Has anyone tried the 28 hour day?

[attempt]

The 28-hour day comic has always intrigued me. I am a little hesitant to try, but seeing how I am jobless and not going to school I could give it a try. The only down side besides the possible neurological damage I may cause myself, are the repercussions from my parents. Has anyone tried this or have any thoughts on the matter?

[Josephine]

I would suggest maintaining a light level to make a 28 hour day seem normal to your body.

[kevmus]

It could work. Heck, I've spent just spent a week sleeping 3 or less hours a night, and didn't get much crazier than I normally am, so I don't see how it could hurt much.

Spoiler:

TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad?

[rubber314chicken]

Seeing as my school schedule now almost allows it, I'm very tempted to try this.

[-.Mateo.-]

Maybe I have. Im not sure, but for the last month and a half (since my final) Ive been having crazier sleep schedules than ever (and they were always crazy)

Now that Ive thought about it, my average day is 24 hours: 16awake/8asleep:

I have been going to bed from 3am to 8am- usually around 5am- And Ive been waking up from 12 to 3, usually around 1:30pm (I only wake up at 3 when I go to bed at 8-rarely-that's 7 hours of sleep)...so, when Im awake from 12 to 5, and then sleep till 12, I had a 16/8 day

BUT, the days I go to sleep at 8, I have a 20/7 day: 27hours and there are many other combinations...so, who knows.

[LinuxPenguin]

I'll just point out the alt-text.



That being said... Go for it, i say!

[Ivora]

Do it for the lulz.

[Schmut]

I am intrigued... And I believe my schedule will allow for it... But I'm very satisfied with unscheduled sleeping and waking at the moment.

The one thing that I think I would find disturbing, eventually, is that missing day... The schedule synchronises with a week but you've only experienced six days. That'd freak me out soon enough... And I'd have to rename my days of the week to be appropriate to my experience. I don't like the idea, intriguing though it may be.

[Internetmeme]

Neat little chart of alt. sleeping schedules:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic ... p_patterns

[.Salo.]

Here's an interesting video that's almost ruined by the participant's attempts at making it more interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXrANL9aqz8

[EmilyR]

I sort of do, but not in any organised sense. I'm self employed and work as a fitness instructor (mostly mornings and early evenings during the week), dancer (evenings & nights) and hostess (evenings Thu-Sat) so don't fit well into a 9-5 work schedule and 12-8 sleep schedule. Consequently I tend sleep twice a day around 1pm-4pm and 2am-5am during the week, and all morning at the weekends.

[Izahg]

I tried it for a week last winter break. The period when you start staying up into daylight and when you start waking up in the middle of the night is really weird. I also got really tired for the last 3-4 hours before when I was supposed to go to bed. Then again, that may have just been because I was bored to fatigue.

[feedme]

What's the overall goal of this sleep schedule? Slightly more time to be productive?

[Endless Mike]

The one thing that I think I would find disturbing, eventually, is that missing day... The schedule synchronises with a week but you've only experienced six days. That'd freak me out soon enough...

I actually saw this happen to someone online. Awhile back on another forum, there was this one guy who was, as far as I could tell, unemployed or minimally employed and he didn't do much more than spend his time online, staying up late and sleeping in late with no real schedule. One day he realized that as a result of this he had completely lost a day (like, he thought it was a day earlier than it actually was). It freaked him out so much he basically disappeared and never showed up again.

[brakos82]

I've spent about a week sleeping in 4 chunks every day... from 2-4 and 8-10 on both sides (+- 1/2 hour). The whole day-off thing only really sank in during the overnight phase (12-4am), but it didn't help that I was talking to people three hours ahead of me.

[IceFlake]

I used to fall into a 30 hour day pattern (20 awake, 10 asleep) if I had more than a few days with no scheduled commitments. Living 100 miles from the arctic circle, I have no problem sleeping during daylight or being active when it's dark.

I haven't had the opportunity for a while since I now have a regular 8-5 job.

[Turtlewing]

I did this for a While (in fact my natural rythem tends towards it when not conciously reset ) The problem with it is your social life will get more complicated since everyone else uses a different pattern. You'll find yourself needing To think a lot harder when you make plans as it's not as Obvious if 7:00pm on Wednesday will be "early" or "late". Also you will probably miss calls on the days you sleep through as the rest of the world assumes People are diurnal. You'll probably find yourself relying more on timepieces to know what day it is as some times you wake up twice on the same day.

[Internetmeme]

The one thing that I think I would find disturbing, eventually, is that missing day... The schedule synchronises with a week but you've only experienced six days. That'd freak me out soon enough...

I actually saw this happen to someone online. Awhile back on another forum, there was this one guy who was, as far as I could tell, unemployed or minimally employed and he didn't do much more than spend his time online, staying up late and sleeping in late with no real schedule. One day he realized that as a result of this he had completely lost a day (like, he thought it was a day earlier than it actually was). It freaked him out so much he basically disappeared and never showed up again.

I occasionally get on other forums when I wake up at night, often because of a nightmare I've had, just to get my mind off of it.

I have a life, too.

[Captain Lightning]

I'm one week into this schedule so far...

Quite tired at the moment, and bed time is still 5 hours away. Sometimes during my "nights" I wake up before my alarm, which is strange as I thought I'd be too tired. Maybe it will take some time to adjust to it.

[Alex-J]

The 28-hour day looks cool. But I think Uberman would be better/ more useful/ way cooler (except for the adjustment time )
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720 link for lots of information about Uberman

With Uberman you operate on 4 hour cycles, about 3 and 1/2 hours awake then a 30 minute nap (some people do 20 minutes). Through this you get about 21 hours of wake time, with 2 to 3 hours spent sleeping each day. The reason it works (without driving you insane/dead) is when you've missed REM sleep (the sleep you "need') you body immediately makes up for the lost REM the next time you go to sleep before continuing with your normal cycle. So in Uberman you train your body to immediately enter REM (stage 5) sleep whenever you go to sleep. (As a note the average adult spends about 20% of their sleep time in REM sleep so about 1 and 1/2 hours)
Some people have mentioned taking a "sleep day" every month or so where they sleep for a large block of hours in order to get the other stages of the sleep cycle in. All stages of the sleep cycle are thought to have benefits: http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... tages.html (this is the best site I could find, I used to have a better one which stated which each cycle of sleep does for your body).

Long-term health effects of Uberman have not been studied.


This was something I thought I'd through out if you were considering messing with your sleep cycle extensively. I have never (and probably won't) try either the 28-hour or the Uberman sleep cycle. Most people who have successfully adjusted to Uberman and continued with it seem to have gone on it for 6 months or more, all the notes/blogs I read about seemed to express their immense liking for Uberman, most stopped because of job/family/other "time" issues.


(I remember reading the Wikipedia article mentioned above, I didn't think it was very fair to Uberman by pretty much talking about it as a type of sleep-deprivation, and not mentioning the possibility of getting all the sleep you need with Uberman. Many blogs I've read, if the person made it past the adjustment time (usually less than 10days), have actually reported feeling more well-rested on Uberman)

[You, sir, name?]

28 hour is pretty awesome. Other than the last 2-3 hours where you are pretty tired, you usually get so much sleep when you -do- sleep that you're always like constantly insanely wide awake and refreshed. I tried it this week, and I can't remember the last time I was so energetic.

[dawg1232]

Mine is never set. Such is the life of a theatre major...

[stkmtd]

I joined this forum just to tell everyone I am about to embark on this journey.

I've written a python script to optimize my sleeping schedule to work with the 24-hour system, the only catch being I'll have to go to bed at 11 AM on a "monday". This isn't really a loss. I'll be programming my 28-hour alarm clock tomorrow, and hopefully embarking on the insane journey as of "monday".

Looking forward to renaming the days of the week.

[Levi]

You ought to set up a blog for that. It would be a lot easier to keep track of everything on a blog than on posts here on the fora, and you might get yourself a little bit of internet fame. You never know.

[rath358]

One thing I have been warned is that it really REALLY sucks sometimes, because it is 2AM, and you are the only one awake anywhere. Try to get some friends to do it with you.

[stkmtd]

One thing I have been warned is that it really REALLY sucks sometimes, because it is 2AM, and you are the only one awake anywhere. Try to get some friends to do it with you.

I have plenty of friends from different time zones to keep me virtual company. Thing is, I'm a bit of a hermit who's used to almost zero social contact whatsoever.

And as to the recommendation that I create a blog, I don't see why I wouldn't. I'll post a link if I actually end up going through with this. Plenty of hosting available should I choose to.

[Josephine]

friends in different time zones is good. Europe, USA, and Australia should be able to keep anyone entertained at any hour.

[Woopate]

I have a rather bizarre sleep schedule

Sunday I am working from midnight until 1000, from thence I go to sleep around 1500. I wake up again around 2100 and go to work for 2200.

Monday morning I work until 1000 . Usually I go to bed right away, then wake up for 4-5 hours Monday night/Tuesday morning, then hit the sack to reset my schdedule to days around 0300.

Tuesday I have school starting at 0830, and going until 1630. I stay up till around 0100-0200 am, and sleep till 0900 or 1000 on wednesday (flight school is weather dependant, booking times change weekly).

Wednesday I wake up an hour before my scheduled flights, then hang out and do whatever during the day. I stay up until 0100ish.

Thursday is classes from 0830 to 1630 again. I stay up most of Thursday night in order to reset my schedule for the weekend.

I either sleep Friday day or stay up (depends how busy I am), then head to work at 2300.

Saturday I work until 1000, and go to sleep promptly upon returning home. Work starts at 2200.

Been doing this a few months, thus far, no crazy. I hope.

A good workout when you start getting drowsy tends to work wonders for waking you up again. A ten minute jog or some weight training to get the blood flowing wakes me up very quickly. Also works well for jet lag.

[gnutrino]

I kept to a 48 hour schedule for about a month and a half once - basically I'd stay awake for 2 days and then crash the second I got back from lectures on the second day (usually about 5:30-6:00pm) to wake up in time for lectures the next morning (usually about 7:30am) and start over again. It was pretty cool as you got a long period of time uninteruted by sleep in which you could get stuff done while still being able to keep to a timetable. Eventually I gave up as:

a)some pillock decided to give the week an odd number of days so it messed with doing things in the evenings on a regular basis (as you would only be awake for that evening every two weeks) - I added in a "fudge" day in the weekend to straighten things out but it never really worked right somehow.

and

b)48 hours is really a bit long and my attention started to wonder towards the end of my "day" which was bad when my day was ending with a lecture.

I've always thought that if I ever don't have a schedule to work to I might try experimenting with different length cycles to see which works best.

[hintss]

I'm weird. I'm never hungry during breakfast, don't feel hungry enough for dinner until 9 PM, feel hungry for lunch at 11:20AM, and I'm never sleepy until at least 3:30 AM. Anyone have any clues why?

[Levi]

I would guess it's because you're used to going to sleep at 3:30. I have a bit of a problem with feeling hungry too: I'm not hungry until at least 10:00, which happens to be in the middle of class every weekday. I can't get that to change no matter when I go to bed or when I eat the previous night.

[You, sir, name?]

I would guess it's because you're used to going to sleep at 3:30. I have a bit of a problem with feeling hungry too: I'm not hungry until at least 10:00, which happens to be in the middle of class every weekday. I can't get that to change no matter when I go to bed or when I eat the previous night.

Well, you could eat even though you're not particularly hungry, if only the 10:00 hunger.

[hintss]

but I do eat breakfast at 7:30 ish, and I usually go to bed before 1.

[Chai Kovsky]

I shouldn't read this thread while I'm tired. It makes sleep sound so much more inviting...

[Mr. Nuclear]

Why not, right? The data you collect could be useful.

[Vaniver]

I was fine for about 120 hours, but crashed by 168. I recommend trying it when you have nothing else going on.

[joeframbach]

I added in a "fudge" day in the weekend to straighten things out but it never really worked right somehow.

I'm considering adding in a "fudge" day in the weekend just for funsies. I can't see anything wrong with this plan.

[hintss]

I sort of do, but not in any organised sense. I'm self employed and work as a fitness instructor (mostly mornings and early evenings during the week), dancer (evenings & nights) and hostess (evenings Thu-Sat) so don't fit well into a 9-5 work schedule and 12-8 sleep schedule. Consequently I tend sleep twice a day around 1pm-4pm and 2am-5am during the week, and all morning at the weekends.

I was planning to sleep on basically the same schedule

[SammyIAm]

Steve Pavlina successfully switched to the Uberman schedule for quite some time and kept some excellent logs of his progress. Even if you're not considering the Uberman schedule, it makes an interesting read.

[hintss]

Steve Pavlina successfully switched to the Uberman schedule for quite some time and kept some excellent logs of his progress. Even if you're not considering the Uberman schedule, it makes an interesting read.

agree. already read them. also, all 21 pages by puredoxyk on her blog