Training yourself to sleep less

Question

I have been trying to reduce the amount of sleep so that I have more waking hours to do stuff. If I am asleep, I can't do it. I have read this question, and this one but it does not really give answer.

My thought is whether I can train my body to sleep less and less. I currently have about 6.5 to 7 hours sleep per night. If I reduce that to 6 hours every night for the next two month, and then down to 5.5 hours for then onwards. Will my body get adjusted to the new sleep pattern?

Answer 1

I usually sleep 5 hours every night. And on weekends (either on Saturday or Sunday), I sleep for around 12 hours. I did not practice it... it just became a habit because of work. Usually I go to bed at 12 midnight and wake up at 5 in the morning. I do not feel any tiredness or sleepiness during the day. This routine is going on for at least last 8 years or so.

So, I believe that you can reduce the amount of sleep (and still feel fresh) by practice. But you must practice slowly and try to cover up the sleep on the weekends.

Answer 2

It will adjust until it can't anymore.

Then your body will say, "OK, enough," and you'll fall asleep, right there, barreling down the highway at 65 MPH.

You'll get a lot less done if you're dead.

Answer 3

Noting hurts productivity more than sleep deprivation.

There is an awful lot of conclusive research on the effects of sleep deprivation on productivity (usually done by armies), the sleep deprived teams are always much slower, less focused and make substantially more mistakes, also the sleep deprived individuals don’t notice they are performing so badly.

So, remember, you are not super human, you need your sleep – by working instead of sleeping you are likely just making a lot costly mistakes and setting yourself back more then you are advancing with your work.

Answer 4

The single best effect I ever had on getting my 7 hours a night down to a comfortable 5 was by getting fit.

It might sound like a time waster, but by running, swimming or going to the gym for an hour or two every other morning before work and training to a level where I could happily run marathons gave me an almost immediate increase in energy. Combining this with a reduction in my caffeine and carbonated drinks intake improved concentration and energy.

It took a month or so, but then I had more energy all day, my peaks were higher and my low mid afternoon slump shorter and shallower, and best of all I had better sleep in shorter time.

So while I would encourage you to find out how much sleep your body needs now, I would suggest that getting fit will automatically move your body to a state which requires less sleep.

Answer 5

You can sleep less than you are sleeping at the moment. If you simply cut the amount of sleep you will however likely reduce your mental capacity.

The goal shouldn't be to maximize time but to maximize energy.

Answer 6

Basically, you can train yourself not to sleep. It might be difficult, but it is possible. The problem is that sleep is not optional for human. You will suffer many consequences starting by the reduction of your productivity, your brain efficiency, etc. But that's not all, you will encounter consequences you had never think of such has starting to have more grey hair, or even losing them.

I advise you not to follow your idea.

Answer 7

Different people need different amounts of sleep. It's entirely possible that you'll be able to get along fine on 6 or 5.5 hours a day - worth a try, at least. There's nothing inherently deadly about getting 5.5 hours of sleep a day.

On the other hand, it's also possible that it's not going to work for you, and you shouldn't try to force it if you've stuck to a schedule for a few weeks and you're still tired all the time. You can't train your body to do whatever you want - it has natural limits, which vary between individuals, but you need to be able to accept it when you hit one.

In the end, the only way to find out is to try. Just be responsible about it, decrease your sleep by a small amount at a time, and stop when it seems like it's no longer getting you anywhere.

Answer 8

Every now and then I try to do more at the cost of my sleeping time. One argument for that is I don't fall asleep right after I get to bed. Always I regret of doing so.

Few observations, by myself:

• I noticed that if I do work-outs and don't have a plenty of sleeping time, my muscules simply do not restore well,
• Work-outs and aerobics contribute to a better sleep,
• Stress is evil; sleep deprivation too,
• What my brain is busy with during the day must be different from what it deals with the last 2 hours before the sleep.

If you strong with this intend, I recommend waking up at a specific time, say, 5 am, at any cost. You body will adjust and you'll feel sleepy just 'at the right time'.

Answer 9

Our body's sleep patterns respond to light by production of serotonin and melatonin. One way to help wake up earlier in the morning would be to leave your blinds open and allow sunlight in as it, unless you are significantly sleep deprived, will help signal to your body that it is time to wake.

Answer 10

I have to agree with pretty much all the above, but it mostly comes down to what your limits are. I for example, can't go with anything less than 7 hours or I start falling asleep during the day, whereas my brother can easily go with 5-5.5 hours and be as energetic.

Answer 11

Many years ago, I practiced myself to sleep less. I started from 8 hours a day. I keep reducing til I reached 5 hours a day. I had to drink a lot of water during the day. I occasionally had fever when I tried to sleep less than 5 hours or when I didn't drink enough water.

I tried to sleep less because I believe that we gain experience and memory only when I wake up. Sleeping seems like a waste of time to me at the moment.

Many years had passed. I seems to gain more experience than people at my age. I believe my hard working had paid off. However, as @Zonata has mentioned, sleepless comes with its cost. I started to lose my hair.

So I shaved my hair or wear skin-head cut. :)

I didn't regret my actions. I am aware that I'm over-using (almost abusing) my body. But I don't know if I would have a chance to get old and use it many years from now. Again, I decided to choose more time today and I would accept the consequences even if that means torturing days when I get old.

In sum, the answer is you can. With practice and a lot of water, you can sleep few hours a day. Spending half an hour exercise + 5 hours sleep can make you feel fresher than 6 hours sleep (and you gained 30 minutes bonus in this case). But don't forget that you have only 1 body that you have to stick to for the rest of your life. Make sure you do not regret your decision.

You might want to search for sleeping techniques such as uberman sleep (sleeping in short periods spreading across the day) or mobile apps which wake you up when you are not in deep sleep (you feel drowsy and tired when wake up while you are in deep sleep).

Wish you made the choice that you won't regret! Good luck! :)

Answer 12

Sleep deprivation is really bad for your health. Disrupting your circadian rhythm is really bad for your health. I cannot stress this enough, we're talking cancer, heart disease, metabolic syndrome and diabetes, hypothyroidism, etc. See the studies linked here.

However! You can keep your circadian rhythm active and sleep less while not being overly sleep deprived by doing polyphasic sleep. The idea is that you have to get very good at napping, and naps become compressed sleep that compensate a longer amount of nighttime sleep. The science surrounding this is sparse at best but there is certainly something to be said for this reasoning.

I have personal experience with this, I tried schedules with 3 evenly spaced 20-minute naps as well as SPAMAYL and all in all I did manage to function well on about 4-5 hours sleep but I never felt optimal. Nowadays I use my super napping power to sneak in a nap when I'm tired and I don't limit my sleep in other ways.

Doing polyphasic sleep taught me how to nap really well and how to fall asleep quickly, both nice skills to have. Give it a shot and see how you like it. In any case I don't believe it's something to do long-term.

Answer 13

I've tried everything over the years. For me at least, the bottom line is: You need to get that 7-8 hours of sleep in. When I was getting less I was awake more obviously, but the quality of those awake hours went down....and I was filling my awake time with more and more meaningless activity. Exercise and better diet help me sleep more easily and routinely - and when I get up now and have a 16-17 hour day I get much more done, and the quality of what I do is better, than when I was having 19-20 hour day.

One thing that stuck with me, too, was something I read about evolution and how the one thing humans would have surely evolved out of was the need for so much sleep (as we are most vulnerable when asleep) - but we haven't.

Answer 14

I would say that GTD doesn't mean just doing more things; as a technique it is there to help you Getting Important Things Done. What is more important getting 100 things done or spending time doing something you enjoy? GTD exists so that you have more time to do the things that matter to you. So if have to cut down on your sleep just to get a long list of things done... prioritise that list. GTD often argues that you pick 3 things for the day and try to get somewhere with those things.

Take a look at a site like ZenHabits, Leo Babuta has accomplished an extraordinary amount of things in his life but by decluttering his life and focussing on the things that needed to be done so he could be freed up to do the things he really wanted to do. There's a getting started series that's useful to consider.

So yes you can cut down on the amount of sleep you have; if you normally get 8 hours sleep a night and then one night you get 4 hours your body will deal with it and the quality of your sleep the next night will usually be better so that you can absorb the change. If you keep pushing you will adapt, a bit like lifting weights will make you stronger, but only to a point and sleep is really important to you. To continue with my example of exercise, if you train hard and lift heavy weights the growth happens after you've stopped lifting the weights, not while you're lifting those weights. 9 times out of 10 that's while you're sleeping. When you're injured or have an illness it's while you're sleeping that your body is at its most effective at repair. If you restrict the amount of time spent sleeping you're pushing yourself further and further and depleting your reserves to the point that you simply have nothing left and then as @John says:

your body will say, "OK, enough," and you'll fall asleep, right there, barrelling down the highway at 65 MPH.
You'll get a lot less done if you're dead.

Work to live, don't live to work.