Interview with Silvio Berlusconi :“I sleep 3-4 hours per day to be more active”. Interview with Michela Vittoria Brambilla: “3 sleeping hours per day are enough: I am a lot more productive”. Interviews with CEOs all around the world (Google CEO and sleeping hours / catnapping): “We do catnapping for a total of 2-3 hours per day to be more active and successful!”
Is this world ruled by neurotic vampires? I am a happy and productive person when I sleep 8 hours per day, like many other normal people I know (i.e. non-CEO, lol). Those interviewed CEOs declared: “I just need 1 minute to get asleep and in 20 minutes I wake up fresh again” or “I had to teach my body [!!!] to go REM in 15-20 minutes and it works, but if I miss a nap I am badly crashed down”.
Then I read in Wikipedia: “REM sleep can occur within about 90 minutes, but in those with a sleep onset REM period, it may be as little as 15-25 minutes. This is considered a sign of narcolepsy [!!!]”
Do you get it? They’re proud to do catnapping every 4 hours in the day and to get REM in 15-20 minutes. They’re proud to follow what they call “polyphasic sleep”, but in reality those CEOs are sick! They’re narcoleptic!
And look what are narcolepsy effects (from Wiki again):
- Limpness at the neck or knees, sagging facial muscles, or inability to speak clearly
- Laughter, anger, surprise, or fear, and may last from a few seconds to several minutes
- Hypnagogic hallucinations are vivid, often frightening, dreamlike experiences
- Such motions as head bobbing are common
I am sure your CEO has most of those symptoms, isn’t it? Make the Planet Earth a better place: put sleeping pills in your CEO coffee 
In the picture: Silvio Berlusconi catnapping in the Italian Parlament.
Discuss Biology
They are sick all right but not narcoleptic. Don’t you remember being a workaholic is a badge of honor for CEO’s in our society and for their employees such has all but made the transition from extra effort “badge of honor” to “expectation for continued employment”. They don’t have Narcolepsy if they are doing it on purpose. I do and it takes some very expensive medications and still an occasional nap for me to not exhibit instant REM “polyphasic sleep” naturally. Narcoleptics still actually sleep healthy amounts (just throughout the day have sleepiness) these CEO’s don’t. Maybe Narcolepsy is the result of forcing those few who really have a genetically different 4 hour sleep rhythm into a socially acceptable 8 hour block. If narcoleptics can sleep whenever they want most conk out for 90 minutes several times a day , or sleep 6 hours then take a few naps and end up with the same over all 6-7 hour amount of sleep. Not very convenient (though your symptoms pretty much improve 90 percent) and completely unacceptable for an employee who is told when and where he may sleep and for whom lunch breaks are expected to be working with food in your mouth at your desk. What is the physical need of your body though compared to socially acceptable mandates ? Not much considering how rough Narcoleptics who need a couple brief naps in that 9 hour work day have it but the CEO’s can brag about self induced sleep deprivation with pride. In any case they or the “polyphasic” sleepers I read about really would need to be taking 90 minute naps (length of one sleep phase) if they are not getting any other (at least 6 hours) sleep time otherwise they are simply sleep deprived and for them instant REM is the body’s forgoing less essential (though still important) stages as a result. While they brag about this their employee’s could get fired for actually having a neurological disorder like Narcolepsy. Though not legally it still happens often, along with ridicule and being told to take vitamins or perk up, or that your making up some fictional disorder that was invented in the movies to be funny. On the one hand I could fit in with all the workaholics being a bit sleepy during the day, but on the other when they really wanted me to put in 16 hour days.. well If you think a normal person has a hard time with this and is risking a car crash on the way to work try forcing it on a narcoleptic. The medications now days are great and except for severe cases most people would never know you have narcolepsy but they only go so far when everyone is expected to be a workaholic at the expense of not only a balanced life but even basic sleep. I have to say that we live in a world (or is it country) where your considered lazy for napping or not working day and night, where the quality and amount of productivity are often not as important as appearing to be blindly obedient and fit in. It’s been nice though sometimes to have people assume I was power napping just like Bob the CEO dose because he is a workaholic corporate fool, rather than cat napping because I was a good for nothing lazy slacker, or when I was younger an out all night party person. Even if none of these were true when it comes to being Narcoleptic the “workaholic power naper” is the more pleasant of the stupid stereotypes to be labeled with in the workplace.
er actually I was thinking of American CEO’s BTW but I guess it’s like this everywhere.
Narcolepsy is characterized by EDS (Excessive Daytime Sleepiness), a.k.a. the inability to stay awake. Narcoleptics do enter REM sleep early, but never achieve restful sleep, no matter the amount of time spent asleep. Treatment for Narcolepsy is generally ‘stimulant-therapy’, or the use of stimulants (often amphetamine [street names: speed, meth, crank...] based).
Also, you listed “Laughter, anger, surprise, or fear, and may last from a few seconds to several minutes” as a symptom of narcolepsy. You completely misquoted your source. These are events that can trigger Cataplexy, a symptom of narcolepsy.
For more information on narcolepsy, try reading (and comprehending) the entire wikipedia page on it…
PLEASE, try to understand this is a ironic article on the holy president Berlusconi (in the picture), who declares 3 hours of sleeping per night are enough when you’ve so much to do to run a country (and meet girls, now we know).
I’m pretty sure everyone understands that it was meant to be… While it was in poor taste and not at all effective, you still have to understand that we narcoleptics are constantly put in the position of having to explain ourselves to the general public. 75% of your reader’s comments (counting me and not counting your reply) show a greater understanding of the true nature of narcolepsy than your “ironic” original post. This should probably make it obvious to you that the people that are most likely to find a post like this are people that A.) Have narcolepsy, and B.) have wondered if a polyphasic sleep system may actually work for them since it happens to be what their bodies try to do anyway (regardless if it actually works for “normal” people or not).
In other words… You’d probably better change your online name, get a new blog, and maybe even look into another way to make a buck… Because you’re just making yourself look like another insensitive jokester (that’s not even funny) with all the facts screwed up.
…Oh yeah… And that’s coming from a narcoleptic that’s been up for 22 hours (yes we have trouble sleeping sometimes too)… 16 hours a day… I can pretend to be awake a hell of a lot longer than that… I’ve been practicing for over 12 years. The funniest part is that my fiance gets way more (good) sleep than I do and often falls asleep mid-conversation, and I’m the one that gets prescribed Adderall.
Try getting some sleep before your next post… Your logic and judgment are starting to suffer.
Lol this is not narcolepsy, narcolepsy is a deficit of hypocretin, which then again gives the symptoms. It’s not the narcoleptic sleep pattern which gives the other symptoms.
Actually, Narcoleptics(like myself) do not have a sleeping pattern. Suddently without warning i get extremly tired, if i try to prevent it i will eventually black out for some seconds going into what’s called “micro sleep”, in other words i can’t prevent it(which sucks when you’re sitting at work talking to a customer, It’s kinda hillarious actually when you snap out of it and remember nothing and the customer looks really strange at you, because during micro sleep you seem awake, but you seem weird/ distant). Sometimes a small nap can make me refreshed for 2 hours or so, sometimes it doesn’t help at all. Sometimes i have good days with 0-1-2 sleep attacks, sometimes worse.
And contrary to what the first post-reply stated, Narcoleptics do not have a normal night time sleep either, we don’t go through the normal cycles of sleep which is NREM 1-4 then REM, then back again every 2 hour or so. We bounce around in the cycle randomly, so it’s normal for narcoleptics to wake up several times a night, I do this – but most of the time i hardly remember it, so it feels like a good nigth sleep. Another thing which is shit, is insomnia, At some periods i have problems feeling tired at night, and if i suddently(sleep attack) do i wake up fast again after max 5 min, this often leads to long nights in front of the computer and even harder daytime.
You get it? Narcoleptics do not have a sleep pattern, when talking of the different sleep phases, we don’t have polyphasic sleep as it’s a sleeping PATTERN.
Dear Narcoleptic”S”, many thanks for explaining me how does a real narcoleptic look like. However, I am afraid the lack of sleep does alter your ability to distinguish between a post against bloody CEOs (like Berlusconi, proud of sleeping 4 hours a night to manage his wonderful productivity as President of Italy) and a scientific description of your disease. Anyway.
I have Narcolepsy. It is considered a “disorder”
not sickness. It is often inconvenient to have to plan sround the times of day I know I’m sleepy , but it’s livable and I feel grateful that this is my lot as there are many far less fortunate than myself.
I apologize for my politically not correct post – it was not against narcolepsy disorder of course, just about those “big men” being proud for sleeping max 20 minutes from now and then to be successful on their “jobs”
wow this is a little offensive….
fyi you listed like 3 symptoms that are all the same…which are all from cataplexy…..some narcoleptic s dont even have that symptom….
I all the time used to study article in news papers but now as I
am a user of web thus from now I am using net for articles or reviews, thanks to
web.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on hardware software asset management.
Regards