[HN Gopher] 28h Days: year 1 update
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       28h Days: year 1 update
        
       Author : HAMSHAMA
       Score  : 182 points
       Date   : 2025-01-08 23:37 UTC (23 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (sidhion.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (sidhion.com)
        
       | xedrac wrote:
       | This flies in the face of circadean rhythm research. I know the
       | human body is extremely adaptable, but imagine making every
       | single day a jet-lagged day. My younger self may have been able
       | to tolerate it well enough, but there's no way I'd come out
       | unscathed now.
        
         | ty6853 wrote:
         | I have tried on occasion to work night shift. It is OK for a
         | few weeks but within months I reach extreme exhaustion falling
         | asleep while operating dangerous machinery, despite sleeping
         | during the day. I experienced a similar phenomenon working on a
         | fishing boat where I simply never adapted to sea sickness and
         | after weeks of throwing up almost all food and fluids it took
         | months to crawl back to activity and recover including the
         | pneumonia induced from my immune system and homeostasis being
         | beat down.
         | 
         | Human body can be really bad at adapting to unworldly
         | environments to the point you totally break down.
        
         | pcthrowaway wrote:
         | You must not be aware of the research on Non-24[1] (or
         | "Non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder") which OP seems to have
         | (though perhaps they also aren't aware this is a thing).
         | 
         | Not saying non-24 is good for you, but for people unable to
         | follow a 24-hour schedule, free-running sleep (which is what OP
         | is doing) is vastly better than constantly pushing through
         | sleep deprivation, when one's schedule allows for it.
         | 
         | Speaking as someone with non-24 myself (which is much more
         | severe in the winter)
         | 
         | edit: after reading more closely, it appears OP has entrained
         | to a 28-hour day rather than doing free-running sleep; 28-hour
         | days are convenient in that the week gets sliced into 6 days
         | and allows for a consistent weekly schedule. However, I suspect
         | OP actually naturally gravitates towards a shorter day like 26
         | or 27 hours based on their napping patterns. I also wonder if
         | they might even have more success with 24-hour days and regular
         | exercise, as from their description it almost seems like the
         | daily exercise practice which they started _after_ the 28-hour
         | day might be regulating their circadian rhythm to be closer to
         | a natural day.
         | 
         | [1]:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...
        
           | niz4ts wrote:
           | I did free-running sleep for a while (I mention this in the
           | original 28h day post), but decided on 28h days to weekly
           | match other people's schedules.
           | 
           | I exercised regularly before 28h days, and my sleep was still
           | chaotic with that. I didn't exercise daily though, it was
           | hard to fit everything I wanted to do on a 24h day. Having
           | longer days means I can fit more things, which I think is one
           | of the reasons why I increased the amount of exercise after
           | moving to 28h.
           | 
           | I also haven't read any research on this, I just did what
           | felt more natural and logical to me.
        
           | scrollaway wrote:
           | I miss being able to do free-running sleep.
           | 
           | I remember so many people in my life being skeptical about my
           | claim that I naturally have longer days than 24h. Then ~6
           | years ago I actually tested it; my watch recorded my sleep,
           | and it became obvious:
           | 
           | https://photos.app.goo.gl/rTh2vkEMPEiJXx5Y7 [time-asleep
           | graphed on a daily 24h chart]
           | 
           | And only then did I learn what a non-24 was.
        
         | readthenotes1 wrote:
         | I doubt your assertion about circadian rhythm research, largely
         | because of the cave experiments that show that people naturally
         | assume non-24 hour days when removed from sunlight and social
         | cues.
        
           | wbl wrote:
           | The melatonin response to sunlight shortens the cycle so the
           | oscillator runs long without it. It wouldn't work well the
           | other way.
        
           | silversmith wrote:
           | So, in other words, get more sunlight?
        
           | energy123 wrote:
           | > I doubt your assertion about circadian rhythm research
           | 
           | You seem oblivious to the decades of research into
           | chronobiology and studies into shift work, jet lag, etc.
           | 
           | Your loss.
        
         | xyzzy_plugh wrote:
         | I did 36-hour days (awake for 24, asleep for 12) for a long
         | time and it was fine. I'm unable to do so now, due to other
         | obligations, but I still think it worked better for me than a
         | 24-hour day. Even today I inevitably stay up all night, getting
         | at most 1-4 hours of sleep, 2-3 times per week.
         | 
         | I don't see anything problematic with TFA's 28-hour days.
        
           | sethammons wrote:
           | I have slept 12+ hours less than a dozen times in my 40
           | years, and nearly every time was due to being sick. How did
           | you manage to sleep so long?
        
             | BenjiWiebe wrote:
             | Not who you are asking, but for me if there's no noise or
             | activity in the house, I usually just keep on sleeping. 10
             | hours would be more common for me but I've done 12 hours
             | pretty easily too.
        
           | bcrl wrote:
           | I lived on 36 hour days for a good year or so as well. It
           | made being social very difficult, and was not the greatest
           | thing for me overall, although I did get a lot of code
           | written.
           | 
           | A few months ago I finally got a CPAP machine after getting a
           | sleep study due to abnormal blood pressure patterns (my blood
           | pressure wasn't dropping overnight on a 24 hour monitor). I
           | can now wake up feeling alert and ready to go after 6 hours
           | of sleep (even though I could use a little bit more); I
           | haven't felt rested this way in the morning since more than
           | 15 years ago in my 20s. I'm not particularly overweight, nor
           | do I snore, so it's worth checking into if your sleep
           | patterns tend towards abnormal.
        
         | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
         | > imagine making every single day a jet-lagged day.
         | 
         | That's exactly what this pattern is trying to avoid. For people
         | whose sleep cycle is longer than 24h, a "normal" rhythm makes
         | every single day a jet-lagged day, and in the "wrong" direction
         | (it's easier to travel west/stay awake longer rather than
         | travel east/go to bed earlier for most people).
        
         | levocardia wrote:
         | Actually it's pretty in-line with it. Natural circadian rhythm
         | is ~25hrs, with some individual variance, and it's easier to
         | extend a circadian rhythm than shorten it. Jet lag research
         | finds that flying west (lengthening), you can adapt at a rate
         | of ~1hr per day. It's not crazy to think that someone might
         | naturally be at 26-27hrs, then stretch it an hour each day no
         | problem.
        
       | johnclema wrote:
       | See a sleep psychologist. This is likely a non-24-hour sleep-wake
       | rhythm disorder.
        
         | tyzoid wrote:
         | Why should they? If they've got a workable solution and are
         | living a happy life, there's no reason to treat it as a
         | problem.
        
           | johnclema wrote:
           | That is a fair point, though understanding one's sleep
           | patterns through professional evaluation can be valuable even
           | if one plans to continue one's current schedule. A sleep
           | psychologist could provide insights about optimising the
           | chosen schedule, identify potential health considerations,
           | and offer additional tools and strategies. The goal is to
           | have more information to make informed choices about one's
           | health.
        
       | whatever1 wrote:
       | We don't approve. You are only productive if your butt is on your
       | office seat 9-5.
        
       | tiiiij wrote:
       | Most of the benefits are things that you could just be more
       | intentional about in a 24h cycle. Glad it works for him on 28h
       | and I don't think he's endorsing this for others necessarily, but
       | my goodness quite a lot of disruption to accomplish what others
       | should be able to accomplish in a standard 24h day.
        
       | readthenotes1 wrote:
       | I once had the opportunity to do a transatlantic Cruise from west
       | to east in which we changed ship time every two days, resulting
       | in 24.5 hour days.
       | 
       | They were much more natural to me than a 24 hours day length.
       | 
       | If I ever win the lottery, I just may sail endlessly west to
       | east...
        
         | eru wrote:
         | You might like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Forties
        
       | S_A_P wrote:
       | After reading the article I didn't pick up what any of the
       | advantages are of 28hr days other than being able to communicate
       | with other regions of the world on certain days. I suppose that
       | could be a very important factor for some people who do work in a
       | geographically dispersed area. A few things I would be concerned
       | with are: 1) your SO is not on the same schedule and really for
       | what isn't a solid reason. I could see this becoming a source of
       | resentment at some point. 2) you have to cut people out of your
       | life vs explaining the schedule when they don't understand why. I
       | understand that the lectures would likely get tiresome at some
       | point, but it seems a bit selfish to switch to this schedule when
       | it could become problematic for friends and family members. 3) I
       | think cardio and total health should be measured and monitored as
       | part of the experiment. It is entirely possible that this
       | schedule can have real benefits for health or at the least not
       | negatively affect your health. You mention that you are able to
       | workout more often and effectively, so it may also be interesting
       | to track your fitness level on the schedule vs 24 hr days. It
       | would just be anecdotal but it would at least be some data.
       | 
       | I guess the only other things I would want to know is what
       | factors pushed most to switching schedules? How long do you plan
       | to stay on the schedule? How does your employer handle this
       | schedule change? Or are you self employed/running a business?
       | What do you think the biggest challenges are during the switch
       | aside from being tired at hour 10-11? What does your SO really
       | think about this schedule? The more I think about this, the more
       | questions I have :)
        
         | fastball wrote:
         | I'm not the OP, but I've considered doing this (have personally
         | tried tri-phasic sleep in the past as an alternative) so I'm
         | assuming the motivation might be the same: I just don't have a
         | 24hr circadian rhythm. I'd guess mine is more like 26hr, not
         | 28hr, but same idea applies. If I wake up after getting 8 hours
         | of sleep, after 16 hours I am just... not sleepy. I can go to
         | bed and not use screens and take melatonin and whatever else
         | but I'm just not tired. So I end up staying later and getting
         | less than 8 hours of sleep. Since many studies seem to show
         | that getting a solid amount of sleep is good, my actual
         | patterns seem bad. Much better then (maybe) to switch your
         | cycle to be however many hours you need to get a solid night
         | (~8hr) of sleep and feel tired at the end of the day, like the
         | author is doing.
         | 
         | EDIT: just read the original post[1] from the author and indeed
         | this is the reason. He maybe explains it better than me so give
         | a read.
         | 
         | [1] https://sidhion.com/blog/28h_days/
        
           | Centigonal wrote:
           | From the linked post:
           | 
           | > _Some time ago, I found myself with zero obligations to
           | follow the usual daily routine: wake up in the morning and go
           | to sleep at night (the "normal people schedule"). During my
           | time awake, I was either working on side-projects or playing
           | with my hobbies, and I'd go to sleep whenever I felt sleepy,
           | wake up naturally (no alarms), and repeat. This led me to
           | observe that without sticking to a daily routine, my sleep
           | schedule would drift every day compared to the previous one.
           | I also noticed that on most days I'd sleep a bit longer than
           | 8h, sometimes 9h or even 10h._
           | 
           | > _An example of the sleep schedule drift: if on day X I went
           | to sleep at 10:00 and woke up at 18:00, on day X+1 I'd go to
           | bed at a time later than 10:00, and wake up later than 18:00.
           | I almost never went to sleep at the same time on two
           | consecutive days._
           | 
           | > _I realised that this was happening because it took me
           | longer to feel tired than the "normal people schedule"
           | assumed. If I followed it, sleeping would tend towards
           | napping until the tiredness built up, at which point I'd need
           | to sleep more. In fact, for most of my adult life (especially
           | when I had a full-time job), I'd always have to force myself
           | to go to bed during weekdays, and naturally this drift would
           | occur, and then I'd "reset" during the weekend (often 10h+ of
           | sleep), thus going back to forcing myself to sleep on
           | weekdays to stick to the routine._
        
         | spoaceman7777 wrote:
         | The greatest benefit is that you can stay up until you're
         | absolutely dog-tired every day, and not have to worry about all
         | the rituals of "sleep hygiene", like limiting screen time,
         | dimming lights, no coffee, etc.
         | 
         | On a >24 hour sleep schedule, you _will_ be tired when it's
         | time to sleep. Guaranteed. Not only that, you can sleep longer
         | and will always feel well-rested.
         | 
         | Meeting people all around the world, when they're collectively
         | hanging out online, is also fantastic. Social platforms that
         | involve more one-on-one contact, like X, Group chats, and
         | similar, have completely different things going on at different
         | hours. You start to make even more friends spread out across
         | the world, and prevent getting stuck into ruts.
         | 
         | There's also the benefit that conversations and the environment
         | online is always fresh. You're always cycling into new time
         | blocks that you haven't been active in for a few days.
         | 
         | And, not just online. There's something to be said about
         | experiencing (while fully awake) all of the different times of
         | day where you live. You get to see sunrises and sunsets. Busy
         | morning chatter of cars, and the world buzzing to life. The
         | beyond-wee hours of the morning, when the city is so quiet you
         | can hear a pin drop.
         | 
         | Really though, the main benefit is the first one in this
         | comment. You can live your life to the maximum extent, without
         | scheduling in the extra time to manage getting to sleep, and
         | feeling tired when you don't.
        
           | pcthrowaway wrote:
           | You're making some assumptions here that I don't think hold.
           | 
           | OP is likely able to do this because they have a longer
           | circadian cycle (though I think it's still less than 28
           | hours)
           | 
           | A person who might naturally have a 24.4 hour cycle without
           | external stimuli (which is the average sleep researchers
           | found) will likely have problems trying to adjust to a 26
           | hour cycle or longer, because even if they push themselves to
           | stay up beyond the beginning of the sleep phase of their
           | cycle on a regular basis, there is a good chance they'll wake
           | up closer to the end of their sleep phase, and therefore
           | might not get enough sleep.
           | 
           | It's better to follow a sleep cycle tailored to your own
           | circadian rhythm, which for most people conveniently aligns
           | pretty well with the natural day.
           | 
           | I say this as someone with non-24 who often does free-running
           | sleep (where I've found my own cycle to be a little over 26
           | hours in winters, and closer to 24 hours in the summer)
        
             | bix6 wrote:
             | How do you figure out your cycle time?
        
               | iambateman wrote:
               | This isnt scientific but I've found that I "feel like"
               | going to bed about 24.5 hours after I went to bed the day
               | before.
               | 
               | Without external stimuli, it's very hard to avoid
               | drifting into staying up very late at night for me.
        
               | binary132 wrote:
               | This sounds suspiciously like "I tend to stay up later
               | and later every night unless I force myself to go to bed
               | on time" -- which I suspect is pretty common, it
               | certainly is for me. I'll start staying up till 3, 4, 5,
               | or later if I'm not on a schedule. Having kids helps.
        
               | s1artibartfast wrote:
               | It is suspiciously similar because they are the same
               | exact thing. The whole premise is how many hours is a
               | comfortable wake-sleep cycle.
        
               | pcthrowaway wrote:
               | I don't think so actually. If you can "make yourself" go
               | to bed at a "normal time" then you don't have non-24.
               | 
               | People with non-24 usually have a longer than 24-hour
               | cycle and _can 't_ "make themselves" go to sleep
               | consistently at the same time (people with 24.5 or
               | 25-hour days probably have some success with this though
               | because if they stay up a bit later one day and still
               | wake up at the same time, then by the time a proper
               | bedtime rolls around they'll be _close enough_ to their
               | the sleep phase of their cycle, and tired enough to fall
               | asleep at that time)
        
               | s1artibartfast wrote:
               | I'm skeptical. Chronic sleep deprivation does a pretty
               | good job of helping people go to sleep at the same time
               | each day.
               | 
               | Either way, it seems like a arbitrary distinction to
               | make. If Bob is happier and more productive on a 26 hour
               | schedule, but can unhappily live on a 24 hour schedule,
               | why doest that count?
               | 
               | It seems the relevant Factor is what their natural
               | schedule actually is, given the circumstances etc
        
               | pcthrowaway wrote:
               | Why would anyone be happier on a 26-hour schedule if they
               | can get an adequate amount of sleep and go to sleep close
               | to the same time on 24-hour schedule?
               | 
               | I can see it going the other way, where if your natural
               | rhythm is 22 hours you can likely force yourself to stay
               | awake to align with 24 (and likely would be much happier
               | than free-running on a 22-hour clock).
               | 
               | Speaking from personal experience, if I could
               | consistently stick to a 24-hour schedule, I would. And I
               | think most people with non-24 have the same position (and
               | have likely tried many things before giving up, as
               | tossing and turning for hours every night and then still
               | not sleeping enough is pretty unpleasant).
               | 
               | Additionally, if Bob's rhythm is 26 hours then his sleep
               | cycle is shifting ahead by 2 hours every night regardless
               | of when he falls asleep. If he is able to fall asleep at
               | the same time every night, his sleep cycle presumably
               | isn't shifting, and even if 26 hours might be more
               | natural for him, he's able to sync his cycle to 24 hours
               | regardless.
               | 
               | So I don't think this would qualify them for non-24, as
               | the circadian rhythm isn't shifting every day.
               | 
               | On the other hand, if Bob chooses to sleep 26 hours for
               | whatever reason, perhaps he could be said to have it
               | then? It's just inconceivable to me that someone would
               | actually choose that given the option.
               | 
               | It's worth noting that the average human circadian rhythm
               | is closer to 24.5 hours when external stimuli are
               | removed. So it doesn't strike me as too different from
               | Bob; people are nevertheless regulated to 24 hours by
               | daylight and not said to be non-24, even if, like Bob,
               | their natural state might be to sleep more.
        
               | s1artibartfast wrote:
               | My point is that a lot of these people are just sleep
               | deprived.
               | 
               | Bob might go to sleep the same time, but maybe he gets 4
               | hours of sleep a night and operates on a deficit all day.
               | 
               | It's repeatable on a 24-hour cycle but miserable
        
               | pcthrowaway wrote:
               | Gotcha, that wasn't clear in your earlier comment.
               | 
               | If someone is unable to get adequate sleep on a 24-hour
               | day due to their circadian rhythm misalignment then I
               | believe this is non-24 even if it's because they wake up
               | too early rather then go to sleep too late when trying to
               | keep 24-hour days.
        
               | euroderf wrote:
               | Yup, a kid is a driver for regularity in sleep cycles.
        
               | Freak_NL wrote:
               | This makes me wonder about the point he briefly touches
               | at, but otherwise leaves out: his partner. Are there no
               | children planned at all? Have they already raised kids
               | and are done with this? Is he planning to break up with
               | her?
               | 
               | You can't do this and raise a child1 without being, well,
               | an asshole. He would force the mother to do all the fixed
               | daily things, and the child to navigate your availability
               | using your private clock.
               | 
               | 1: After they've settled into a stable daily sleeping
               | rhythm of course. For a baby this system might even be
               | useful some nights (but not others).
        
               | binary132 wrote:
               | perhaps Junior will follow in Father's footsteps. :)
        
               | pcthrowaway wrote:
               | If you are able to make relatively few commitments for a
               | month, go to sleep when you feel tired. Sleep as much as
               | feels good. Track it in a spreadsheet.
               | 
               | Some people with non-24 have _very_ regular sleep /wake
               | cycles. I'm not as fortunate, but in the winter will tend
               | towards 24-29 hour days, with an average just over 27
               | (perhaps this winter has even been a little under 27 as
               | I've been more physically active)
               | 
               | In the summer it's close enough to 24 hours that I can
               | stick to a 24-hour schedule most of the time.
        
               | bix6 wrote:
               | Interesting I'll have to track it a bit. I've always
               | adjusted a bit in winter but never thought to measure /
               | optimize it.
        
               | lloeki wrote:
               | > How
               | 
               | You need a significant period of time without any time-
               | bound obligation (or even any obligation at all). Any
               | need for an alarm or anything that you'd possibly
               | materialise in a calendar needs to be removed.
               | 
               | You need a room which is pitch black at night (e.g blocks
               | street lights, no leds), yet still allows a tiny bit of
               | sunlight (rationale: without cues the circadian cycle
               | extends up to 48h, there was an experiment about that)
               | 
               | Then, once you have that, start freewheeling, just when
               | you feel tired go rest and when you wake up get up. It'll
               | be a mess at first, for two reasons.
               | 
               | First you may be unable to properly recognise the "I need
               | to take some rest" signal: we're trained by life to
               | largely ignore it.
               | 
               | Second, you need to pay off any debt, sleep, physical,
               | mind, that would play a role in altering your base cycle.
               | Have fun, work out, meditate, go see a therapist even. In
               | a nutshell, find your balance.
               | 
               | Once you have recovered from everything, once all biasing
               | sources have been removed, then sleep will converge to
               | some rhythm, which carries some error margin, so you can
               | only observe it statistically over time. There's your
               | baseline.
               | 
               | It could take months, which more often than not isn't
               | practical to have, so from the above ideal scenario one
               | could devise a protocol that would try to stick as close
               | as possible to it.
               | 
               | Source: first principles+anecdata, sample size of 1,
               | double-non-blind protocol; a.k.a myself digging out of a
               | hole.
               | 
               | Protocol: 3 week sick leave for burnout x anxiety
               | depression, coincidental breakup (so no SO), went from
               | office to remote working, workout plan, 6 month therapy,
               | statistically reliable sleep/health/performance tracking
               | via watch allowing for outlier
               | identification/retrospective deviation root cause
               | analysis.
               | 
               | Result: 0130-0930~30min sleep, 7h45min~5min sleep
               | duration made of two ~4h-ish blocks, 25h~30min cycle.
               | When bound to 24h rhythm, occasional sleepless night
               | leading to 48h day and three aforementioned blocks of
               | sleep (~11h-ish total).
               | 
               | From the data it became painfully obvious that I
               | experience delayed sleep phase disorder, took me 6 months
               | to figure the baseline out, and 6 more to confirm, which
               | is quite hard when you don't even know that it is a
               | thing.
        
               | pcthrowaway wrote:
               | > rationale: without cues the circadian cycle extends up
               | to 48h, there was an experiment about that
               | 
               | Do you have a link to this experiment? I haven't seen
               | this mentioned anywhere. Studies referenced in the non-24
               | wikipedia page suggest natural circadian rhythms
               | typically range from 24-25.5 hours for people not getting
               | external cues.
        
             | pskfyi wrote:
             | Do you have any recommended books or links on this topic?
        
               | pcthrowaway wrote:
               | I haven't read any books on the topic and don't recall
               | any specific articles though I'm sure I've read many.
               | 
               | There are some good references in the wikipedia page (htt
               | ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake
               | ...), and I've been following https://reddit.com/r/N24
               | for a while also.
        
               | photonthug wrote:
               | I'd never suggest that people shouldn't read books or
               | consult experts but.. sleep is probably like diets in
               | that you can read whatever advice you're looking to find
               | _somewhere_.
               | 
               | Even after we accept that a dichotomy like typical vs
               | atypical (or night owl vs morning lark; omnivore vs
               | vegetarian) is way too simple.. the more we look the more
               | we keep finding new "types" (like all the flavors of
               | non-24; vegans, paleo, etc). So even reading stuff that's
               | trying to be rigorous may ultimately just tell you about
               | fads and fashions that might be working for others.
               | Natural variation in people seems to outpace or defy our
               | ability to categorize stuff. To me this hints that
               | there's really no substitute for experimenting and
               | listening to your body.
               | 
               | The hard part is just that this does require some time
               | and space in your life to accomplish, because if you're
               | going back to basics about stuff like food or sleep then
               | inevitably it's going to be disruptive until you figure
               | out what works best.
        
             | euroderf wrote:
             | Data point: I found mine to be between 25 and 26 hours.
             | 
             | Probably a contributing factor to difficulty in getting to
             | sleep "at a good hour".
             | 
             | OTOH mild sleep deprivation has been shown to counter
             | depression, so there's that.
        
               | zemvpferreira wrote:
               | Likewise but I've found small melatonin doses (plus
               | reducing caffeine to once per day) to really help me
               | conform to a 24 hour day. Worth trying if you haven't.
        
               | euroderf wrote:
               | I tried melatonin. It gave me nightmares. Weird, but it
               | was repeatable. So, my 0,02EUR.
        
               | bemmu wrote:
               | This happens if I take too much melatonin. The dosage in
               | US-sold melatonin is unnecessarily high. Finnish tablets
               | are typically 1.9mg, while US ones can have 10mg in just
               | one.
        
               | opan wrote:
               | Luckily some people warned about this a lot online (not
               | to take too much, most pills are too much) and I was able
               | to find 1mg tablets on Amazon when I wanted some.
        
               | sensanaty wrote:
               | Anecdotally, me too. If not nightmares, very bizzare
               | dreams that leave me feeling a bit weird for the day and
               | I don't really feel nearly as rested as regular sleep,
               | even if I sleep for longer.
        
           | Aurornis wrote:
           | > On a >24 hour sleep schedule, you _will_ be tired when it's
           | time to sleep. Guaranteed. Not only that, you can sleep
           | longer and will always feel well-rested.
           | 
           | Definitely not guaranteed at all. Many people's circadian
           | rhythms are intensely driven by daylight cycles. Trying to
           | sleep and wake out of sync with those cycles will be very
           | difficult.
           | 
           | In the past I had to do some work overnight which resulted in
           | some very long days. I would have to be very careful to avoid
           | seeing the sunrise because doing so would make it very hard
           | to sleep even if I'd been up for a long time.
           | 
           | > Really though, the main benefit is the first one in this
           | comment. You can live your life to the maximum extent
           | 
           | If your life involves a lot of solitary, indoor activities
           | then maybe.
           | 
           | For the rest of us who like to socialize and do outdoor
           | daytime activities, having your sleep schedule cut through
           | daylight hours would be a big step backward.
           | 
           | I think people greatly overestimate the benefits of
           | alternative sleep cycles (unless you have a naturally
           | extended circadian cycle that can't be otherwise managed)
        
           | WD-42 wrote:
           | After reading the article it kinda sounds like he just takes
           | a lot more naps. Feels like cheating.
        
             | hinkley wrote:
             | I've never seen one of these alternative sleep cycle people
             | put forward a sensible cognitive study to go along with it.
             | Like the people who sleep 5 hours a day but all spread out.
             | 
             | The thing with taking a similar test every day is that you
             | should get better at it. So if the test you are abusing
             | shows that your cognitive function is holding steady day by
             | day, week by week, that is likely not a very good sign. It
             | just means you aren't unraveling at an alarming rate.
             | Better to be evaluated by professionals at the beginning
             | and end, and maybe for some people who already know you to
             | chime in on how unhinged you have or have not become.
        
             | nefrix wrote:
             | He said he would take an hour nap when tired , which means
             | he will have another 6 hours sleep per week, which adds him
             | another full night of sleep every week.
        
           | gopalv wrote:
           | > You can live your life to the maximum extent, without
           | scheduling in the extra time to manage getting to sleep, and
           | feeling tired when you don't.
           | 
           | I did this for a year when I was caring for my dad and
           | working at the same time, but remember that this process
           | makes you almost completely alone because your breaks do not
           | line up with the world around you.
           | 
           | I would wake up at 7 AM on a monday, to attend the weekly
           | planning meetings & keep slipping by about 1 hour every day
           | of the week, so by Thu I am waking up after noon & I tended
           | to just work through the night on Fri to sleep near dawn on
           | Saturday.
           | 
           | The problem was that Fri nights and weekends are when people
           | are mostly ready to socialize or relax, I would literally
           | sleep through the day on Saturday and wake up close to 4 AM
           | on Sunday.
           | 
           | Then go to sleep around 7 PM on Sunday, because I woke up so
           | early and then monday I wake up with 12hours of sleep.
           | 
           | Lost weight from skipping meals by sleeping.
           | 
           | This felt completely awesome from a personal standpoint &
           | also from the friends I had on IRC, but from an IRL
           | standpoint it was very odd.
           | 
           | I definitely looked like a shut-in, even I grew my hair out
           | simply because I did not have the time to go get it cut
           | during business hours.
           | 
           | Then my dad died, which ended that chapter in an unexpected
           | way.
           | 
           | I remembered those days when I had my first kid, the
           | experience was shockingly similar when it comes to perturbed
           | sleep schedules.
        
         | r0ze-at-hn wrote:
         | Biologically I have low melatonin and low cortisol. This means
         | I have trouble falling asleep and then I have trouble waking
         | up.
         | 
         | Countless times in my life I have lived 26-28 hour cycles and
         | otherwise I am in a never ending struggle to live a 24 hour
         | cycle. Once I hit retirement I will definitely try this 28 hour
         | cycle and might even switch to it permanently.
         | 
         | Yeah there are obvious downsides having to do with SO, friends,
         | etc. Having a husband with this same biological quirk would be
         | ideal, but again once I no longer have to go into the office it
         | will be really hard not to fall into a > 24 hour pattern.
        
         | bigiain wrote:
         | > After reading the article I didn't pick up what any of the
         | advantages are of 28hr days
         | 
         | Showing my age here but...
         | 
         | I and some of my friends/classmates used to do the 6day 28hr
         | cycle, to ensure we had access to the computer lab where
         | "normal people" were asleep during the week, but were still
         | mostly "in phase" with everybody else on weekends for
         | socialising.
         | 
         | For those of you who don't understand the term "computer lab",
         | those were the days where my Comp Sci class involved
         | writing/running Pascal code on a shared VAX-11/780 which (from
         | memory here) shared 64MB of memory across all users of the 100
         | or so terminals attached to it. During the day, especially
         | close to assignment deadlines, there were often long wait times
         | to get one of the terminals. If you were there (and awake) at
         | 10pm or 4am, there was usually only a handful of other people
         | using it, with no waiting queues and with noticeably faster
         | performance.
         | 
         | (When I started 2nd year, the first year class behind me still
         | learned Pascal, but got to use the new Macintosh lab. That
         | kinda made the 28hr phase shifting unnecessary, but a bunch of
         | us persisted anyway. By 3rd year, the VAX was under-utilised
         | enough that they added a bunch of modems, and I could connect
         | from home via a 1200/75 baud modem from the Osbourne1 Z80/CPM
         | machine I had at home.)
        
         | aaarrm wrote:
         | He literally points out multiple upsides throughout the entire
         | very short blog post.
        
         | mmahemoff wrote:
         | It doesn't have to mean cutting people out of your life, but
         | you'd have to be more organised in scheduling events. You'd
         | also be unable to regularly attend recurring meetups.
         | 
         | I knew of a sysadmin who followed this schedule so he could
         | monitor the system at different times of day. There's probably
         | the same upside for people who manage certain 24-7 operations
         | (though the downsides outweigh them in most cases).
        
         | jandrewrogers wrote:
         | Decades ago I did a free-running sleep schedule for a few
         | months while working a fairly intensive software project that
         | required almost no interaction with others. I didn't have a
         | schedule, I just slept when I felt like it, and did resistance
         | training throughout the day when I felt like it (I had a bunch
         | of gym equipment in the same room as computers). Empirically,
         | this turned into 26 hour days, so my hours came into phase with
         | "normal" hours roughly every two weeks. It was a pretty
         | comfortable lifestyle, felt pretty healthy, and I put on some
         | muscle.
         | 
         | The main challenges were two-fold. First, there is a
         | significant part of the time where it doesn't line up with
         | store and restaurant hours that well, which is inconvenient.
         | Second, there are few days every couple weeks where your
         | schedule is completely out-of-phase with normal people which
         | makes socializing nigh impossible on those days e.g. waking up
         | at 8pm and going to bed at 2pm. However, since those days were
         | predictable, I'd simply not schedule anything on those days.
         | 
         | I don't think this really works for a global business though.
         | Many people around the world are really fussy about rigid
         | schedules, and you will only overlap those a third of the time.
         | 
         | All that said, I think for >24 hour days to be practical, it
         | would be best in a synthetic environment where everyone is on
         | the same clock with limited access to natural sunlight. I could
         | totally imagine it being viable for something like a submarine.
        
           | m463 wrote:
           | I'll bet a lot of people did that experiment at the beginning
           | of covid.
        
           | econ wrote:
           | I did a similar experiment for 14 days when I was 13-14ish,
           | it balanced out to 20-30 minutes wake and a 5 to 10 min nap.
           | 
           | It was pretty wild. I coded (machine code) in bed until my
           | head got heavy then I would nap and wake up shortly after
           | with the task noticably organized in my head. It felt
           | perfectly natural to sleep on it as well as to wake up when
           | the data was parsed. I kinda lived in the twilight zone.
           | 
           | Fun details: the room was perfectly dark. The tv was set to
           | be so dark that I had to wait for my eyes to adjust to see
           | the code. Nothing else was visible. The bed was tilted about
           | a foot. The computer had no mouse pointer.
        
         | throwawayk7h wrote:
         | Overall more hours awake. 7x8 < 6x9
        
           | Freak_NL wrote:
           | > 7x8 < 6x9
           | 
           | Not usually, no. Typo?
        
             | cko wrote:
             | His statement is still correct, even though he inverted the
             | sign.
             | 
             | Fewer hours asleep means 2 more hours awake.
        
             | throwawayk7h wrote:
             | whoops!
        
         | somethingsome wrote:
         | I don't follow such a program, but I sleep when needed, so if
         | I'm sleepy, I go to sleep, and I wake up at wathever hour, no
         | alarms. This means that sometimes I have long sleep nights,
         | other times I only have naps, most of the time it is a mix
         | between both. Lately I go to sleep around 3-6 in the morning,
         | wake up around 8-11 and sometimes have naps during the day.
         | (same principle for eating)
         | 
         | I do this at least from 10 years without bad effects, the
         | positive effects are that I'm more awake and feel fresh longer,
         | in control of my mental power.
         | 
         | It is quite easy to do it while having normal life obligations,
         | I can wake up sooner if something needs to be done, and then,
         | after the task, I can continue to do my day until sleepy, at
         | which point I can sleep again. So, if I have many meeting on a
         | day, I can stay up all day without issues, maybe I'll sleep
         | more in the evening or following day.
         | 
         | I think the quantity of sleep I require depends on the tasks
         | I'm doing. If some task is particularly mentally exhausting
         | I'll automatically do more naps during the day, this in turn
         | makes me more efficient at solving difficult problems.
         | 
         | It is extremely comfortable to solve hard problems in this way,
         | when you work too long on it, you get sleepy, and as you wake
         | up, you are again fully focused and with fresh perspectives.
        
         | MrsPeaches wrote:
         | All in the original post: https://sidhion.com/blog/28h_days/
         | 
         | This was just the 1 year update.
         | 
         | Idea is that you go to be when you feel tired.
        
       | daft_pink wrote:
       | Is there a link to the initial post where you explain the whole
       | thing? I'm curious now.
        
         | fastball wrote:
         | Yes, it is linked[1] in the first sentence of the article.
         | 
         | [1] https://sidhion.com/blog/28h_days/
        
           | daft_pink wrote:
           | Thanks somehow I missed that!
        
       | dinkumthinkum wrote:
       | Honestly, this reads like some kind of mercurial character in a
       | sci-fi novel.
        
       | timerol wrote:
       | It makes me happy that OP posted
       | https://sidhion.com/blog/28h_days/ in October of 2023, and
       | somehow lasted 4 months before learning about
       | https://xkcd.com/320/. It's interesting that OP decided to try to
       | align to a daytime schedule on the weekend, instead of during the
       | workweek as in the comic.
        
       | 4fterd4rk wrote:
       | "Leave it to a white man to cut a foot off the end of a blanket
       | and sew it on the top of the blanket and think it makes the
       | blanket longer."
        
       | WillAdams wrote:
       | I maintained such a schedule for over a year when I was in the
       | Air Force --- the schedule was 9 days on, 3 swings, followed by 3
       | mids, followed by 3 day shifts, then 3 days off --- extending
       | one's sleep cycle to a longer "day" allowed one to make things
       | fit together w/o too much disruption.
       | 
       | That said, avoiding having to do that again was a big motivation
       | in getting out.
        
       | santoshalper wrote:
       | This may be the most Hacker News thing I've heard since Soylent.
        
         | henry2023 wrote:
         | This is objectively worse than Soylent.
        
       | 404mm wrote:
       | I find it amusing how the OP has the need to label meals within
       | the day and gripes about how they don't match when talking to
       | others on a regular 24-hour schedule. They are just meals. You're
       | hungry, so you eat. It's a meal.
       | 
       | Only one note: OP sounds like a younger person, probably in their
       | 20s. My body was able to take some serious abuse when it came to
       | sleep schedule back then. I had a job that kept alternating
       | between 2-3 day shifts, then 2-3 night shifts, then 2-3 days off.
       | Sometimes I'd not go to sleep for 24+ hours.
       | 
       | I'm twice the age now, and I'm still paying for it. My sleep is
       | not great. I have to be very responsible with sticking to my
       | schedule, and waking up anytime after 3 a.m. results in an
       | inability to fall asleep and a day-long headache.
        
         | gorbachev wrote:
         | My experience is very similar.
         | 
         | When I was young, I could stay up for 26 - 30 hours regularly
         | without any issues, even on multiple consecutive days. I would
         | be fine no matter how I slept.
         | 
         | No more. If my sleep schedule gets disrupted in any way, too
         | short or too long, my body will immediately go into "things are
         | not right" mode.
        
         | yard2010 wrote:
         | Reminds me of my trip to south america, in which I had no meal
         | plans, just munchies plans
        
       | Aurornis wrote:
       | I've been fascinated with alternative sleep schedules since I was
       | very young. My initial interest turned to a fascination when I
       | realized the only positive long-term reports were usually from
       | people trying to sell something: Their book, a sleep plan, or
       | just using their sleep cycle as a social hook to impress others
       | (influencers, basically). All of the forum reports started out
       | optimistic and then ended in disappointment with basically nobody
       | enjoying them after a long time.
       | 
       | One of the common themes was that people would think their lives
       | were better at first. A sort of placebo effect. They'd push
       | through the adaptation phase, which was miserable, and when they
       | adapted they felt slightly better. Often this improvement
       | (relative to the miserable adaptation period) was mistake for an
       | absolute improvement because it had been so long since they had a
       | normal sleep schedule.
       | 
       | What was really interesting was that most people reported some
       | variation of the same thing: They didn't realize how much they
       | disliked the alternative sleep schedule until after they stopped
       | it. Some people stuck with it for a long time until life forced
       | them to change (job, marriage, etc). It wasn't until they went
       | back to normal that they realized how much better it was to just
       | not fight the sunlight and night time that drives us.
       | 
       | It would be interesting to see how this person feels at some
       | point in the future if they go back to a normal sleep schedule.
        
         | pcthrowaway wrote:
         | Please familiarize yourself with the community of
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/N24
         | 
         | No one is selling anything. There are many of us who benefit
         | remarkably from what you're calling an "alternative sleep
         | schedule" (I'm not specifically talking about 28-hour day
         | entrainment like the blog author, but whatever works for each
         | individual based on their own idiosyncratic circadian rhythm)
         | 
         | Many of us have periods where we have to go back to 24-hour
         | schedules due to external factors, and sleep quality and
         | duration suffer as a result. For myself, in the winter when my
         | schedule is a little >27 hours, when I enforced waking up at 8
         | AM Monday-Friday for a 9-5, my schedule might go something like
         | this:
         | 
         | > Sunday night: Sleep 7-8 hours starting at midnight.
         | 
         | > Monday night: Sleep 5 hours starting ~3 AM Tuesday.
         | 
         | > Tuesday night: Sleep 2-3 hours starting at ~5 AM Wednesday.
         | Sometimes with exhaustion I may then be able to fall asleep at
         | 5-6 PM (Wednesday) but often would stay up til closer to
         | midnight-2AM. Regardless, when I fall asleep I likely will wake
         | up in 1 or 2 hours and be unable to go back to sleep, as my
         | body doesn't believe it's in the sleep phase.
         | 
         | > "Wednesday night?": There isn't really a Wednesday night
         | except on the occasion where I managed to sleep more than 2
         | hours. Sometimes I'm up all night with no nap; more than half
         | the time I can't sleep more than 3 hours. Occasionally I'm
         | actually able to stay asleep during what my body thinks is a
         | nap to pay off sleep debt.
         | 
         | > "Thursday night?": Exhausted from having slept no more than 9
         | hours in the last 48 hours, and usually closer to 3-4 hours,
         | I'll collapse around 5-7 PM from exhaustion and sleep until
         | midnight-5AM.
         | 
         | > "Friday night?": Often I'm ready for sleep by 5-8 PM and will
         | sleep 8-9 hours. But I'll also occasionally try to sleep less
         | and push myself to go out at 9-10 PM if there's an event
         | happening. After being more active and if I slept less than 4
         | hours I can usually pick up another 1-3.5 hours of sleep after
         | 4 or 5 AM.
         | 
         | > Saturday night: If I got a full night's sleep, or went out
         | Friday but slept a little bit after, I may be more energized,
         | so this is the more consistent day for weekend plans. If sleep
         | was poor I'll try to sleep an hour or two early in the evening
         | before going out and then sleep 3 AM to 9 AM or so. If I didn't
         | have Saturday plans I may go to sleep at 8 PM and sleep til 5
         | AM.
         | 
         | > Sunday night: Usually fall asleep somewhere around midnight
         | but who knows? I could be up til 3 AM depending on how the
         | weekend went.
         | 
         | All told I would probably get an average of ~5.5 to 6 hour of
         | sleep per 24-hour day, but with significant periods running on
         | very little sleep.
         | 
         | Now that I work from home and have few meetings, my schedule
         | may look more like the following:
         | 
         | > Sunday night: Sleep from midnight to 7 or 8 AM
         | 
         | > Monday night: Sleep from 3 AM (Tuesday) to 10 AM (in time for
         | my 10 AM Tuesday meeting).
         | 
         | > "...": Sleep Wednesday from 6 AM to 1 or 2 PM (Wednesday)
         | 
         | > "...": Sleep Thursday from 9 AM to 4 or 5 PM. Stay awake for
         | my 10 AM meeting Friday.
         | 
         | > "...": Friday I have a meeting from 10-11, then often
         | coordinate with coworkers til noon, but as late as 2 PM (rarely
         | later). So I sleep after and wake up any time friday from 7 PM
         | to 9 PM, go out feeling relatively well-rested.
         | 
         | > "...": Saturday if I have plans I take a nap then go out and
         | fall asleep around 3 AM until 10 AM.
         | 
         | Sunday I probably won't be able to sleep at midnight. Tuesday
         | my 10 AM meeting this week will probably interrupt my sleep
         | phase, but I can usually go right back to sleep after.
         | 
         | All in all on this schedule I get longer periods of
         | uninterrupted sleep, get an average closer to 6.5 hours of
         | sleep per 24-hour period, and never have periods of 48 hours
         | where I only sleep 2 hours, so my overall energy and focus over
         | the week is much better.
        
         | niz4ts wrote:
         | (I'm the post author)
         | 
         | For the few weeks that I'm required to go back to a "normal"
         | sleep schedule, I long every day to go back to my 28h schedule.
         | 
         | I might at some point in the future try moving back to 24h for
         | a longer period of time, but I'm planning to stick to the 28h
         | schedule for at least a couple more years before I do this, and
         | I'll keep doing the yearly updates to document things.
        
         | grishka wrote:
         | Fight the sunlight? What the hell do you even _mean_?! I don 't
         | have a 24-hour sleeping schedule naturally. I can force myself
         | into it, but I'll feel miserable because I have to fight my own
         | body to not "fight the sunlight". Some people start naturally
         | getting drowsy in the evening every day, yes, sure. Good for
         | them. I'm not one of those people.
         | 
         | So I'm very much with the author here and I might actually try
         | 28-hour days because what I have for the last 10 years is a
         | mess.
        
           | ericyd wrote:
           | I think they mean that light exposure has been causally
           | linked to wakefulness, which I'm sure is a statistical thing
           | and not an absolute thing, meaning your experience is still
           | valid even though it's different. Your indignation made me
           | chuckle though, I appreciate the tone.
        
           | dahart wrote:
           | > Fight the sunlight? What the hell do you even mean?!
           | 
           | Are you not getting much sunlight? I can understand the
           | reaction to being told something that doesn't match your
           | experience. But. The link between sunlight and sleep for most
           | life on earth is pretty well established science, and has a
           | name: Circadian Rhythm.
           | 
           | Have you ever tried camping for a week? My sleep tends to
           | drift when I'm working indoors a lot, up late at night a lot,
           | during winter, etc. But if I spend multiple days outside, it
           | starts to align with sunrise almost immediately.
           | 
           | Both of these links say that Circadian Rhythms tend to drift
           | and be longer than a day on average in the absence of
           | sunlight.
           | 
           | https://www.sleepfoundation.org/circadian-rhythm
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm
        
             | grishka wrote:
             | I'm not getting much sunlight. Especially now. But I was
             | getting plenty when I lived in Dubai for several months.
             | Didn't change anything much, my sleeping schedule was still
             | slipping. So no, your theory is wrong.
             | 
             | Non-24-hour sleep/wake disorder is not something one can
             | fix like this. I would if I could. I've had this problem
             | since my late teens.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wak
             | e...
        
               | dahart wrote:
               | Fair enough, but it's called a disorder for a reason.
               | It's still reasonable for people to talk about the known
               | link between sun and sleep by default, and not assume
               | something's wrong with you, right? It sounds like you
               | were already aware what it meant before asking?
        
       | memhole wrote:
       | Really interesting! I was interested in polyphasic sleep for a
       | moment.
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
       | 
       | I never actually tried it from what I remember. Cool to read
       | someone's experience with it.
        
       | efitz wrote:
       | I once changed my schedule for a month to sleeping 4 hours,
       | waking for 4, sleeping 4, and then waking for 12. I would work in
       | the day, come home, sleep 4, wake 4, and then sleep 4 more, then
       | off to work again. On weekends I switched to a normal 16/8
       | schedule.
       | 
       | I got plenty of rest and got all my domestic stuff done overnight
       | - 24h grocery store, laundromat, etc. I was never unusually
       | tired.
       | 
       | The down side is that it mostly killed my social life. So I quit;
       | the advantages didn't outweigh the disadvantage of being on a
       | different schedule than everyone else.
       | 
       | Also this was in the late 80s/early 90s before cell phones and
       | the internet.
        
         | beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
         | My brother had a friend try this in university while studying
         | for exams and, according to my brother, it basically made the
         | guy lose his mind. Seems like a roll of the dice on whether it
         | works for people or not.
        
         | batiudrami wrote:
         | This seems like the biggest disadvantage to me too. I see
         | friends four or five nights a week so I would have to give a
         | lot of that up.
         | 
         | Which is a shame because longer days would probably
         | significantly improve my sleep.
        
         | bigiain wrote:
         | > I once changed my schedule for a month to sleeping 4 hours,
         | waking for 4, sleeping 4, and then waking for 12.
         | 
         | That's pretty common for crew on yachts. I'd do that when
         | racing or cruising ocean going sailboats. The crew gets split
         | into 3rds, and everybody gets to do a 4 hour night watch. (For
         | racing for me, that'd usually be only for a few days or a week
         | tops. I twice spent ~6weeks on that schedule cruising the Great
         | Barrier Reef.)
        
         | aomurphy wrote:
         | There's a very active historical debate about whether a
         | schedule like this, often called "biphasic sleep", was more
         | common in pre-industrial societies. There's a historian called
         | Roger Ekirch who thinks it was, starting in his 2004 book "At
         | Day's Close - Night in Times Past". There's a bunch of
         | criticism of it, since the sources are a bit ambiguous, or if
         | he's generalizing from Medieval England (his main focus).
        
       | uint8_t wrote:
       | See also these internet-historical gems from everything2:
       | 
       | Uberman's sleep schedule - every 4 hours, sleep 20 minutes.
       | 
       | https://everything2.com/title/Uberman%2527s+Sleep+Schedule
       | 
       | Everyman sleep schedule - per above, with an additional 3-hour
       | nap each 24 hours.
       | 
       | https://everything2.com/title/Everyman+Sleep+Schedule
       | 
       | Of course, the surest way to experiment with an alternative sleep
       | schedule is to simply take care of a newborn, something humans
       | have gotten pretty good at over the millennia.
        
         | collinmcnulty wrote:
         | Yep, I remember reading about these as a youth and thinking,
         | wow what a random bit of biology. Then I had a kid and was
         | like, oh, I see why this is in there.
        
       | zblevins wrote:
       | My wife would file for a divorce. This reminds me a bit of when I
       | tried polyphasic sleeping about 20 years ago which was an
       | absolute disaster.
        
       | jeremyjh wrote:
       | I assumed this is satire and ... its not?
       | 
       | Yet lines like this just seem really tongue-in-cheek:
       | 
       | > In fact, I avoid talking about the schedule at all with others.
       | 
       | > The internal benefits more than make up for the slightly
       | trickier external interactions.
       | 
       | > I don't keep track of this in any scientific way, only mental
       | notes that I make along the way
       | 
       | > There might be some longer-term changes, mostly associated with
       | my health, but if these exist, they'll likely start showing up in
       | the next few years. We'll see what the future holds.
        
       | OsrsNeedsf2P wrote:
       | For about 3 years, I did 12 hour days (4 hour sleep sessions) and
       | inverted days (go to sleep at 7am, wake up at 3pm). The benefits
       | outlined in the article were definitely there - Life felt less
       | busy, and I had a new perspective on everything - But I got sick
       | often, and doing a hard reversal to accommodate visiting family
       | or friends on weekends was brutal (I fell asleep multiple times
       | at houses when I was supposed to be "hanging out").
       | 
       | Overall - I don't regret it, and if you're someone who likes to
       | try different life experiences, give it a shot! But I'm not going
       | back anytime soon :)
        
       | ArlenBales wrote:
       | I hiked the PCT last year over 85 days and slept on average 5-6
       | hours a night (except days off) and hiked 30+ miles a day over
       | 16+ hours a day. It's weird the things your body can do if you
       | push yourself beyond the expected norms.
        
       | edoardo-schnell wrote:
       | Isn't this basically a curious way to stay away from people a bit
       | more?
        
         | fuzzfactor wrote:
         | One person's anti-social responsibilities are another person's
         | way of getting a lot done without as many people bugging them
         | ;)
        
       | Glyptodon wrote:
       | I seem to be stuck in a loop of sleeping 9h and sleeping 6h
       | (which I hate) because I reliably wake up at about the same time,
       | but can't reliably fall asleep exactly 7.5h before it (I guess).
       | Does that suggest my circadian rhythm is just out of whack w/
       | 24h?
        
         | pcthrowaway wrote:
         | That depends on whether you're falling asleep around the same
         | time (+-1.5 hrs) every night or not.
         | 
         | If you are, then you're likely adjusted to the 24 natural cycle
         | and something else is going on. The closest thing I'm aware of
         | is
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregular_sleep%E2%80%93wake_r...
        
       | JeremyBarbosa wrote:
       | Interesting that there is some research (though only n=11!) on
       | 28h days:
       | 
       | Neurobehavioral Performance in Young Adults Living on a 28-h Day
       | for 6 Weeks
       | 
       | https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2706904/
        
         | janderson215 wrote:
         | An n of almost 40,000,000 seems pretty substantial to me.
        
       | grishka wrote:
       | Interesting. I have a similar problem that I haven't had any
       | obligations to follow the "normal people schedule" ever since I
       | graduated the university (and even then, I got like 4 hours of
       | sleep and slept on the subway on my way there and felt like a
       | zombie for a few hours in the morning anyway). I'm constantly out
       | of sync with the rest of the society and this sometimes gets
       | rather frustrating, but I can't seem to do much about it. I can
       | _try_ to strong-arm myself into it but that only works for so
       | long, my schedule still slips eventually. The longest I was able
       | to maintain a  "normal person schedule" was around 2 months. Not
       | sure at this point whether this is a blessing or a curse.
       | 
       | So, I might actually try this.
        
       | neilv wrote:
       | > _Those 2 months were hard, [...] but also with the SO
       | complaining that I wasn't available to reply to messages
       | sometimes (because I was sleeping when she was awake), which was
       | no encouragement to keep going._
       | 
       | I hope it's not too personal to ask, but I'm wondering how that
       | is working out with the SO.
       | 
       | My own experience thus far, as someone whose body by default
       | seems to want to do 25-26 hour days (and can do much longer when
       | I choose), is that an SO is one reason to force myself to stay on
       | a 24-hour cycle.
       | 
       | If you're both doing grad school, hospital shifts, startups,
       | trying to make partner, traveling a lot for work, etc., then
       | having your schedules not always overlap might come with the
       | territory, and you both can adapt. But if they find they're often
       | wanting to spend meaningful time with you after their work, and
       | you're sleeping during normal-person waking hours, they might be
       | wondering whether this is the right long-term relationship.
        
       | hattmall wrote:
       | I've found that biphasic sleep seems to fill a similar role for
       | me. When I'm able I don't set alarms or make any preparations
       | toward going to bed. I just sleep when I'm tired and wake up
       | naturally. That leads to me often falling asleep around dark and
       | waking up about 2.5-3.5 hours later. Then I'm up for a few hours,
       | and asleep again a little bit before the sun comes up for a few
       | more hours.
       | 
       | Now when I'm not able to just sleep and wake up completely
       | naturally it always sucks following a more normal schedule of
       | going to bed around midnight waking up around 7.
       | 
       | So I try to prioritize the biphasic sleep with the idea that the
       | stages are variable. As in sometimes I sleep through all 3
       | stages, sometimes I stay up after the first time I wake up, or
       | sometimes I don't initially fall asleep until the last stage.
       | 
       | I find that my days don't fit a 24 hours schedule either, but I
       | don't feel like they fit the same set amount of hours each day at
       | all.My motivational and energy levels are just different
       | depending on the day and have a wake / rest cycle that can fit
       | with that is beneficial.
        
       | Starlevel004 wrote:
       | As someone with non-24 it's crazy to see somebody _wanting_ to do
       | this. It 's like seeing somebody actively seek out a lobotomy.
        
       | gadders wrote:
       | Anyone else remember when Steve Pavlina trialled polyphasic (30
       | minute nap every 4 hours) sleep for a year or two?
       | https://stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/
       | 
       | I just checked the dates and it was 20 years ago. Soooooo old....
        
       | eqvinox wrote:
       | This article would really benefit from stating how old (roughly)
       | the author is... a good portion of people in my bubble report
       | changes to sleep habits (and needs) in their early to mid 30ies.
        
       | JohnMakin wrote:
       | What wasn't entirely clear to me was the why - I'm by no means
       | against alternative sleep schedules, but this seems far more
       | bother than it is worth. I've struggled with termination insomnia
       | most of my life, waking up extremely early and not being able to
       | go back to sleep - and in recent years have managed to make that
       | work for my full schedule by basically sleeping ~4 hours, awake
       | for 8, sleeping 4, awake 8, etc.
       | 
       | So a typical schedule could look like:
       | 
       | 10pm-2am - sleep
       | 
       | 2am-10am - awake
       | 
       | 10am-2pm - sleep
       | 
       | 2pm-10pm - awake
       | 
       | I've experimented with this a lot - for whatever reason, I don't
       | know why, this split schedule allows me to feel much more alert
       | and attentive during my waking hours, and isn't as stressful as
       | trying to sleep a full 7-8 per night which a lot of times feels
       | impossible for me.
       | 
       | Sometimes I'll do 5-6 hours sleep on 1 cycle instead of 4, so it
       | can shift around, but otherwise stays pretty consistent.
       | Technically I am getting just as many sleep cycles as a "normal"
       | schedule (One part of this was a sleep study to figure out what
       | my natural full rem cycle is, for me, it's about 2 hours long).
       | 
       | I've been doing this for about 2 years and wouldn't do anything
       | else, and it's really not difficult to fit it into a "normal"
       | routine. My close friends have remarked that it makes it seem
       | like I never sleep (due to being available at hours all around
       | the clock), that's about all that anyone has remarked about it.
        
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