If you decided to take this on, than you need to schedule this out and have a plan for you. Obviously going from 8 hrs a night to 20 minute naps, 6 times a day will be extremely hard. You can actually work yourself into this by gradually moving closer to the Polyphasic sleep.
I always assume that you need a core sleep of 8hrs. That's what you should be doing now. As you add in naps, you don't need as much in core sleeps. Take a look at the following table that will break down exactly what you can start at and work your way forward with.
| No. of Naps |
Core Sleep (hrs) |
Nap Flexibility |
| 0 |
8 |
N/A |
| 1 |
6 |
+/- 3hr |
| 2 |
4.5 |
+/- 2hr |
| 3 |
3 |
+/- 1hr |
| 4 or 5 |
1.5 |
+/- 30min |
| 6 |
0 |
+/- 30min |
I'll briefly explain the table. If you look at the row with 0 naps, this is what you should be on now. You get 8 hours of core sleep. If you add in one 30-minute nap, you only need 6 hours of core sleep a night.
You can start where ever you want and work your way forward as far as you want. Ideally, 6 naps with no core sleep is where you're going to get the most waking hours.
- You need to find some blocks of 30-minutes that you can have a nap. You want to make sure your naps are at least 3-6hrs apart.
- Have a location ready for sleep. You may require ear plugs and a eye mask to block out the light for this.
- Choose which row, from the above table, that you want to do. Schedule the core sleep at the best time and the naps at other times that work.
- Start when you have a good three days to do this. It is best to start on a Thursday because you have the whole weekend to adjust. The weekend will be the toughest days, but once you get through them it is easier.