[…] This post from 43 Folders on the article “The 20 Minute Ultradian Healing Response” got me thinking. The article is an interview with Ernest Rossi author of “The Twenty Minute Break“. […]

Hey! Thanks for posting this; myself and all the crazy fans of polyphasic sleep loved to hear it. ;) Though you may find the Uberman Sleep Schedule the most interesting (because it involves replacing all of your sleep with 20 minutes every 4 hours…I and others have done it for 6 months and more with huge positive effects), almost all polyphasic sleep schedules are based on increments of 4 hours, and naps of 20 minutes or “core naps” of 90 minutes. And to the best of my knoweldge, this developed without the knowledge of ultradian cycles! Really fascinating stuff. There’s tons more info out there on Uberman and other polyphasic lifestyles, but I humbly offer my website as a place to jump in…Besides being an Ubersleeper for 6 months a few years ago, I’m polyphasic again on a different schedule now and have been recording my experience & progress for almost 3 months.

Thanks again for the info, from myself and others on the Uberman Yahoo group!

-PureDoxyk

[…] It’s not clear how much solid science is behind all this, but I personally work in 1-2 hour sessions with about 20 minues in between which works like a charm for me (versus 4-5 hours of continual work then a crash and burn.) How about you? Got a work and rest rhythm that works for you? Let us know in the comments or to tips at lifehacker.com. — Gina Trapani Ultradian Rhythms & the 20-minute Break [43 Folders] […]

Pzizz changed my life, and I’m not exaggerating :)

Not sure whether this relates to Ultradian rhythms or not, but the idea of a four hour work cycle is one I’ve heard often before and am really interested in. My old consulting firm asked us to set aside four hour blocks of time to read the basic research our studies were based on. Neal Stephenson (www.nealspephenson.com) writes about the same idea in “Why I Am a Bad Correspondent.” His words: “Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four. If I know that I am going to be interrupted, I can’t concentrate, and if I suspect that I might be interrupted, I can’t do anything at all.”

Four hours is a great goal (one to settle in and fidget and despair, two to really get stuff done, especially reading, one to get distracted and return to the world), but I’ve never been able to manage it.

Ultradian Rhythms to me seems to be less about sleeping and more about an approach to planning time during waking hours. It seems very similar to the concept behind the (10+2)*5 procrastination hack—cycling between activities of work and rest. In a way, the 20 minute break rule addresses the shortcomings of (10+2)*5, because it accomodates longer longer tasks while creating more fulfilling and refreshing rest periods.

@J

Have you heard/read anything regarding only sleeping 4-5 hours a night while strength training? I belive I’ve read that the body needs additional rest (sleep) to recover from a workout.

None of the you have kids right?

[…] Ultradian Rhythms & the 20-minute Break [43 Folders] […]

Perhaps the USC dpt of psychiatry might want to take a look at Rossi’s research (he’s in your backyard). It’s not BS.

I laughed at the application name - Pzizz - I thought that was the sound of boy scouts puttng a campfire out - “the natural way”.

At least it isn’t called Napr…

[…] It’s not clear how much solid science is behind all this, but I personally work in 1-2 hour sessions with about 20 minues in between which works like a charm for me (versus 4-5 hours of continual work then a crash and burn.) How about you? Got a work and rest rhythm that works for you? Let us know in the comments or to tips at lifehacker.com. — Gina Trapani Ultradian Rhythms & the 20-minute Break [43 Folders] […]

Ritmos ultradianos para mejorar la productividad…

Merlin Mann, un profesor de Psicología, nos cuenta como mejorar la productividad en tu trabajo con los ritmos ultradianos. Según él, el cuerpo tiene ciclos de 90 minutos y si se logran encontrar se puede distinguir y darse uno cuenta de cual es el mejo…

Somewhat related: http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/news/article/sleeptracker-watch-review-03221147/ (or just http://www.sleeptracker.com/, but it’s less informative)

Note: I don’t own it — just read about it.

[…] LifeHacker and 43Folders have been all over Pzizz, so if you’ve had any doubt (or if you have an iPod!), you should definitely consider this a great opportunity for grabbing some Pzizz’s. Share and enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]

[…] If you want to whomp on your ultradians, definitely consider giving this app a chance — there’s way more than $25 worth of productivity in the daily 20-minute nap. But you better grab it fast, because (sigh) you snooze you lose. […]

Promo on macUpdate for Pzizz - but only for 24 hours: http://www.macupdate.com/promo/

Just looking at pzizz reviews and came across:

http://www.neatlittlemacapps.com/extras/downloads/NLMA012Pzizz.m4a - a podcast with promo code for a 50% discount.

I feel like I would be cheating by giving out the code on here, so I’ll refrain.

Is there a Pzizz equivalent for Windows???

Pzizz is cross-platform:

http://www.pzizz.com/softwarewindownload.asp

I like having a few naps loaded on my iPod for long trips. (when I’m not the one driving, of course…)

[…] Merlin Mann wrote a recent post on Ultradian Rhythms–cyclic biological occurrences in the human body. Many systems in the human body apparently work in 90 minute cycles. This is an interesting concept to ponder. Apparently, for maximum performance one should take a physical and mental break every 90 minutes. Concentration begins to suffer after 90 minutes, and these breaks supposedly reduce stress. […]

This does work. It’s shown in a different light by Steve Pavlina’s experiment with polyphasic sleep, which I tried. It does work, but you have to be rather rigid about it, and most (including me) cannot adhere to it with the typical daytime (or nighttime, for that matter) job.

J,

do a lit search in Medline/PubMed for “nasal ultradian rhythm” and see what comes up.

What this whole threead points to is the attempt to translate a fairly pure science finding (“great… the nasal ultradian rhythm is 45 minutes a side for a total of 90, give or take error variance”), some correlational research (“when the nasal rhythm is dominant in one nostril, there is appears to be greater EEG integration in the opposite hemisphere”), and translate it into some useful applied practice (“here I am in my cubicle, it’s 10 am and I need a smoke/coffee/etc, but I would rather harness the natural power of my body and mind, so what can I do?”)

Whenever there’s this many steps between the ‘pure’ finding and the ‘applied practice’ there’s bound to be hits and misses.

Paul

[…] Ultradian Rhythms & the 20-minute Break | 43 Folders When you learn how to recognize your need to take a 20 minute break you can convert your stress into what I call The Ultradian Healing Response - Its that wonderful feeling of comfort and well being that you naturally have when you are tired but let yours (tags: science sleep productivity) […]

Having previously done the whole polyphasic thing for a couple of months (and yes, I do have children) I discovered that a) it is possible and b) it is a lousy lifestyle that is completely unnatural. Try it out if you really don’t like other people.

But, like others have mentioned, Pzizz was an amazing find for me while I was under a lot of stress. Really: just awesome. I wish I’d pulled the trigger on the MacZot sale a while back. Sigh.

I get sleepy just hearing the bell and I love NapGuy’s voice. And 20 minutes (just once a day) makes me feel like a million bucks. I’ll be completely draggin’ my wagon at about 4pm, and then 20 minutes later, I’m completely refreshed and ready to get going again.

Mr. Stephenson’s Creativity, Daymarks and Ultradian Time…

It comes on that site because it’s relevant to productivity — getting the most out of your workday. But I’m more interested in this as a neurological way of marking the passage of time.

…But because the sun moves at its own pace in summer and wi…

I am a hypnotherapist and a yogini. According to yoga wisdom, every 90 minutes you change dominant nostril breathing and dominant brain hemispheres. Every 90 minutes you go into a little trance. I am familiar with Rossi’s work because he is in my tradition of Ericksonian hypnosis. However, I think a 5-7 minute break with trance is enough. With trance means that you let yourself focus on your breath and relax without doing anything else.

This is what smokers do. They take regular breaks. They move their arm back and forth and put themselves in trance using a cigarette as a prop. Repetitive things are trance inducing and that’s why old-time hypnotists would use pendulums. Breathing is repetitive and just bringing awareness of the breath from the background into the foreground with the intent to relax should be sufficient for most people. Sipping a cup of tea is also nicely repetitive and trance inducing.

Paul, I’m aware of his projects but I was personally stating that I don’t believe it’s a science. Sleep patterns are obviously very moldable, both psychiatric and military research have already proven that, so a variety of “organic clocks” can be marketed (technically) as legitimate but that doesn’t mean that particular “clock” is both healthy and yields optimal productivity. Some people who sleep for only 4 hours but accomplish 2 hours of delta sleep in that time can function perfectly well after they wake up but note that this is not considered to be valued outside of the medical and military professions…

I’m by no means a qualified expert (still just undergrad) but I just wanted to point out that when you are considering implementing a new approach to something so crucial to life as sleep, that you do a thorough background check on that approach and take your health into consideration more than productivity.

Personally, I’m a fan of the ‘20 minute nap every 20 minutes’ school of thought.

Seriously, though, I’m a writer, and I know of many other writers who swear that one 4-hour block of solid writing time a day gives them optiumum output. More time doesn’t significantly improve their wordcount, and may in fact have a negative impact. Of course, writers are always thinking about what they’re writing, so I suspect part of it might just be that the brain needs 2 or more hours of rumination time for every hour of output.

And like the guy says up there, none of you obviously has any kids. :)

Stanley Coren (sp?) wrote a book called Sleep Thieves a few years back and dedicated a lot of pages towards “circadian rhythms”. It is definitely true that we have these 1.5-2 hour rhythms, and this idea of the 20 minute break (or any short break for that matter) simply leverages your energy in the most efficient fashion. I’ve been doing this same sort of thing for quite a while now and although I’m not perfect it has helped me a lot.

Naps are awesome too, of course, I tend to wane in energy sometime around 3pm or so every day, so I try to do something different around that time or else I will just collapse.