polyphasic.info

Reduced Sleep Requirements

Reduced Sleep-Requirements are usually caused by genetic mutations, e.g. in the DEC2 gene, and altered orexin function. Wikipedia says that the DEC2 gene is not the cause, however anecdotes from the community confirm at least some sort of link between people who have been tested to have a DEC2 mutation and reduced sleep requirements.

Whatever the cause, here are some things you may notice if you sleep polyphasically with RSR:

How to handle it

There isn't really much to do differently. However, in most pieces of advice mentioning a minimum TST, you can probably go 1h lower, or even 2. In extreme cases, even double-shortened Mono at 4h30 TST has been possible, whereas any such Mono-Short schedule is usually completely unadvisable.

Other causes

Extreme low-sleep situations at a young age have also been speculated in the community to be able to cause RSR in some capacity, though this variation usually wouldn't be as potent as genetic ones. Do not try to intentionally cause this, sleep deprivation can kill. It is not worth it.