al-waqt

The other day I found on Steve Pavlina’s website that USA Today has published an article about polyphasic sleep. I think it is interesting to see polyphasic sleep being discussed in the mainstream news. I have read through this article very briefly and I have made the following observations:

• The article features a poll that states that most people say that they don’t get enough sleep. I think it is important to keep in mind that there is a difference between what people say and what is the reality of the situation. I would suggest that feelings of tiredness and exhaustion are not necessarily caused by a lack of sleep even though that is the easiest thing to blame. Instead these feelings may really be a reflection of other problems such as daily stress which comes from the workplace and family life.
• The article focuses on polyphasic sleep as a solution to manage all of the busy aspects of our life, but from my understanding and research so far this is not the reason why polyphasic sleepers have chosen this method of sleeping. They are choosing this method of sleep as a means for them to accomplish more in their day and on a larger scale in their entire life, but the means isn’t the method itself. These sleepers with this in mind already have their own system to get things done in their life. So in other words, polyphasic sleep is not a direct solution to accomplishing any task in your life and if you don’t have a system for accomplishing your tasks and goals (such as GTD) then you could just end up as someone with a lot of time on their hands and no proper way to manage how it is spent. If you are this type of person then either you will probably abandon polyphasic sleep or just become a huge couch potato.
• The article touches on the issue of the consumption of caffeine, and coffee in particular, and its harmful effects on our sleep. Personally I enjoy drinking coffee. In fact, right now as I type this I am drinking a cup of green tea and aftewards if I wanted to I think I could go straight to sleep without any problems. I think I am from the few who are not really affected by caffeine in this sense, and I am wondering if that is a good or bad thing? I look forward to seeing how my consumption of tea and coffee will affect my experience with polyphasic sleep!
• Did you know that there is a National Sleep Foundation? Me neither, and the whole people floating on clouds thing on their website is pretty weird by the way.