Biphasic sleep resources
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A recent comment on one of Steve Pavlina’s forums indicated that the information covering Biphasic Sleep is somewhat lacking. Sadly, it is; these however are good places to get started :
Blogs
The power of the Sleep CycleGlen Rhodes
This is the article that helped to establish by basic sleeping times and their split. Although originally written in 2003, it was updated in 2005 and contains some good information.
Six hours of sleep daily
Eric (Distinct from Ultimate Health & Conditioning)
Eric has recently switched over to a biphasic sleep schedule, and is posting brief updates of the experience on his site.
Biphasic Sleep FAQ
Devin Reams
This covers several of the common questions and answers for biphasic sleepers (Devin follows a similar split to my own).
Cutting out the crap
Joesph Young
Whilst I don’t agree with a couple of statements in this article, the overall ideas are interesting (alternative viewpoints always are). In particular, this strikes me as odd :
Take a step back and realize that if you are to adopt a biphasic or polyphasic sleep system, you are asking yourself to make a HUGE change in your life. I mean HUGE - on par with buying your first house, or deciding to go strictly vegetarian, or even taking care of your first child.
Personally, I didn’t find the change all that dramatic (in a negative way - there were plenty of benefits, and they keep growing all the time). It would surely depend upon the lifestyle of the person making the switch; immediately prior to the change.
In my case, I’ve essentially just lopped a little off the end of my monophasic sleep (I used to wake up around 9am, now it’s around 7am, and moved it to a 75 minute nap start around 7:30pm. The core sleep now begins around 2am; when I was monophasic I started around 1:00-1:30.
However, the article - in fact the entire biphasic sleep category on that site - is still a good read.
Finally, I humbly offer up several of my own pieces on biphasic sleeping :
- Biphasic Sleeping update
An update a little over two months after the switch to biphasic sleeping. - Napping in the afternoon
Results of a week-long trial of switching the nap from early evening to mid-afternoon. - Biphasic Sleep: 30 day summary
This post takes a comprehensive look at the initial 30 day trial. It was a very rewarding experience. This post also contains links to journal entries from each day of the trial period. - First week of workouts on biphasic sleep
Exactly what it says on the tin. - 30 days of biphasic sleep
Initial plans for the trial, and a brief discussion of the original motivation for the change. - Power of the 90 minute nap
The post which started it all.
Forums
If the abovementioned Glen Rhodes article left you curious, take a wander through this thread on his forums. Some very interesting stuff there.
Steve Pavlina Forums - Health and Fitness
There are many threads on biphasic sleep here - highly recommended. These include :
- Biphasic long-term sleepers
- Eliminating sleep is closer than you think
- X-phasic sleep experiments: where do you sleep?
- Sleep learning?
- Post your polyphasic sleep logs here
- Polyphasic sleep
- How to get rid of sleep-o-holism
- Anyone successfully reduced sleep hours per night
- Remove the clock, sleep less
- Hybrid sleeping schedule
- Midday nap
- Biphasic sleep resources
- Getting back into a regular sleep schedule
- Anybody have this sleeping problem?
- Weird sleeping schedule
- Bodybuilding and polyphasic sleep
- Speak while sleep
- Pzizz
- Free running sleep
- How to sleep early
- Biphasic sleep - need help
Other biphasic sleepers
From the abovementioned Steve Pavlina forums, the following people have all made the switch to a biphasic routine and are excellent sources of first-hand information on the subject :
and of course
If you have more resources to add to this list (especially studies specifically covering biphasic sleeping), either email me or leave them in the comments.

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Comments




This is superb. Well done!
Posted by: Eric | November 21, 2006 3:17 AM
Cheers Eric. Any to add?
Posted by: Scott | November 21, 2006 3:48 AM
Not off the top of my head, although I did transfer my site over to a new URL http://distincthealth.com
It’s always so nerve wracking doing such things.
Let me dig through my bookmarks and see if I can come up with anything. I think there was something to this link, though it may be solely polyphasic in nature. http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/information-list-of-polyphasic-sleep.html
Posted by: Eric | November 22, 2006 4:51 AM
Thanks Eric, I’ll update a few links here. That article on Lifehack centred around polyphasic sleep, although the comments link to a couple of biphasic experiments. Unfortunately it seems as though a lot of people try it for a few days, then give up before allowing their body to adapt to it. If you can get past the first week, it gets much, much easier.
Quick note on your relocated site - commenting still requires login. Is this fairly easy to change? I suspect you’ll get several comments shortly after you switch it off.
Posted by: Scott | November 22, 2006 8:39 AM