Can sleeping only two hours a day make you more productive?

Experiment One 

The café owner looks at me and repeats his question. ‘Well, do you want ketchup with that?’ I know I’ve just ordered a bacon sandwich and, although I understand the words he’s using, I think he’s implying something else, which I can’t quite comprehend. Why is he looking at me like that? What is he really trying to say?

While all these thoughts are going through my head, I realise I still haven’t answered. I’ve just been staring at him. Because I’m suffering from severe sleep deprivation.

In the interests of science, I’m taking part in an extreme sleep experiment for a TV pilot.

According to experts, we spend nearly a third of our lives in bed. I want to find out if it’s possible to radically reduce the amount of time I spend asleep, and become more productive.

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Goodnight sleepyhead:Tom Mitchelson took part in an extreme sleep experiment for a TV pilot

There is a growing number of people, apparently, who practise something called polyphasic sleeping. This means sleeping in short bursts throughout the day, rather than the traditional, nightly, seven-hour chunk (monophasic sleep).Winston Churchill, Leonardo Da Vinci and Napoleon were all reported to have slept this way.

Dr Chris Alford, a specialist in the science of sleep at the University of the West of England, has agreed to help me with my project. He talks me through my options.

I’m keen to try ‘The Uberman’ — the most extreme form of polyphasic sleep. It involves a 20-minute nap every four hours, day and night. This is a total of two hours a day.

If I manage this, I could gain up to 42 hours every week, or as much as 91 days a year. Time which I currently spend contentedly snoring. It’s estimated that, if everyone in the UK did this, the economy could earn an extra £800billion a year.

During our seven or eight hours’ block sleep, we spend over half in light sleep, which is less beneficial. So, the hope is that, by napping regularly, it is possible to train our bodies to pass quickly into REM (Rapid Eye Movement) — arguably the most nourishing cycle of sleep — and, eventually, our short naps will give us all the ‘good sleep’ we need.

Dr Alford runs some basic aptitude tests on me, including a multi-tasking test, a driving simulator, a test of grip strength and a memory test. He also measures my levels of cortisol, the hormone produced when we’re stressed, and my blood pressure. He’ll re-test me in four days’ time. He also helps me draw up a sleep schedule, which starts at 2pm with a 20-minute nap, followed by another 20-minute nap at 6pm, then a nap every four hours through the day.

DAY ONE

It’s time for my first nap. I close my eyes. I do not drift away into slumber. Instead, I lie there thinking, ‘Oh no, I’ve got to get up in 19 minutes and if I don’t grab some sleep now, it’ll be four hours before I can try again.’

That night, I fail to sleep at all. Each sleep window slams shut before the God of dreams, Morpheus, can work his magic. I do, however, use the extra time to finish writing a chapter of my novel, clear out under the sink, and bring my accounts up to date. Result.

DAY TWO

I managed to nap for six minutes before waking myself up with the thought, ‘I wonder how long I’ve been asleep.’

I miss my 10am nap because I’m travelling to a meeting, and I miss the 2pm one because I’m coming back home. That evening, I try to revitalise myself with a trip to the pub. My brain is already misfiring and messing up the signals I’m getting from my ears.

Sound is becoming distorted, people’s voices are echoing, like someone has put a pillow over my head. I’m shocked at how quickly my faculties are deteriorating. When I return, I’m too tired to do any work, so I spend the night watching old films.

If you think about it, polyphasic sleeping is not such an unusual thing. Don’t babies nap throughout the day and night? It’s also a practice embraced by most animals.

Enthusiasts go as far as to say we are all naturally polyphasic sleepers. Having not slept for 48 hours, it doesn’t feel that way to me.

I want to meet someone who has achieved it successfully, so I visit Alex Thomson, the fastest Briton to sail single-handedly, non-stop around the world. and he’s done it all by cat-napping: ‘I trained myself to sleep for 20 minutes every two hours. It’s the only way to sail around the world if you’re on your own.’ 

‘I trained myself to sleep for 20 minutes every two hours. It’s the only way to sail around the world if you’re on your own,' said Alex Thomson (above), the fastest Briton to sail single-handedly, non-stop around the world

He says it’s ‘near impossible’ to adapt: ‘I kept falling into a deep sleep, so I had to enlist people to help me.

‘They would wake me up by prodding me with a long stick because, in my sleep-deprived state, I was inclined to lash out.’ Alex says the hardest thing is to remain disciplined. ‘I eventually managed to adapt but, during a race, it’s easier because you want to win and you don’t want to die.

‘This forces you to stick to the schedule, but you won’t have that.’ So, the prize of acquiring all those extra hours of consciousness depends on motivation.

DAY THREE

Napping to order for a short time is proving virtually impossible. Alex told me he couldn’t wake up. My problem is the reverse. I’ve had a total of 41 minutes’ sleep in 52 hours and I feel terrible.

I cook a lunch for seven people, surprising myself at how well I’m functioning, but I feel as if I’m not really in the room.

Menial tasks I’m familiar with are not the problem. It’s taking on new information that is proving almost impossible. Conversations are a struggle. I’m so tired, I keep checking my watch to see when my nap is due.

Unfortunately, by the time it arrives, I’m so anxious about sleeping, I only manage to drop off in the last few minutes. I can no longer concentrate, so I use the time to reorganise my bookshelf by genre, and bag up my jar of coppers. Hardly critical jobs.

My friend Ian has offered to help keep me awake during the night. In the absence of anything better to do, and aware that I have to have some sort of stimulation to stay awake, we play a children’s game, KerPlunk. This is a bad idea. Ian fails to grasp the rules.

He tells me I’m playing it wrong and I shout, ‘Don’t pretend to know the rules of KerPlunk if you don’t actually know the rules of KerPlunk! This is a stupid, waste of time!’

I get up and leave the room. I’m genuinely angry. Dr Alford had warned me about mood swings and aggression.

He also stressed that reduced sleep is linked to heart problems, diabetes and depression, and that he was worried I’d be missing out on slow wave sleep, the cycle that helps the frontal cortex of the brain recover.

This is the part that controls decision-making and the more emotional, primitive parts of us.

DAY FOUR

I’ve ceased to function properly and need people with me for my safety. My inability to nap has given me a real sympathy for insomniacs. It’s like torture.

I go shopping, but get so confused while buying milk, I have to ask the shop assistant to talk me through my change.

Even then, I can barely understand her explanation. I stare at the coins, unsure as to their value. I feel vulnerable and as if my brain is slowly dying.

It’s what I imagine victims of dementia feel like. Certainty that you know what is going on around you, then a sudden disintegration of that certainty, which leaves you feeling vulnerable.

Dr Alford said the signals in the memory part of my brain would simply stop getting through.

Although he admitted that much of what sleep does is still a mystery, he told me ‘a growth hormone is released when we sleep that helps repair your cells and tissues.

‘Sleep balances your blood sugar levels and helps consolidate new things you’ve learned, but there’s a natural variation of how much sleep humans require.

‘Margaret Thatcher famously slept for only four hours a night, but Albert Einstein needed ten. We do know that the human body adapts to sleeping less.

‘From an evolutionary point of view, that makes sense. Long sleeps would have left our ancestors vulnerable to predators.’

Sleep balances your blood sugar levels and helps consolidate new things you’ve learned, but there’s a natural variation of how much sleep humans require.Margaret Thatcher famously slept for only four hours a night, but Albert Einstein needed ten. We do know that the human body adapts to sleeping less.

Someone approaches me on the street and asks if I’m OK. I mutter a reply. I accuse the director of our TV pilot of tricking me and setting him up to come to talk to me. He denies it. I want to go home. I no longer feel as if I can look after myself.

By the end of day four, I’ve only managed to sleep for an hour and 30 minutes in 90 hours. I’ve stayed awake so, theoretically, have gained hours of extra consciousness.

I return to see Dr Alford. He re-runs the tests. My memory is operating at 20 per cent of its former capacity. when I come to the multi-tasking, I forget, or don’t notice, one of the elements completely. Overall, I’m only half as responsive as before.

My ability to maintain a grip has been reduced by nearly 50 per cent. The driving simulator is a disaster. I score 43 out of 100, as opposed to my original score of 86. My cortisol levels are much higher, and my blood pressure is up.

Experiment Two 

Dr Alford tells me to quit, as I can’t function normally. I hate failing, but I’m no longer myself. My lack of sleep has become painful.

We agree a new schedule, known as ‘The Everyman’. This involves a core three hours’ sleep. I’ll have this from 2am to 5am, then 20-minute naps from 10am every four hours as before.

This will give me four hours 20 minutes in total, and should be much easier to manage.

I head home to bed. Sixteen hours later, I wake up. It is the best night’s sleep of my life.

The core sleep I know I’ll get helps reduce my anxiety about napping. I find I’m dropping off on a regular basis and waking up feeling refreshed 

For the next week, I use the new schedule. The core sleep I know I’ll get helps reduce my anxiety about napping. I find I’m dropping off on a regular basis and waking up feeling refreshed.

My productivity starts to increase, and I begin to recover. I manage to do all the little jobs that I’ve never had the time to do, even before the working day begins.

By 9am, I’m exhausted, but the 10am nap rejuvenates me, at least for an hour or so.

As the week progresses, I find I’m getting more done. The experiment is working. There’s one drawback: I’m feeling increasingly less happy. It’s as if I’m still me, but a more reserved, less exuberant version.

Certainly, for a short-term fix, if I was on a strict deadline, I may well revert to this pattern in the future. but as a lifestyle choice it’s not one I’d embrace. I like sleep too much.

We might all want more time in the day, but, if you ask people what they’d do with a few extra hours, it’s funny how many of them say they’d use it for a lie-in.

After my gruelling experience of sleep-deprivation, I know they have a point.

Via Dailymail