Forget Sleep Walking, Now There's Sleep Hacking

It's possible to "hack" while you sleep. Even script kiddies can use an automated password cracker and let it run it's course while they are tucked in their beds fast asleep. It may be a weak form of hacking, if you can even call it true hacking, but none the less it can be done. So if you can hack in your sleep, how about sleep hacking? Don't get confused because it means something completely different. Sleep hacking refers to messing with your body's natural program response to sleep at night for 6-8 hours. So why would someone want to "sleep hack"? Well if you find your lifestyle is too busy to set aside that time to snooze, if you are at your best at night and you don't want to sacrifice that time to the Sandman, or perhaps you just want to feel well rested throughout the day by taking cat naps as opposed to a long nighttime slumber. Lastly maybe you are just crazy enough to try this out because you have nothing better to do...well, except sleep.

Now I must say when I first heard about sleep hacking I didn't like the name. It seems these days everyone wants to label themselves as a hacker or feel that anything they do should be giving the label as hacking. I'm not going to get into discussing the real definition of hacking, hackers and all of that. For argument sake, let's leave the title of this experiment as what it is already called - sleep hacking. However there is no debate that we can all accomplish more awake than asleep. So that leads us to sleep hacking. Sleep hacking utilizes "Polyphasic Sleep" or what is also referred to as the "Uberman Sleep Cycle". It is a method for increasing the amount of time you spend awake during the day by sleeping only 20-30 minutes every 4 hours so you can stay awake longer. The short time you do spend sleeping your body is in REM sleep, which is the most restful phase. Such short sleep periods force the body to drop into REM sleep faster, which in turn means you require much less sleep. This technique has been used by many famous inventors. Of course this mode of life can be very difficult to adjust to. In the first few days you probably won’t be asleep when you are trying to. You must strictly follow the sleep schedule. Skipping a nap will probably cause a major crash. With limited sleep, a nutritious diet will become very important.

If you can achieve this type of sleeping lifestyle, the nickname "Uberman" is given to you. (For those not hip on their slag, the word "uber" means the ultimate, above all, the best, top, nothing is better than.) One "Uberman" in training is a blogger by the name of Nick Busey. He is a week into his second attempt at switching to this very unusual sleep cycle and is blogging his progress at where else than www.ubersleep.com As with any experiment, there are pros and cons. Followers of sleep hacking will say the pros far outweigh the cons, but let me give you both sides so you can decide for yourself if this is something you would like to try or something you will stay away from.

As I stated before the Uberman Sleep schedule is a method of organizing your sleeping time to maximize your REM sleep and minimize your non-REM sleep. The goal of the sleep cycle is that you are actively in REM sleep within a couple of minutes of falling asleep and remain in that state until you awaken. In essence, someone utilizing the Uberman Sleep schedule is actively modifying (or "hacking) their sleeping habits so that they can immediately jump from waking to a few minutes worth of stage 1 sleep straight to stage 5 REM sleep (if you have little to no psych education background, you are probably confused now). It is important to note that there are no studies as to the long-term physical or physiological impact of this sleep cycle. It not yet known if this cycle causes long-term damage to a person or not and if this concerns you, I wouldn't attempt the cycle. I suggest if you want to do this, that you wait until more research and testing has been done on it's affects.

For those that have tried this, they claim the benefits are more free time and that they report feeling generally healthier overall. Drawbacks, you hit a wall if you stay up for more than about 5 hours without a 20-30 minute nap. Your concentration and energy seem to vanish in a matter of minutes and you absolutely have to go take a nap. Obviously this can create some problems in social and work situations, but if you want to reek the benefits, they say you need to shuffle the naps around and adjust. Another drawback is that your appetite is substantially larger and you will often crave strange things that you don't recall craving in the past. It's speculated that your body isn't producing the same amount of chemicals that it would normally produce in stages 3 and 4 deep sleep. Finally, one particularly noteworthy effect (which some consider a benefit, but others might consider a drawback) is that all of your dreams are very intense and may find yourself remembering them down to minute details. If you have any difficulties handling the imagery that dreams produce, then sleep hacking is simply not for you.