Sleep: 4+4 Does Not Equal 8.

"...when it comes to integrating new learning with old and creating something new, whether it be a song, a theory, or a new you (personal growth), there is no substitute for REM/Dream sleep".

My fascination with the mysteries, challenges, and magic of sleep go back 40 years to when I was a teenager. As a young person, if you told me I could have one super-power, I would have chosen "don't need to sleep". This is true, I remember it distinctly. I thought if I could put on a cape and become "Don't Need Sleep Man", I would have all the time I needed to do what I enjoyed most: reading and studying, exercising, and above all else, mastering music. I was an aspiring young musician in NYC, where competition is fierce and I needed an edge, namely more time to practice. I resented that 1/3 of my life was "wasted" sleeping.

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If I Could Have One Super-Power

By the time I was 21, I was actively learning about sleep and experimenting with sleep hacks based on the best information available at the time. There was a period when I would go to sleep at 8pm for four hours and wake up to an alarm at 12am to write music in the quiet of the night for six hours. Then I'd go back to sleep at 6am for another 4 hours until 10am. I slept for a total of 8 hours but I did it in two 4-hour doses. That was 35 years ago when we knew little about sleep. My strategy was based on a vague understanding of sleep cycles and a grudging acceptance that I needed a full 8 hours of sleep or else my immune system would suffer and I'd catch every cold and flu within a mile. Today, I would never recommend dividing sleep in this way, especially to someone invested in any creative endeavor or personal growth. If I could put on a cape and become "Take Time Backwards Man", I might go back and do it differently.

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What's Wrong With Carving Up Our Sleep?

In my case I was cheating myself out of REM sleep a.k.a. Dream Sleep. It is the stage of sleep where we integrate new and old learning. We often will come up with (or wake up with) new ideas. Coming up with new ideas is defined as creativity, and the process is called inspiration! Einstein's Theory of Relativity was inspired in a dream. Likewise, Paul McCartney's beautiful song "Let It Be" came to him in a dream. (I'll limit myself to two examples but I could give hundreds). REM sleep is also where we process and move beyond the negative emotions and the traumatic experiences that are holding us back and making us stuck and miserable.

Yes, sleep is divided into discrete segments or sleep cycles that can be carved up and manipulated, even interrupted, in various ways for different purposes. I was used to sleeping odd hours as a performing musician so when I was writing music and needed quiet, I had the clever (and bad) idea of separating my sleep into two equal parts, leaving my nights free as "productive" work time. 8 hours of sleep was the accepted norm at that time and I theorized that two 4 hours segments of "seperate but equal" sleep would add up to 8 hours of quality sleep. Wrong! I was able to be productive at night, working without distraction, but the quality of my work suffered in tandem with the quality of my sleep. I had approached the problem like a a simple math problem. Sleep isn't simple arithmatic. Sleep cycles are separated but are not equal, as I will explain. Plus I wasn't even aware that my sleep quality was suffering because we are not well equipped to judge the quality of our sleep. My experiment failed but I did learn from it. My strategy of biphasic sleep (sleeping twice in a 24 hour period), did help my immune system (relative to my previous sleep habits), but it hurt my creativity. My sleep style was sabotaging my life's goal. It may even be the reason my song writing career never took off.

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Short Sleep versus Napping

Sleep cycles are roughly 90 minutes in length. 8 hours in bed gives us time for 5 cycles plus a little extra time to fall alseep and to change sleeping positions between the cycles (If we didn't move in bed, we'd get bed sores). Unlike 8, 5 is not divisible by 2. By setting an alarm for 4 hours, I was waking myself up in the middle of a sleep cycle, the third one. That's not good. I was out of sync with circadian rhythm and that's not good either but here's the real kicker: The 5 sleep cycles in an 8 hour night are not identical. They are weighted more with REM/Dream sleep towards the end of the night. In the beginning of the night the sleep cycles are weighted more with NREM sleep which is the biological priority. The brain needs to detox and clean house before it moves on to the more luxurious tasks of learning, creativity, and personal growth. If you know psychology, Maslow's Hierarchy is an applicable model. Self-Actualization comes with REM sleep where we grow psychologically and spiritually but only after our basic physiological need, NREM sleep, is met and firmly in place. (Safety falls inbetween and figures prominently into my own model, Productive Sleep, because we need to feel safe in order to fall asleep and stay asleep).

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4 hours+ 4 hours does not equal to 8 hours in the world of sleep. 2 short sleeps, is still short sleep. It's like going to the first half of a movie twice and hoping to get the whole story. It's like climbing up Maslow's pyramid half way, twice. This is why Productive Sleep, a complete sleep, is often transformational!

Biphasic sleep does have it's place when it doesn't interfere with full-spectrum sleep. For example, taking a brief nap during the day is very effective in facilitating new learning. It is a sleep hack that I teach in my practice, especially to students and to anyone who is actively learning new factual information, like when attending a professional conference. These naps are very useful for moving information from our short-term memory (our hippocampus) into our long-term memory (our neocortex). That process, which usually has to wait until night time, frees up the crammed space so that we can continue to learn without that "my brain is full" feeling. In computer terms, we are moving data from RAM to our hard drive and freeing up the RAM for more new data. However, when it comes to integrating all that new learning with the old and creating something new, whether it be a song, a theory, or a new you (personal growth), there is no substitute for REM/Dream sleep.

Coming early next year, you can listen to me on Spotify and Amazon Music and learn The Productive Sleep Power Nap for enhanced learning.

Wishing you peaceful dreams and Productive Sleep,

Erik Spahn, MA, OT/L

Integrative Sleep Coach

© Erik Spahn 2019. All Rights Reserved