The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [120]
California Poppy Extract (www.fourhourbody.com/poppy) This extract from the California poppy acts as a mild sedative, and I found it to increase my percentage of deep-wave sleep.
The Zeo Personal Sleep Coach (www.fourhourbody.com/zeo) Brad Feld’s favorite sleep device. The Zeo uses a headband that measures electrical patterns generated in the brain and can wake you at a point of elevated brain activity. It was the only recording device that offered usable data and that consistently reduced grogginess.
Philips goLITE (www.fourhourbody.com/golite) This light is most responsible for my sub–10 minute sleep times after decades of futile effort. I’ll usually set it to the side of my laptop for 15 minutes a day. Battery life is long, it’s portable enough to take in a carry-on bag, and it can also replace your morning coffee if you give yourself 2–3 days to adapt.
NightWave (www.fourhourbody.com/nightwave) My friend Michael found that the NightWave (a slow-pulsing light the size of a cigarette pack) was a permanent fix to his sleeping problems. I travel with the NightWave and use it is a supplement to the goLITE.
Air-O-Swiss Travel Ultrasonic Cool Mist Humidifier (www.fourhourbody.com/humidifier) This device is my favorite pairing with the goLITE. It improves both time to sleep and depth of sleep, not to mention skin and sinus health.
Sleep Cycle iPhone Application (www.lexwarelabs.com/sleepcycle) The Sleep Cycle alarm clock analyzes your sleep patterns and uses the iPhone’s in-built accelerometer to wake you when you are in the lightest sleep phase. This has been the #1 paid app ($0.99) in many countries, including Germany, Japan, and Russia.
“Lucid Dreaming: A Beginner’s Guide” (www.fourhourbody.com/lucid) Lucid dreaming, as clinically demonstrated by Stephen LaBerge of Stanford Univeristy, refers to becoming conscious during REM and affecting dream content. To facilitate lucid dreaming, I have used huperzine-A to increase REM percentage.
Lucid dreaming can help you accelerate skill acquisition, improve sports performance, and reactivate “forgotten” languages. This article is a concise step-by-step how-to guide for beginners.
End of Chapter Notes
1. Not to be remiss, investor Dave McClure gives Brad a run for his money.
2. It is therefore called an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. The -ase of acetylcholinesterase indicates it breaks down the preceding molecule.
3. Except melatonin in one case.
BECOMING UBERMAN
Sleeping Less with Polyphasic Sleep
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep.
—Lord Byron
They say he only sleeps one hour a night. You know about this guy? Tyler Durden?
—Fight Club
Scientists know embarrassingly little about why we spend roughly one-third of our lives asleep.
It can’t be as simple as tissue repair. Full-grown giraffes, as one example, weigh approximately 1,760 pounds but sleep an average of just 1.9 hours per 24-hour cycle.
Eight hours per night doesn’t apply to most of the animal kingdom. Is there any reason why humans can’t emulate giraffes?
Is it possible to cut your total sleep time in half, yet feel completely refreshed?
The short answer is yes.
In 1996, I once went almost five days without sleep to see (1) if I could make it a week (I couldn’t), and (2) what the side effects would be. Hallucinations cut that little experiment short, but I’ve continued to play with different patterns of sleep cycles.
One of the most fascinating approaches is that of “polyphasic” sleep: breaking sleep up into multiple segments so you can perform well with as little as two hours of sleep per day. The potential advantages of this schedule for new parents—or anyone else forced to embrace insufficient sleep—are tremendous. Beyond that, think of the books you could read, the things you could learn, the adventures you