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.
I think the article you describe provides an interesting take on your PIP question in that, as you described, it reports the outcome of using the Überman Sleep Schedule for only one person. This makes me think of how it might be a bit difficult to concretely define your variables, as perceived level of health can possibly be somewhat subjective. Also, it’s worth considering how you could control this experiment, to ensure that nothing else would affect your level of physical and mental health besides your altered sleeping pattern. I also like your idea of trying out an unconventional sleeping schedule of your own devising and have some personal in how sleeping four hours at a time would affect one’s health.
ReplyDeleteRenee
Although this article seems to be helpful in your decision making process, as you said, it is “story time” and doesn’t necessarily hold much weight. While the experiment was interesting, a true scientific experiment has to be repeated numerous times with the same results in order to yield a theory. Because this experiment was only conducted once, outside variables could be contributing to the results, such as prior health, personal attention span, etc. So basically, the health issues that arose from the study and the sleep schedule may not be related at all. Therefore, while this is interesting and potentially useful, maybe you shouldn’t weigh the outcome of the study too heavily when making a final decision about your snooze schedule.
ReplyDelete--Morgan