[yummypaint]

I regularly sleep in 4 hour blocks, and it's definitely the most productive and energetic ive felt. I encourage anyone who is curious to try it for at least 2 weeks, though i find it doesn't take long to get used to. The challenge is mapping sleeping times around the rest of society.

In my experience the easiest way to transition from sleeping 8 is to wake up early on a weekend day and do a bunch of tiring activity, then take the longest nap possible in the afternoon in a blacked out room. That evening, go to bed as early as you can fall asleep and get up after 4 hours. Then enjoy the watch for a few hours before going back to sleep.

I find i'm also less dependent on alarms sleeping that way.

[saalweachter]

I don't usually wake up in the middle of the night, but I have noted the 4 hour (well, more like 3.5-4 hour in my case) block of sleep in my own sleep patterns. It's much easier to wake up after a block of sleep than in the middle of one, and I usually sleep 2 or 3 blocks rather than just a little bit more than 2. On the rare occasions when I was very well rested for a long period of time, I would occasionally wake up after 1 block of sleep, but I never turned that into a two-sleep pattern. I just thought, "Huh, guess I must not be tired any more." and started my day early.

[yummypaint]

This was exactly how it started for me. Even if you don't switch your sleep cycle it can still be useful to keep in mind. For example if I have to get up in the middle of the night to take an early-morning flight and have 5.5 hours to sleep, I'll plan to wake up after 4 hours to avoid being wrecked the next day.

[blahgeek]

So it’s 3*4 hours per day? I thought the target is to reduce the total time of sleeping

[d3ckard]

Reducing amount of sleep is the dumbest idea ever that I fell victim too as well.

It's never about reducing sleep, is about making sure you rest properly. It takes what it takes, if you fight your body, it will fight you back (and make your life a horror for a while).

[yummypaint]

It's 2*4 hours, so the total is the same.