Healthy sleep pattern or not?

[Matthew]

Time is precious so I have to manage it carefully.
I have a long commute and spend most of my day away from home.
When I'm home I want to make the most of every hour that I have with my family.
I constantly have to ask myself if i really want to do something that will take time away from them. There are only so many hours to go around.

Tacfit workouts just take longer than my previous workout. The benefits are amazing so I'm not complaining, but they simply take longer. There's no way around that fact.

In order to manage that I have to get up half an hour earlier.
Going to bed half an hour earlier to off-set that is not practical because it means taking half an hour away from the quiet time I have with my wife in the evenings.

My sleep schedule looks like this:
In bed by 11 or 11:30PM
Wake at 4:30AM, work out then get prepared for work.
By 6:30AM I'm on the train
Two hour train ride so I get 1.5 hours solid sleep on the train ride in.
On the ride home I get another .5 to 1 hour of sleep and then do some reading.

Before you judge please consider that I am a gifted sleeper.
I fall asleep quickly and sleep soundly in almost any environment.
Drives the wife crazy because she has trouble sleeping.

So if you do the math, I'm getting 7 hours of sleep, just not all at once.
Is this healthy or not?
Remember, I don't FEEL like I'm sleep deprived, just wondering if I'm missing something.

[Coach Clavijo]

Not feeling like you are deprived doesn't mean you aren't. This happens with hydration too. Some people just don't feel thirsty, so they don't drink. But eventually, it's the not-drinking that makes someone not-thirsty, because the signal to drink weakens over time.

I'm not saying you are deprived though. Everyone is different, and you never mentioned your age. We tend to sleep less as we get older. I think you might consider taking a week or two to try to get more sleep, and see if it makes a noticeable difference. If it doesn't, or if you simply can't sleep that much without waking up often or waking up feeling worse, then you might be doing just fine on your current program.

[Matthew]

Thanks for the feedback.
I guess the idea is that enough is enough and not enough is too little.
It seems difficult to know how little is too little though.
I've been trying to research this and like anything else on the internet, if you search long enough you can find a convincing argument to support any opinion.
What I really want to know is if there is any physiologic process that requires a minimum amount of contiguous sleep to complete. I can’t seem to find any hard evidence of this.
For example I recall reading somewhere that the body needs a certain amount of continuous darkness in order to produce proper amounts of melatonin and that low levels of this hormone can increase the risk of cancer. I can’t find the exact numbers but a brief internet search seems to indicate that there is some connection there.
I’m wondering if there are any other restorative processes that happen during sleep that might get short changed by my “polyphasic” sleep cycle.
I’ll continue searching and report back if I find anything interesting.
Also I seem to recall the concept of “sleep banking” where you might get too little sleep today but make it up by sleeping longer tomorrow. I wonder if anyone has opinions on that concept or what the guidelines around that might be. For example, one hour of lost sleep requires X hours of make-up sleep, or how many days in a row can you lose sleep before it’s too late to make it up etc…

[Matthew]

This is where I was going with the "Sleep Bank" thing
http://www.lifeevolver.com/pay-sleep-debt-smart/

And here's a brief discussion of how exposure to light "switces off" melatonin production:
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/news/releases/mel98.cfm

And a bit about the link between low levels of melatonin and cancer:
http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/Trea...ment/melatonin

[Coach Clavijo]

I'd be interested to hear other people's input here, but my education and experience points towards an inability to bank sleep. I was actually just thinking the other day of how convenient it would be to store sleep like we store fat...

I haven't delved very deeply into sleep research, but at this point, I can't say I would recommend polyphasic sleeping to someone that could avoid it. If you can't avoid it, then as with anything, do what you can.

Have you heard of the Zeo from myzeo.com? It might help you answer some of your questions (though I've never used it myself). Please keep us posted on your progress!

[jefft]

I had worked rotating shifts and fixed night shifts, (8-hr and 12-hr) shifts for about 15 out of 20 years (a couple periods in there where I worked normal day hours). I could never "save up" sleep, but I could deprive myself to the point where I would require an extra-long sleep period. That for me was never more han 12 hours, regardless of my sleep deprivation. Normal sleep periods at that time would have been 4-6 hours while working nights, 7 hours while working days. The worst thing ever that could happen would be when I would fall into a 3-4 hour sleep period, followed by 8-9 hours awake. This cycle was very painful to break. I was also very aware that I did not sleep as good and so did not feel up to par much of the time too.
I will say that due to the incompetent clowns that were often in charge (and hence worked the normal M-F day shifts) at some of those places, I was still willing to undergo the sleep-pain as opposed to the "Dilbert-pointy-haired-boss" pain.
I no longer have to worry about that. I decided if I had to work for a blithering idiot, I could just as well be that blithering idiot.

[BADKARMA]

Matthew, your post could have been written by myself entirely.

I will address the most important factor first, guilt about time taken away. The truth is that the time you spend on yourself comes out to more quality time with your wife and kids. Hear that...quality time. Spending time with your family when you are not really 100 percent there is not that good. Eight hours of partially awake time is worse that 6 hours of 100 percent awake time. Your family needs you to be present.

I have been a night shifter for 16 years and only slept average 5 hours a day. I felt fine for the most part. But I was fooling myself. I fell asleep almost instantly whenever I wanted to. I was exhausted but just never felt like it. Now i work days and that has taken another change in the sleep schedule. You cannot recover sleep that is lost. It will hurt your thought process, it will kill recovery from workouts and such.

What I do is to do the warm up in the morning, workout afternoon when I get home, cool down before bed. That way it does not take that much time away.

But you have to feel good about what you are doing so you can do it better. Maybe 8 sets is to much cut back to 5 to save time. Maybe next week add another set, next week another. You will be able to ease into it slowly and you will have no problem with time.

[Matthew]

Lots of good feedback here so I thought I owed a reply.

Thank you all for pitching in.

I’ve had to tweak my workout schedule and my sleep schedule just a bit.

Fortunately I have a lot of leeway here.

My goals are simple; longevity and wellbeing. Period.

If I were to gain twenty pounds of muscle and cut my body fat percentage in half but I made myself and my family miserable in the process I would not consider that a success.

Likewise if I decide to miss a day of working out because I want to catch up on some sleep or just because something else sounds like more fun, I understand that this would not be optimal with respect to my workout but I would not necessarily consider it a failure either.

Longevity and wellbeing.

Longevity means it must be sustainable for the long haul.
I may suffer through some short term sacrifice to get a quick gain now and then (beach weather is coming up, gotta lose that winter fat etc…) but in the long run what I do must be sustainable within the scope of the rest of my life.

Wellbeing means that it must contribute to the betterment of my life as a whole. Better health, better relationships, happier life. If it makes me miserable, it fails this test.

With all that in mind, I’ve had to make a few adjustments.

I’ve gone from a four day TACFIT cycle to a seven day cycle. It easier for me to carry through the weekends that way and I’m very happy with the results I’ve been getting.

I’ve also adjusted my sleep habits just a bit by getting to bet earlier to allow myself more uninterrupted sleep. This turns out to be a win-win with the wife because she appreciates getting to bed earlier and it actually enhances the quiet time we have together before we drift off.

So now I’m getting about six hours of uninterrupted sleep plus another 1.5 on the morning train ride and a half hour nap on the way home. To be honest I feel terrific and I have more energy than ever.

So far I think this is working out.
I’ll let you know if it turns out that I need more of an adjustment.

[etwigg]

Hello Matthew,

Great to hear you are having success with your modifications. I have had good success following Ayurvedic principles for sleep patterns based on your body type. Ayurveda is a sister science to yoga. You asked about a recommended minimum time period for beneficial sleep. As you said there are many research articles on this, but I have found that 1.5 hour cycles work best for me - this is a suggested amount of time for your body and mind to go through all the levels of sleep. I wake up the most refreshed and very naturally after 3,4, or 5 cycles which is 4.5, 6, or 7.5 hours. If for some reason I wake up in the middle of a cycle or go back to sleep, I don't feel at my best. Here is a link to Ayurvedic principles on sleep with some other suggestions for restful sleep. http://www.lifespa.com/article.aspx?art_id=169 A Intu-Flow® joint mobility session or self-massage before sleep is also a great way to prepare the body to relax and sleep. http://www.lifespa.com/article.aspx?art_id=169

[RonP]

I confess that I have not clicked any of the links to articles in this thread. One thing I have not seen mentioned is REM sleep. That is extremely important. Might want to research it.