Hacking sleep two months later
I have been hacking my sleep to achieve the optimum sleeping period. Two months back when I started this experiment, I was sleeping almost 9 hrs per day. Today I am spending only 6.5 hrs per day on sleep. The gain of 2.5 hours per day is very big.
It started with reducing from 9 hours to 7.5 hours. It was tough, specially during the afternoon. Initially I had to take a quick nap (20 minutes) at my desk after lunch. 
But then my body got used to it. A month & half later I took another giant step and reduced the duration to 6.5 hours. Again I went through the same cycle which involved similar noon naps. As of today, my sleep duration is only 6.5hrs per day *with out* any noon naps.
Another change I made w.r.t to my sleeping is to have fixed timings. Before I used to sleep anytime between 9pm-2am and get up anytime between 7am-9am. Now it is more fixed. Now I sleep strictly at 12am and wake up by 6am. My body is so used to it that I don't need wake up alarms.
The standard side effects of reduced sleep are loss of weight, irritation, low concentration etc. As of now I don't see any side effects (or I don't know). In fact my other experiment of "Put on weight" is also giving positive results :)
The ultimate plan is to reduce the sleep duration to 6 hours. But I am still not sure if my body can take it. I am planning to go with 6.5 hours for six more months and then take my next step.
Additional Reading:
1. Polyphasic sleep
2. Why We Nap
3. Dymaxion Sleep-Time Magazine
I too am starting off this weekend. I want to try that Uberman’s sleep schedule.
Good luck with that.
very true. Once your body is used to the sleeping timings, you do not need to force it too sleep/wake-up.
In my case, the timings are mostly around 12~12:30 at night to 7 in the morning.
Hopped in after long ….. Need some good sleep as well !!
Stay Connected ……… Adios
@Rahul Viswanath : Yup, Quality than Quantity.
Sorry Thej, as I mentioned earlier sleep is not what you need to hack at, it is what you do during the day that you need to hack and remove unnecessary clutter in it. I wouldn’t want you to regret it later(not in 2 or 3 months, but after several years) when you have physical and more importantly psychological problems due to this hacking at the hours you sleep – so quit this experiment right now, you will be just fine without those extra hours. This is an unnatural local sub-optimization that doesn’t look at the whole picture – body needs rest and sleeping is the most natural way to do it. Sorry if I am sounding a bit harsh, but the intent is very very noble Thej.