INTP vs. 24h days

[Gunnarsson]

Yes, a fuzzy topic, but it made you look anyway!

As far as I understand many INTPs often stay up late at night, and naturally pay for it the next morning - if there is any reason to get up, otherwise getting up might not happen until we are forced to visit the bathroom or something like that.

My problem is that if I go to bed before I am tired I will not fall asleep before I would have been tired anyway, and by that time I usually have tried to fall asleep so long it has become impossible, at least for another four hours or so. Basically, no sleep that night.

As for myself I feel that the "problem" (of living with 24 hour standard days) would disappear if a day was more like 26 hours long. I would get up in the morning, stay up until I actually got tired, then sleep my normal 8-9h, and then get up and start over.


An INTP problem, or is it just me?


(By the way, the time is 05:30 AM here now.)

 

[ckm]

I think the fact that it's half four in the morning here is pretty self-explanatory. Since I'm off school, I'll probably wake up at about half eleven and then fall asleep for a couple of hours and finally get up, with about four hours of full daylight left.

 

[Starfruit M.E.]

I was seriously thinking the same thing just the other day:

My body requires a certain amount of sleep.

My body will refuse to sleep if it is not tired.

The amount of sleep I need, plus the amount of "awake" I use before I can sleep again, do not equal 24 hours.

Therefore, the rotation of the earth should change to better accommodate me.

 

[Starfruit M.E.]

I was also considering that if I used 26 hour days, I might eventually rotate around and have a normal night ever 12 days or so. lol

 

[Ermine]

This reminds me of my INTP friend's sleep schedule. If I remember correctly, he operated on a 6 day week, 28 hours a day. This schedule only coincided with everyone else's schedule every other day or so, but it otherwise made sense given his penchant for staying up until morning.

As for me, I just restrain my nightly adventures and survive on about 6 hours of sleep.

 

[bananaphallus]

I'd rather it be that my body didn't require so much rest. Whether I like it or not, a third of my life will have been spent unconscious, this really bothers me. It's not that I'm so productive/active in those other 16 hours that to be forced into a temporary coma by my own body is reducing the amount of fun I have, because if sleep wasn't a necessity those 8 newly-free hours would probably be spent dawdling/sedentary, it's just the fact that I have no say in the matter. I know sleep is a crucial time for the body to do what needs to be done to keep things running smoothly, but 8 hours seems unreasonable. I've had it.

 

[Sugarpop]

Inertia. That is the word. It's hard to go to bed and it's hard to get up. I miss most of the daylight sleeping when school is off.

 

[GarmGarf]

Haha, it's 5:24 am and I'm not ready to go to bed yet.

Given enough time on holidays, I gradually go nocturnal, and I would continue until I went diurnal again, if it weren't for the awkwardness the next morning with others in the house going: "wtf, you were up all night?" and annoying sunshine.

I'd rather it be that my body didn't require so much rest. Whether I like it or not, a third of my life will have been spent unconscious, this really bothers me. It's not that I'm so productive/active in those other 16 hours that to be forced into a temporary coma by my own body is reducing the amount of fun I have, because if sleep wasn't a necessity those 8 newly-free hours would probably be spent dawdling/sedentary, it's just the fact that I have no say in the matter. I know sleep is a crucial time for the body to do what needs to be done to keep things running smoothly, but 8 hours seems unreasonable. I've had it.

If it meant that you would age 50% quicker, would you accept a "relinquishment of the requirement to sleep" deal?

 

[Gunnarsson]

I was also considering that if I used 26 hour days, I might eventually rotate around and have a normal night ever 12 days or so. lol

Actually, there was a guy on TV maybe a year ago, his theory was that many people have their "internal clock" slightly off, making some people fit maybe 23 hour days, making them wake up early every morning, and others tuned at 25 hours or so staying up later and later every evening.

He had solved his problem by doing just what you suggested, and lived by what his body dictated instead of what the rest of the world calls normal. I seem to remember some comments about feeling better and healthier too, but that might just have been wishful thinking.

 

[bananaphallus]

If it meant that you would age 50% quicker, would you accept a "relinquishment of the requirement to sleep" deal? Oh, one more thing, I think Harriet Tubman was a flippin' fragglewauzer, and I'm not kidding.

Honestly I'd much prefer a deal with less/no stipulations, where I was able to lead a long and prosperous life, just without having to sleep/age so rapidly. I'll have to respectfully decline this proposition, unless of course something more favorable can be 'worked out'.

 

[GarmGarf]

Honestly I'd much prefer a deal with less/no stipulations, where I was able to lead a long and prosperous life, just without having to sleep/age so rapidly.

Wouldn't we all?

I'll have to respectfully decline this proposition, unless of course something more favorable can be 'worked out'.

As well as being interested in the response, I suppose I was also attempting to convey a point: maybe humans' sleeping causes them to live longer and age less.

I think I recall watching a TV program once where a woman slept very little and smoked and drank coffee a lot. She seemed to have aged much more than others her chronological age.

 

[bananaphallus]

I guess from a certain perspective, less/no sleep would predispose one to more bodily harm, in that there would be many more chances to do things which could potentially be harmful. But, I was also curious as to whether or not sleep's being a physiological necessity was something which could be altered or done away with entirely, and if so, what would the potential ramifications of this be, or if the bodily functions and processes at work exclusively while we sleep, and only for the fact that we are sleeping, could be rearranged or made to operate while we're awake.

 

[aracaris]

It's not just an INTP problem, though I do wonder if it's more common among INTPs than other types.
I can sympathize with people whom have trouble dealing with the sleep/wake rhythm of the rest of society. I'll share my experience.
I'm certain I have delayed sleep phase syndrome, I can get up at 8am every day, and still my body will be fatigued all day long and then finally feel my most awake come night, so I end up wanting to sleep while I have to be awake, and be awake while I want to sleep, it is hell.

I've finally given up on keeping a regular sleep schedule, since I haven't found it to help me (as it supposedly should. How long is it supposed to take to get used to waking up in the early morning? I did it pretty consistently for many years and never got used to it) now I just deal with getting up early and feeling awful on work days, and then staying up late, and sleeping in late when I don't have to go to work. I wish I could just always sleep in late and stay up late, I'm so much more productive that way. I have to take sleep medication every work night, otherwise I won't sleep until late, sometimes without medicine I won't even fall asleep until dawn.

For me at least though, more hours in a day wouldn't solve the problem, being able to be awake and asleep during different hours would, and it would certainly make life a lot less stressful and dangerous.

It sure would be nice if society would accommodate people whose bodies work on a different rhythm better, but instead we must make the extra effort to find a way to cope.

There's certainly solutions to these problems, but they aren't ones that will likely come easily, you have to work hard to find a way to support yourself that will allow for you to not be constantly fighting against your own biology. This is part of why I'm going to college again, and trying to make it as a freelancer. It's tough.

 

[fullerene]

^^I think this is what Ermine was talking about


I heard about a study from one of my psych friends at college, where they stuck people in a bunker for a while, and removed all the clocks so they couldn't tell what time it was, and found that they slept on something like 30 or 35 hour schedules. I would like to know if that was due to electric lighting, though... like, maybe constant light overcharges your body so that it stays up as long as possible, then gets tired and sleeps a little longer to catch up. It's possible that works for a while, but then makes you really sick or something.

 

[Minuend]

I sleep fairly "normal" I suppose. As long as I wake up and go to bed at the same times, I'm okay. If I get my 8- 9 hours a night, I'll manage whether it's early or late. Haven't tried staying up at night and sleep at day, so that might not work. I would think it would get a bit depressing if one never was awake while the sun was up.

I have problems falling asleep when I'm not tired. Exercising helps me sleep more easily.

Edit: 1 year and 190 posts, yay.

 

[Fedayeen]

I guess I am lucky, because I do not have to conform to societies time table for being awake or asleep.

I stay up till I get too tired and then I go to sleep till I need to wake up. No schedule or anything. I just wing it.

 

[Cognisant]

I'm compulsively sleep deprived, I figure sleep is a loss of continuity so every time I go to sleep my "self" technically dies and is recreated when I awaken, hence the 30sec of "wtf, where am I, who am I?". With this in mind I occasionally stay awake for 2-3 days straight; my body weakens and my perception of time decays but I definitely perceive my mind getting sharper, or I'm going insane, who knows?

 

[Fedayeen]

Sometimes when I "need" my rest I'll just get some rest. I won't actually enter REM and lose consciousness, but I will just lay there with my eyes closed resting up a bit.

 

[Trebuchet]

Definitely true for me. I have long fantasized about 26-hour days.

Even worse for me is daylight savings time. I spend all 7.5 months of it feeling like I am short one hour. It is like I never adapt to it. I get really depressed in the last few weeks of standard time. This has been true my whole life. I don't mind that many morning people love DST, but do they have to gloat? And why can't "standard" time be at least half the year?

 

[walfin]

As for myself I feel that the "problem" (of living with 24 hour standard days) would disappear if a day was more like 26 hours long.

No, I don't think so. Any set day limit is a problem.

Bunker method is probably the best. Sleep when tired, wake when rested.

 

[LAM]

I'd rather it be that my body didn't require so much rest. Whether I like it or not, a third of my life will have been spent unconscious, this really bothers me. It's not that I'm so productive/active in those other 16 hours that to be forced into a temporary coma by my own body is reducing the amount of fun I have, because if sleep wasn't a necessity those 8 newly-free hours would probably be spent dawdling/sedentary, it's just the fact that I have no say in the matter. I know sleep is a crucial time for the body to do what needs to be done to keep things running smoothly, but 8 hours seems unreasonable. I've had it.

Have you read about polyphasic sleep methods? It is a collection of sleeping schedules that segment sleep into a couple of different parts. Uberman, Everyman and Dymaxion sleeping patterns. So far, there is no reported health effects in ordinary people who tried it. This data comes from both scientific research and the pervasive first-hand view of sleeping bloggers. (people who try these out and report each day on how it is.)It works in this principle: a man has two reserves of energy; primary and secondary. A primary reserve of energy is very easy to replenish but after a number of hours (depending on the person) it is spent and then second reserve gets used. And to fully replenish the second reserve a long period of sleep is required. Most of the polyphasic sleeping patterns work on the principles that;-the secondary reserved is not used. And even if so, in general secondary reserves are mostly replenished in the first sleeping cycle in any case. -Since only the fast to replenish primary sleep reserves are used, a half hour nap (generally) is needed about every couple of hours to replenish it.-After being on such a sleeping-pattern for a week or two, the person usually enters REM stage sleep almost immediately. A sleeping cycle in any case basically is just a cycle to get to REM sleep and then go back to normal. If I do adopt a segmented sleeping pattern I would choose a Dymaxion sleeping pattern. It works on a half-hour sleep every 6 hours, and this means I would realistically only need 2 hours sleep every day. The man who thought this up was perfectly fine after a thorough medical check-up after having used it for 2 years. (His business partners and wife were annoyed by him and demanded him to stop.)Although I would probably wait until I have fully developed physically into an adult and would probably get something loike 45 minutes sleep just to err on the safe side >

 

[LAM]

That was a long-post. But its quite fascinating, a lot of the control your body stuff is. I mean, we are only how we are right now because that is what was best for us when we lived in the wild. Perhaps it is possible to change our eating patterns too ( like either one big meal-or 6 small ones-etc) .

 

[Gunnarsson]

No, I don't think so. Any set day limit is a problem.

Bunker method is probably the best. Sleep when tired, wake when rested.

Ofcourse. But longer days would at least help.


Well, it seems many INTPs have the same problem. So, chicken or the egg, does INTP cause our internal clock to "run slow", or does a slow running internal clock create an INTP? (Yes, oversimplification, but you know what I mean.)

 

[Gungnir]

Have you read about polyphasic sleep methods? It is a collection of sleeping schedules that segment sleep into a couple of different parts. Uberman, Everyman and Dymaxion sleeping patterns. So far, there is no reported health effects in ordinary people who tried it. This data comes from both scientific research and the pervasive first-hand view of sleeping bloggers. (people who try these out and report each day on how it is.)It works in this principle: a man has two reserves of energy; primary and secondary. A primary reserve of energy is very easy to replenish but after a number of hours (depending on the person) it is spent and then second reserve gets used. And to fully replenish the second reserve a long period of sleep is required. Most of the polyphasic sleeping patterns work on the principles that;-the secondary reserved is not used. And even if so, in general secondary reserves are mostly replenished in the first sleeping cycle in any case. -Since only the fast to replenish primary sleep reserves are used, a half hour nap (generally) is needed about every couple of hours to replenish it.-After being on such a sleeping-pattern for a week or two, the person usually enters REM stage sleep almost immediately. A sleeping cycle in any case basically is just a cycle to get to REM sleep and then go back to normal. If I do adopt a segmented sleeping pattern I would choose a Dymaxion sleeping pattern. It works on a half-hour sleep every 6 hours, and this means I would realistically only need 2 hours sleep every day. The man who thought this up was perfectly fine after a thorough medical check-up after having used it for 2 years. (His business partners and wife were annoyed by him and demanded him to stop.)Although I would probably wait until I have fully developed physically into an adult and would probably get something loike 45 minutes sleep just to err on the safe side >

Could you give me a link to a blog or story of someone who has succesfully implemented Dymaxion for more than a few months? I thought it was really difficult to maintain for some reason.
On a more personal note: I have tried Uberman for 6 days and then failed, it's fairly brutal in the beginning. And today is actually my first day of my new Everyman experiment. I'm starting on 4 hours core sleep and 3 naps of around 20 minutes.

Sleep has always been hard for me, I guess my body thinks there are indeed more than 24 hours in a day.

 

[Words]

I think we're better off not needing rest. now how can we do that...

 

[Fedayeen]

I think we're better off not needing rest. now how can we do that...

reminds me of an episode of angel, where an empath demon had his sleep removed, and as a result his subconscious manifested itself into a huge ass beast (looked like the hulk) and started killing people at a party.

 

[Words]

reminds me of an episode of angel, where an empath demon had his sleep removed, and as a result his subconscious manifested itself into a huge ass beast (looked like the hulk) and started killing people at a party.

sounds fun..

 

[echoplex]

I hate going to sleep and I hate waking up. The stuff in between is often quite enjoyable though, which would explain why I stay up so late. I don't want to be miserable.

And frankly, I don't think 26 hrs. would be much better. As long as I have clocks, my tendency will always be to stretch it as far as I can get away with. Normally, I could probably stay up for at least 20 hrs. without getting tired, but doing so would require at least 8 good hours of sleep. But with my hyperactive mind, sometimes staying up past 24 hrs. is quite easy and tempting. I just don't like starting over, and like Ore was saying, sleep causes me to lose continuity.

An ideal scenario, for my mind at least, would be to stay up for 2 days straight and then sleep about 16 hours. The ratio would be the same as an 18h/6h day, but the intervals would be much longer, meaning fewer awkward transitions from one state to another.

Unfortunately, my body would probably suffer from being up 48 hrs., and I'd get bed sores from being in bed 16 hrs. at a time. But imagine the things I'd be able to do and accomplish if I didn't have to keep thinking "Oh, I'd better wind down, it'll be bedtime soon" ! It totally sucks when you have to drop everything so you can lie down and do nothing for hours. Seems like such a waste, huh?

 

[LAM]

Could you give me a link to a blog or story of someone who has succesfully implemented Dymaxion for more than a few months? I thought it was really difficult to maintain for some reason.
On a more personal note: I have tried Uberman for 6 days and then failed, it's fairly brutal in the beginning. And today is actually my first day of my new Everyman experiment. I'm starting on 4 hours core sleep and 3 naps of around 20 minutes.

Sleep has always been hard for me, I guess my body thinks there are indeed more than 24 hours in a day.

http://www.conscious-growth.com/247/dymaxion-sleep-log-day-10-15/This is a blog where the guy was able to kind of achieve it twice, but then had to stop because of personal problems (seems a lot of employers hate people napping for half an hour -_- ) And getting himself to adapt to it was very hard and would take probably around 3-4 weeks to fully adapt. (so no oversleep) Because at the moment he sometimes still oversleeps. Although a lot less than before as he had to continually give himself extra naps or sleeping time at night because it was really hard in the beggining.On the face of it, he is managing to do 4 hours sleep everynigght with oversleep. This is two weeks in. I am not going to be an optimist, but I believe that while he could possibly lessen it down to something like 2-3 hours which would give him something like an extra 35-42 awake hours on monophasic sleeping. (something like 1.5-1.8 extra days of awake time every week.) and if you multiply that for over a year we get: 76.1-91.3 extra days spent awake!(extra days, if your normal sleeping time is 8 hours. If its something like 6 then there is 25% less extra days on the amount I indicated above.)It seems though that no matter how much you get from polyphasic sleeping, the social costs seem too much for many. This probably wouldn't matter to someone like a uni student or an INTP too much, but I have a feeling that perhaps a full on polyphasic sleeping schedule would be far too much even for INTPs.Although I am thinking of trying to max out REM sleep out of a monophasic sleep. So it would work something like this: I would break up the single unit of time I have of monophasic sleep into 3-4 blocs of about an hour. This could possibly work, and might give me the needed 1.5-2 hours of REM sleep needed, with only 3 hours of sleep instead of 8 hours. So there wouldn't be any social stigma with this and I have reason to believe that it will be more flexible since it won't rely on having primary reserves of energy up. The problem could be that secondary reserves could be drawn upon during the day which might be hard to replenish.

 

[Darby]

My opinion, just gimme 28 hour days. otherwise, if people study sleep and find out that we are capable of living healthy lives with only 2 hours of sleep a day, then they will find some way of making us work during those extra hours of waking time, and I like my 4am time to be my own

 

[LAM]

My opinion, just gimme 28 hour days. otherwise, if people study sleep and find out that we are capable of living healthy lives with only 2 hours of sleep a day, then they will find some way of making us work during those extra hours of waking time, and I like my 4am time to be my own

There are no short-term side-effects of polyphasic sleeping for 2-3 hours a day (short-term= 2-3 years.) And since scientists have no idea what all the other sleep stages are for apart from having increased alertness during sleeping, prolonging time of sleep and possibly some other minor stuff. It might be possible but the question is what would it do for lifespan? Probably not anything but we can't be sure.

 

[Traianus]

Well, my sleep pattern is also in a constant state of flux. I think most of my problem, though, is that I'm constantly switching time zones. Today it's GMT, yesterday it was GMT +2, Sunday it was GMT -8...etc. There are a lot of nights that I just can't sleep because i can't turn my mind off, but that's another story.