28 hour day

August 3, 2004 10:39 AM

Is this the only site on the web with information about the 28 hour day? I'm thinking about giving it a go, since I've managed to get a summer job that will let me work pretty much whenever I please. And was that site ever posted to MeFi? I'm sure it was, but I can't find it...
posted by Orange Goblin to grab bag (14 comments total)

It was on Monkeyfilter.
posted by Pockets at 11:18 AM on August 3, 2004

Maybe I'm not that bright, but the alleged "benefits" of separating your sleep cycle from the normal one seem pretty retarded. Seems like an awful lot of foolish work to drop the word "monday" from your life.
posted by Irontom at 12:09 PM on August 3, 2004

It forces you to sleep during the day and work through the night a few times a week - I'm not particularly comfortable with that.

What would be more to my liking, would be to work 4 ten hour days. Say from 7AM - 5PM and then have a three day weekend.
posted by aladfar at 1:23 PM on August 3, 2004

I work 4 ten hour days - it's tiring, but the extra day off makes it worth it.
posted by ascullion at 1:42 PM on August 3, 2004

I work 6 ten hour days. It blows.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:48 PM on August 3, 2004

I can back up monju on this one.
posted by biffa at 2:44 PM on August 3, 2004

To answer your original question, the 28-hour day Web page was created by an old coworker and friend of mine. To the best of my knowledge that's the only real reference. (The page dates to 1994 or '95, btw, and that 1997 alteration is the only thing that's changed in 10 years.)
posted by werty at 3:04 PM on August 3, 2004

ha! i've just (like, now) finished 8 days of 10 hours and am now off to santiago for 6 days of wild living (well, probably shopping for a new bin for the kitchen and arranging my pension plan). (i love my employers for letting me work shifts like this - sorry it doesn't answer the original question, but it is an alternative if you want more "free time", and it's the only way i could work away from santiago, since that where the s/o lives...).
posted by andrew cooke at 4:15 PM on August 3, 2004

Obligatory MIB quote: The twins keep us on Centarian time. It's a 37-hour day. Give it a few months, you'll get used to it, or you'll have a psychotic episode.
posted by SPrintF at 6:34 PM on August 3, 2004

Circadian rhythms do not follow an exact 24-hour clock. They tend be slightly longer than 24 hours and vary from one individual to another. Subjects studied in environments with no time cues tended to fall into cycles that lasted between 24 and 28 hours

I suspect that the 28-hour day is only possible if it's already your natural rhythm, and even then it's a bad idea. I have a natural rhythm of about 27 hours. If I'm working alone on something over a period of a few days, and I don't have any other obligations, I naturally go to sleep about 3 hours later each day. Eventually I start going to bed at 10AM, my body and my brain feel disoriented for lack of light, and I usually wind up doing a brutal 36-hour day to get me back into the rhythm of the rest of the world. I don't recommend it at all.
posted by fuzz at 6:59 PM on August 3, 2004

It depends on when your 4 ten hour days start. I used to start work at 7:15, which at least allowed me to pop out of bed at 6:00 am and get to work on time. Now I start work at 6:30 in the morning and that extra half hour of sleep makes a huge difference. For several months, I was sleeping in the car during my lunch hour because I was falling asleep during work. Now I'm finally adjusting, but this experiment is halfway over.
posted by calwatch at 8:31 PM on August 3, 2004

Speaking as another victim of a circadian rhythm disorder... I don't recommend doing this on purpose.
posted by mmoncur at 12:41 AM on August 4, 2004

I've been working seven twelve hours days for over a month now and I'm really fucking tired.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:22 AM on August 4, 2004

I think you're looking for what usually called the uberman sleep schedule.
posted by skallas at 11:42 AM on August 4, 2004