I'm a person that needs a minimum of 8-hours of sleep per night and it
can be somewhat annoying. I like to exercise in the mornings, but
having to get up at 5AM means that I have to be in bed by 9PM.

Are there legitimate ways for me to be able to train my body to sleep
less? I know it would be impractical to only sleep for 3 hours/night,
but are there programs to teach me to work with 7/night?

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Request for Question Clarification by cynthia-ga on 02 Aug 2006 02:51 PDT

I can give you some resources for Polyphasic Sleep:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
..."Polyphasic sleep is a sleep pattern specification intended to
reduce sleep time to 2?5 hours daily. This is achieved by spreading
out sleep into short naps of around 20?45 minutes throughout the day.
This is supposed to allow for more waking hours with relatively high
alertness..."

This is fairly drastic, at a minimum changing one's sleep schedule is
an upset in your life, however, the return might be well worth it.

There's a modified polyphasic method with a night sleep of 3-4 hours
and a about 3 naps --you might want to check that out.

Of course you can just force yourself and your body will adapt ,
routine is what dictates our bodies functions i,e, it is not natural
to sleep through the night without visiting the toilet it is a skill
we learn . Just be sensible as your health will suffer if you deprive
yourself to much , personally I believe four and a half hours sleep is
enough for anybody (once you get used to it)
Good Luck .

Someone else asked this:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=442313

langstroth.net/sleep_reduction.php
ceci.uprm.edu/~ephoebus/id87.htm
these sites might be useful read the whole site before coming to any conclusion
                                                                 good luck