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Comment by jsjenkins168 | Hacker News Reader

You might want to consider changing your sleep schedule to something close to a uberman polyphasic schedule. Can you nap during your lunch break? Restricting your naps to 20mins or less prevents you from entering the deep sleep stages which make you groggy and tired. Just take them more frequently, like 4-5 hrs apart.

It may sound ridiculous but i've found it pretty effective. Even though I'm moonlighting I still code for almost as long as someone doing it full time (assuming ~8hrs sleep). Work can still get in the way though so I understand your decision.

The big plus (at least early on in your project) is that it takes the pressure of worrying about your burn rate off...

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I've done the polyphasic sleep thing for ~3 months last year. You can forget about coding for the first 10-12 days or so while you acclimatize (or at least I found it very very hard). And if you don't initiate yourself exactly right you'll find you've wasted a whole month just getting dog tired.

While you do suddenly seem to get a lot of time it makes any kind of socializing hard since you have to sleep every 3-4 hours. Even after a couple of months if I missed one sleep session I would hit a massive wall and all coding would come to a stop.

Lack of time can sometimes be a good thing. It forces you into creative solutions. The funny thing is, although I produced more lines of code during the polyphasic experiment I think the quality suffered (not much but when I look over those pieces it always seems I could have structured it better). I don't know what to attribute that to since I didn't feel any different while coding in or out of the polyphasic state after the ramp up period.

Agree with everything you said (especially the difficulty socializing part).

My solution to most of the problem is to "ease" into the schedule. Keep a core sleep period of like 4-5 hrs at night but continue to take your naps. As you acclimatize, try shrinking/eliminating the core sleep gradually. That way you dont feel like you're getting hit by a train like you do if you try and jump right into it.

As far as code quality, I find mine is actually much better.. The period just after each nap I feel really refreshed and can concentrate. Theres actually research out there that proves this is true. Again, I think its all about avoiding a rough acclimation period though..

jsjenkins168 wrote: Theres actually research out there that proves this is true

hmmm.. I found research in this area very lacking. The only scientific study seemed to be from sleep researcher Claudio Stampi and his essentially said "If you absolutely can't keep regular sleeping schedules (like in long sailing races) then polyphasic sleep is a better alternative".

If you have pointers to papers I'd appreciate links sent to the email-id in my profile. I might try this again someday.

The only good research I've been able to find is contained in the book "Why We Nap" by Stampi and Broughton. Sounds like we're talking about the same source. Unfortunately, its no longer in print so therefore very very hard to find..

I'll shoot you an email if I find more.. My co-founder knows more about this stuff than me I'll ask him.

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