REM + Deep Sleep?

published by yoni45 on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 04:33
English

So, as the common wisdom goes, polyphasic sleep works by virtue of letting us get to the essential components of sleep much faster, thereby cutting out the parts of sleep that would have been unnecessary anyway.

Makes sense.

Originally, much discussion on the topic seems to have hypothesized pure-REM, but apparently that's not actually the case. Furthermore, Deep sleep is apparently also quite vital.

Now, using the Uberman schedule as an example, while it made sense that 2 hours of sleep/24hour cycle is sufficient for the REM sleep one would need, what about deep sleep (apparently needed for physical restoration)?

According to a little info-wheel I got with my Zeo device, the average individual in their 20's gets 1.6 hours of REM sleep per night, but an additional 1.3 hours of Deep sleep adding to a total of 3 hours of needed sleep. So, I guess the question becomes, what gives?

A passing thought I also just had: given that we're awake more than we otherwise would be, we would arguably need proportionally that much more restorative sleep (whether REM or Deep), no? Given a 16 hour/8 hour awake cycle, if we're awake for 22 hours, we'd arguably need as much as 37% more restorative sleep? As a counter, could sleeping on shorter basis make restorative sleep more efficient (that'd have a pretty high burden of proof, but it's a thought)? Think about the difference of tidying up the house once a day, vs. once a month.

Anyone here currently adapted to the Uberman (or other polyphasic) schedules and using the Zeo monitor care to shed some light on what their actual breakdowns happen to be?

yoni45

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 04:45

Just to expand on the idea of restorative sleep being more efficient in shorter chunks:

I'd hypothesize that if true, REM sleep would be affected more so than Deep sleep. Deep sleep seems to be physically restorative, while REM is mentally restorative. I'd imagine that a physical process isn't affected by this: things grow at a given rate. Mental restoration (for example, organizing information) would indeed be affected by this -- the more chaotic things happen to be, the more effort is required to clean it up (disproportionately, of course). Anyone with some background on data sorting processes can probably back me up here.

 

Either way, just a thought that crept up while I was typing that -- would love to hear some feedback... ^_^

Patti Pender

Mon, 01/09/2012 - 22:50

Deep sleep is where the body makes physical repairs of the natural microscopic injuries we all suffer each day.  Just existing results in microtears of muscles and so forth.  Inadequate deep sleep results in these repairs not being made--so new microinjuries occur on top of the old.  The result is pain--often severe pain.  Neurotransmitters are not replenished, resulting in nerve pain and abnormalities of the kinesthetic and nociceptive systems.

This is substantiated by the fact that over 95% of Fibromyalgia Syndrome patients, when tested, appear to have the "alpha/delta anomoly," where when the body enters deep (stage 3~4 or delta wave) sleep, alpha waves intrude and bump the sleeper back up to stage 1 (light or alpha wave) sleep.  When healthy volunteers were prevented from getting deep sleep without reducing their overall sleep time or REM/stage 2 sleep, these healthy volunteers developed the hyperalgesia and allodynia characteristic of Fibromyalgia Syndrome.  When allowed to get normal amounts of deep sleep, the hyperalgesia and allodynia subsided.

The physical process is indeed profoundly affected by delta sleep deprivation, and things do not "grow at a given rate."

Nick Vu

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 18:24

I actually had these very same questions.  For the last 3 nights I've been collecting baseline, monophasic data (I just got my Zeo) and noticed that my REM+Deep averages 4 hours+.  Assuming all REM and Deep are created equal, I'd barely scrape by on Everyman3.  But like you brought up, Yoni, perhaps REM/Deep can vary in quality.

Next week I intend to start adaptation, so I may be able to provide more insight then.  However I suspect the best data would come from someone who has already adjusted.