. That might not exactly be
reassuring to your husband. What MIGHT be more reassuring is showing
A) that you're willing to quit if it doesn't go well after a set
number of days and B) that many medical professionals have operated
under significantly worse sleep schedules. The TV show M*A*S*H does a
good job of portraying this, with grueling 48-hour surgery sessions
and horrible conditions outside the operating room

Hope that helps!

-Netopalis

On Dec 16, 3:31 pm, "Scott Helvick" <crazyscot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Have him read Stampi's book, "Why We Nap."  That's the biggest (actually,
> *only*) collection of scientific studies on polyphasic sleep that I'm aware
> of.
>

[PlaceboZA (Greg)]

If it helps you feel better, my wife had her reservations at first - she made me promise that if, in her eyes, I started acting insane (well, beyond the usual :P) then I would stop immediately.
And she watched me like a hawk

Nowadays, she actually moans at me if there's any irregularities in my schedule, because she likes her bed to herself, the baby taken care of at night, can wake up whenever she likes and bug me for whatever she wants, etc etc.
Now she's only concerned if something breaks my schedule and I struggle to get back into things - it's that initial adaptation that's not so good for you.

Anyway. My little spousal story :)
Greg / Placebo
http://www.placebo.serv.co.za

--
`People who don't get carried away, should be`

[Marcus Weidner]

I can concur with Placebo, my wife was very much against me trying polyphasic and only let me because she could see it was something that I really wanted to do, she had full veto power to tell me to stop at any time and also marked a day on the calendar that would mark the one month period where she would decide whether or not she liked me being on polyphasic.

After a couple weeks on the schedule she got to be a huge fan of it and is now my best supporter, she gets very annoyed when I mess up my schedule and miss naps, etc.  She has said many times that she has seen a complete change in me since I started polyphasic, I used to be useless in the evening but now I am alert at any time in the day and happier since I finally have time to work on my own stuff.

Also just so you know, I am a pretty long term polyphaser, I have been on the Everyman schedule for about a year and three months now.

Your spouse is right to be concerned, they hopefully want the best for you and polyphasic sounds quite extreme to many, but hopefully they will allow you to at least try it as long as they have control to stop it if things are getting out of hand.

--
Marcus Weidner