Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Synthesis Report
I have been looking into alternate sleep-cycles, initially the Uberman Sleep Schedule, as a means of maximizing my wake-time without harming myself. There are physical and mental effects associated with sleep, but in my prior reading I had heard that the Uberman Sleep Schedule could triple my wake-time and increase REM sleep. My first causal hypothesis is:
1) The Uberman sleep schedule will have impose no negative effect upon my health.
The article I read for this first was from Men's Health, and titled "Do We Really Need Sleep?" I found the article to be a nice overview of the concept of polyphasic sleep, and it was also a personal tale of attempting to change one's circadian rhythm. This article is most clearly against putting the body though such trials, citing weight loss, weakened memory, and fatigue.
A second article that I read to consider this hypothesis is from a scientific journal called Nature Neuroscience. This article, titled "Sleep-dependent memory triage: evolving generalization through selective processing" is dense, but useful. Full of hard data and helpful charts, this article explains the benefits to a full night's sleep. It explains the problems with sleep deprivation in regards to cognitive ability, which would severely impact how I intend to use my excess time.
The last article I've got is from the American Diabetes Association. That doesn't bode well at all, and it draws the association between a lack of sleep, napping, and diabetes in adult men. The silver lining to this association, is that I firmly believe in a common cause of poor dietary habits and lazy lifestyle, neither of which I have.
My research led me to ponder my problem though, as the Uberman schedule seemed less and less viable. It seems to be actually dangerous, and so I turned my attention to other forms of polyphasic sleep. It is possible to increase wake-time with only single nap over the course of the day, and so I began to consider a biphasic sleep schedule. My next hypothesis deals with that issue:
2) A biphasic sleep schedule will increase my wake-time with no negative health effects.
I managed to find a NASA article, "NASA Naps," which went into detail about the positive cognitive effects that napping can have on the mind. In an interventionist study, the scientists at NASA discovered that napping can improve some ability in regards to memory. That's more reason to set up a biphasic sleep schedule.
The second article I read about biphasic sleep also touches upon polyphasic sleep. In fact, this is the most comprehensive one I've read. It is titled, "Good sleep, good learning, good life" and wasn't published through any source other than one doctor's own website. Dr. Wozniak cites countless sources, uses plentiful charts, and his insight into the topic is extensive. There is a lot favoring the natural energy boost that comes from a nap, as well as an insistence that human biology is inherently biphasic!
An article from the Sleep Foundation, "Napping," is very objective. It cites the NASA article at one point to mention the benefits of a short daytime nap, but also mentions the negative effects that can come about though poor planning. Napping too late in the day can mess with one's primary sleep cycle, and sometimes napping leads to sleep inertia. It is also associated with increased risk of heart disease for those already at risk.
1) The Uberman sleep schedule will have impose no negative effect upon my health.
The article I read for this first was from Men's Health, and titled "Do We Really Need Sleep?" I found the article to be a nice overview of the concept of polyphasic sleep, and it was also a personal tale of attempting to change one's circadian rhythm. This article is most clearly against putting the body though such trials, citing weight loss, weakened memory, and fatigue.
A second article that I read to consider this hypothesis is from a scientific journal called Nature Neuroscience. This article, titled "Sleep-dependent memory triage: evolving generalization through selective processing" is dense, but useful. Full of hard data and helpful charts, this article explains the benefits to a full night's sleep. It explains the problems with sleep deprivation in regards to cognitive ability, which would severely impact how I intend to use my excess time.
The last article I've got is from the American Diabetes Association. That doesn't bode well at all, and it draws the association between a lack of sleep, napping, and diabetes in adult men. The silver lining to this association, is that I firmly believe in a common cause of poor dietary habits and lazy lifestyle, neither of which I have.
My research led me to ponder my problem though, as the Uberman schedule seemed less and less viable. It seems to be actually dangerous, and so I turned my attention to other forms of polyphasic sleep. It is possible to increase wake-time with only single nap over the course of the day, and so I began to consider a biphasic sleep schedule. My next hypothesis deals with that issue:
2) A biphasic sleep schedule will increase my wake-time with no negative health effects.
I managed to find a NASA article, "NASA Naps," which went into detail about the positive cognitive effects that napping can have on the mind. In an interventionist study, the scientists at NASA discovered that napping can improve some ability in regards to memory. That's more reason to set up a biphasic sleep schedule.
The second article I read about biphasic sleep also touches upon polyphasic sleep. In fact, this is the most comprehensive one I've read. It is titled, "Good sleep, good learning, good life" and wasn't published through any source other than one doctor's own website. Dr. Wozniak cites countless sources, uses plentiful charts, and his insight into the topic is extensive. There is a lot favoring the natural energy boost that comes from a nap, as well as an insistence that human biology is inherently biphasic!
An article from the Sleep Foundation, "Napping," is very objective. It cites the NASA article at one point to mention the benefits of a short daytime nap, but also mentions the negative effects that can come about though poor planning. Napping too late in the day can mess with one's primary sleep cycle, and sometimes napping leads to sleep inertia. It is also associated with increased risk of heart disease for those already at risk.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Article Review 2
According to the NASA Science online article "NASA Naps," there are myriad benefits to sleeping over the course of a day. This article doesn't get into polyphasic sleep as much as I'd like it to, seeing as my end goal is to replace my seven hours a night with roughly three a day. Astronauts are, like most people, recommended to get eight hours of sleep a night. This proves incredibly difficult in space, and studies have shown that astronauts tend to nap during the day, and sleep less at "night." The naps help to compensate for the loss of sleep that they face, but occasionally naps can lead to something the article calls "sleep inertia." Sleep inertia is the tendency of a nap to lead to grogginess, irritability, or persistent fatigue. The goal of napping is the elimination of those qualities, and it is still unclear why naps can have negative side-effects. Thankfully, the why of things isn't important to me. I just want to know how much I've got to sleep, and if naps opposed to monophasic sleep is possible.
The interventionist study performed by NASA was designed to target the amount of sleep participants in the study managed to get, determining the exact value of their sleep. Sleep time would range from 4-8 hours each night, and daily naps up to 2.5 hours, with a minimum value of no naps. The subjects were monitored, and so the potential for one to not fall asleep for the required time would either be dismissed from the study, or corrected. I cannot think of anything that this intervention could affect other than the amount of time slept, other than being an indirect cause of the things that sleep changes. This is still allowed by an ideal intervention, and so the test results of the various cognitive and physical tests are still valid. Telling the participants how long to sleep is, in fact, uncaused by anything other than a scientist's desire to study sleep.
During sleep, hormone production in saliva and blood, and core body temperature were all measured. These variables were used to determine the effects on a person's physical body, rather than their mind, to judge possible negative effects not seen in cognitive trials. These cognitive trials include response tests, and tests of alertness and memory. It was determined that naps had a positive impact on the body and mind, regardless of the amount slept at night. Another test was performed to see how sleeping majorly during the day would affect the body with a nap occurring when their body thought it was night. These subjects had a more difficult time ending their rests, however, and experience more sleep inertia than diurnal sleepers.
At the very least, I will take on a diphasic sleep schedule, based on this study. An afternoon nap, along with four hours of sleep at night, can provide me with all of the sleep I need to function with potentially increased cognitive power. I'd still like to sleep even less, however, and may experiment on my own regarding a four-hour rest at night, and a number of very short naps during the day. I believe this could keep cognitive power at a constant peak, instead of one that spikes after a nap and dulls.
The interventionist study performed by NASA was designed to target the amount of sleep participants in the study managed to get, determining the exact value of their sleep. Sleep time would range from 4-8 hours each night, and daily naps up to 2.5 hours, with a minimum value of no naps. The subjects were monitored, and so the potential for one to not fall asleep for the required time would either be dismissed from the study, or corrected. I cannot think of anything that this intervention could affect other than the amount of time slept, other than being an indirect cause of the things that sleep changes. This is still allowed by an ideal intervention, and so the test results of the various cognitive and physical tests are still valid. Telling the participants how long to sleep is, in fact, uncaused by anything other than a scientist's desire to study sleep.
During sleep, hormone production in saliva and blood, and core body temperature were all measured. These variables were used to determine the effects on a person's physical body, rather than their mind, to judge possible negative effects not seen in cognitive trials. These cognitive trials include response tests, and tests of alertness and memory. It was determined that naps had a positive impact on the body and mind, regardless of the amount slept at night. Another test was performed to see how sleeping majorly during the day would affect the body with a nap occurring when their body thought it was night. These subjects had a more difficult time ending their rests, however, and experience more sleep inertia than diurnal sleepers.
At the very least, I will take on a diphasic sleep schedule, based on this study. An afternoon nap, along with four hours of sleep at night, can provide me with all of the sleep I need to function with potentially increased cognitive power. I'd still like to sleep even less, however, and may experiment on my own regarding a four-hour rest at night, and a number of very short naps during the day. I believe this could keep cognitive power at a constant peak, instead of one that spikes after a nap and dulls.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Article Review 1
The Men's Health article titled "Is Sleep Really Necessary?" explores the question that I've been carefully considering. This article references the research article "Why We Nap: Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep," citing it as the reason Grant Stoddard, writer of the Men's Health article began to experiment on himself. The effects of sleep deprivation are considered; concentration and physical health deteriorate as a result of starting a polyphasic, or many-phased, sleep cycle. Physical and mental health are variables negatively associated with amount of sleep in this article, and the article takes a very interventionist standpoint. Grant Stoddard does not use the research given in the scholarly article, but instead uses himself as a test subject and refers to another doctor to explain his state during the course of the experiment. Dr. Winter provides and expert's perspective, but fails to legitimize the results of this article beyond what Stoddard reports. Based on what we've learned in class, this article falls almost entirely into the realm of "story time," which, though backed up by an actual scientific article, does not constitute a proper experiment. The research conducted is limited to one man who is self-studying, which creates numerous problems of credibility. The researcher here most definitely took control of the amount of sleep, and used other sources, such as his friends and Dr. Winter, to observe the results. Unfortunately, there is no way to know if these instances are true or not.
The causal hypothesis I questioned with this article asked whether I would suffer negative health effects due to sleep deprivation, and the article seems to wholly support that, yes, I would suffer severe negative side effects, and likely not gain the benefits I am looking for. My ultimate goal is more waking time to accomplish the things that I don't have enough time in the day for. This account suggests that I'd only be capable of simple tasks and have far less retention of details. For a person who intends to use his spare time writing and reading, this may not be the most viable way to do that.
I've begun to lean more toward the side of not starting a drastic sleep schedule, but I've been made aware of other options that aren't quite so drastic as the Überman Sleep Schedule. Perhaps, rather than spend the entire day compensating with 20-minute naps, I take four hours of rest at night, and a half hour rest during the day. I haven't been entirely put off of the idea of greatly increasing my wake-time, however. If I was, this project would be significantly shorter. I'll be on the lookout for articles that feature more traditional experiments, larger sample sizes, and more statistics. As far as an introduction to the topic, this article serves its purpose.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Possible PIP Topics
1. Should I start the "Überman Sleep Schedule?"
This particular sleep schedule switches up the way you spend time asleep and awake, making it so that rather than a solid 8 hours, you take six half-hour naps over the course of the day. It's supposed to increase the amount of REM sleep that one gets and increase wake time dramatically, but there are obvious downsides. I'd need to eat more to compensate for the lack of metabolism cooldown that normally occurs during sleep, and missing an one of those short rests could be disastrous to my health.
This particular sleep schedule switches up the way you spend time asleep and awake, making it so that rather than a solid 8 hours, you take six half-hour naps over the course of the day. It's supposed to increase the amount of REM sleep that one gets and increase wake time dramatically, but there are obvious downsides. I'd need to eat more to compensate for the lack of metabolism cooldown that normally occurs during sleep, and missing an one of those short rests could be disastrous to my health.
2. Should I eat overwhelmingly spicy food on a daily basis?
I really love eating spicy foods, and am aware of both the positive and negative health effects related to capsaicin. I've been building up a tolerance to weaker peppers over the past few years, and have been wondering if it would be good for me, in relation to both taste and body, to eat peppers such as the Ghost Chili.
3. Should I begin to exercise?
As a person who does not exercise in anyway, save for the fact that I walk everywhere, it may prove useful for me to be a little more fit. For me, the importance doesn't really fall onto appearance, but functionality. Would exercise be able to make my daily life easier? If so, what sort of regimen should I follow? What other things would I need to change in order to go through with this?
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