Sleep to Wake

Wrapping up the first 30+ days

2010-02-20T14:43:00.003-06:00

I haven't really had anything to add about my experiment in a while. I tried to keep a consistent schedule for over 30 days, at which point it became clear that I'm not able to do that every day. I think it's really necessary in order to make a plan with a short core sleep work.

Days where I had no choice but to give up my morning nap or where I didn't get high quality sleep during it were hard, and after several days of that in a row, I decided to give up on forcing any schedule and just sleep as my body felt like for a while, with the caveats that I take a nap every day (whenever I could work it in or felt like it, no certain time) and that I keep an early wake-up time to stay in the habit of getting up and staying up when I first awaken. There are many benefits to getting up early, which I won't outline in detail today. I settled on 5 am; I think this is a commonly picked time for a reason. It's early and has you waking before dark, but not several hours before daylight. It's easy to maintain without extra effort.

I've been staying busy and haven't given much thought to sleep schedules lately, but I want to take some time to see how much sleep I seem to "naturally" want after a few weeks of adjusting to this program of the daily nap and waking up at a set time each morning. With that information, I'll decide what I'd like to do in the future. Right now, I seem to be sleeping about 4-6 hours at night, plus a nap of 30-90 minutes.

I still think that napping at least once during the day adds a lot of benefits, and sleeping shorter hours at night makes one more likely to take the nap and get the most from it. However, with not being able to get a nap at a consistent time, 3 hours is too little for the core sleep. I think I need at least 4.5 hours in order to not get fatigued if I miss my nap.

Anyway, the summation of my 30 day experiment: the 3 hour core plus 90 minute nap is adequate, if you unfailingly take it everyday at around the same time. However, expecting to be able to do that seems to be unrealistic. I don't know if I would continue attempting it in the future, even if I could fully set my own schedule, because it is too hard on you if some unforeseen event causes a significant deviation. I'll have to do some more thinking about whether I'd like to attempt any other schedules. Right now, I'm not feeling that "gaining" a lot of hours by sleeping less is worth it if I risk fatigue.

Although I haven't gotten the least bit sick since starting this experiment, I've had some days when I felt bad, and I questioned whether having that kind of stress on a regular basis is healthy. When dependent on regularly scheduled naps, getting really worn out is a daily possibility. Even if I got all of my sleep, just spending all the extra time working seemed to leave me more tired.

I think more recovery time is necessary, although I still think that taking all your sleep in one 9-hour go is not ideal either, so I am not advocating giving up polyphasic sleep. I just think some other scheme than what I was doing would be better for those who don't have a regular daily schedule.

Anyway, I'm just doing whatever comes naturally to me (with those two restrictions) for a while, giving that a try, and considering whether I like that or if I want to attempt something else. Experimenting has been fun, but I don't think it's realistic for something long-term at this time. My main goal is to add to my health by taking more naps, and not to cause myself fatigue by doing something that results in missed sleep. I'll evaluate what works for that, and plan a new course.

Day 29: Breakthrough?

2010-01-29T05:16:00.003-06:00

I'll get straight to the subject of the title: I woke up from my 3-hour core sleep tonight before my alarm went off. It's after 5 am, and I've now been up for over 2 hours without feeling sleepy enough to go back to bed. I even tested it by reclining on my bed for a while, and I didn't feel at all in danger of dozing off. This feels like I've made a genuine breakthrough in adapting. It's a little exciting.

Now, I'll go back over the days since my previous update:

On the night of the 25th, I slept my core from midnight to 3, as has inadvertently become my habit. For some reason, it still feels "early" to go to bed before midnight. I woke up at 3 feeling good, but also yawning and sleepy. I had to be out at my usual naptime around noon -- and I was feeling a bit tired then. I tried to doze in the car while someone else drove, and I got a little rested from this, but it wasn't adequate. I finally got a chance to nap at 15:00, and I decided at this time to just lay down and see how long I naturally slept, as I was really exhausted and figured I might need some extra sleep to make up for the lateness of the nap. I slept for almost exactly 3 hours, and woke up just after sunset feeling a little surprised that I woke up in the dark and was wide awake. I always find it a little eerie to wake up at that time, because it feels like waking up at dawn, except the light is vanishing.

That night, I had a little trouble falling asleep, and finally dozed off close to 1:00. I woke up at about 2:20, about 80-90 minutes later. I felt okay and was tempted to get up, but I decided to go finish the core sleep, as I'd set my alarm for 3 hours at 00:30. So, I woke up with the alarm at 3:30. Felt the same as the night before, sleepy but not exactly tired. I sat in an armless chair to relax and work without danger of getting too comfortable and dozing. I stayed busy all morning and then took my nap at 11:30. I was very tired by then, but I had a hard time sleeping and felt a little anxious about getting enough rest. I woke up at 12:30 on my own, after a few short dozes. I was tired but also felt decent. I went to bed earlier that night, and set my alarm for 2:30, as I was still wanting to move my core sleep back from 23:00 - 2:00. Anyway, when I woke up at 2:30, I was okay but still rather tired. I decided to take my morning nap early, and I had a hard time getting up from it. I slept 90 minutes, woke up exhausted, and slept 90 minutes again to try to feel better. I don't know if it was an accumulation of fatigue, or the fact that I took the first nap during my sleepiest hours, but I didn't really get rested. I felt better later in the day.

Last night, I felt a little tired around 23:30 and decided to run with that. I went to bed and set my alarm for 3, as that seemed to be working for me, and laid down and tried to go straight to sleep rather than laying in bed and reading until I'm ready to fall asleep, like I usually do -- it's difficult for me to get sleepy at that hour unless I'm just exhausted. I fell asleep before midnight, and then woke up at about 2:50, without the alarm, and feeling good. I got up feeling enthusiastic about waking up naturally, and have not felt like dozing off at all.

It's really a different feeling than I've had the last several days. I feel like maybe, *maybe* I've gotten over the morning sleepiness. I'm going to do my best to get in a good 90 minute nap before noon, and hope that keeps me going strong like this.

Day 25: So close

2010-01-25T10:40:00.002-06:00

I'm starting to feel like I'm getting closer and closer to being adapted. I'm measuring this by how sleepy I am when I wake up from naps. If this schedule works for me, and I'm adapted, I'm thinking that I shouldn't get extremely sleepy between naps. My goal is to be up at 4:00 and feel normal, not like I could lay down and go back to sleep. Right now, I'm still experiencing sleepiness about an hour or two after my core sleep, and I actually dozed off at that time this morning because I made the mistake of sitting in my bed rather than getting up to use the computer. Otherwise, things are looking really good.

I'm consistently waking up from my noon nap feeling decent, and I've been getting it on time mostly. I did have a set back in that I went to sleep late Saturday night, as I just didn't feel like sleeping. I slept about 2-5 that night. Sunday, I was feeling tired because of this, and I took an extra nap in the afternoon, sleeping for about 80 minutes. I woke up from this feeling really, really good. That made me feel like I was making real progress and that napping worked. I slept from midnight 'til 3 last night, and again woke up feeling good and alert. And then I had the set back with wanting to doze off in the morning. I can't say that I was really tired, it was just the time of day, again. That's the hardest thing for me to struggle with right now. I think if I can go several more days without letting my guard down and dozing in the morning, I might be adapted. Right now, I'm feeling decent, and I think I'll be better later in the day.

Day 24: Brief discussion of polyphasing and diet

2010-01-24T22:00:00.000-06:00

Since a lot of people who are interested in polyphasic sleep are curious about the diet/physical health aspect, I'll talk about my own experiences with that some.

I haven't felt a need to increase my food intake any since I started polyphasing, and this surprised me. However, I have been drinking more water and tea while on this schedule. I usually keep a drink with me at home and have some of it occasionally. With more time spent awake, I'm sure that I'm getting more to drink this way. I haven't had any days when I've felt dehydrated. Previously, when I've had days where I stayed awake longer than 20 hours and then had a long sleep period after, I'd sometimes wake up feeling dehydrated and maybe having a headache after 8+ hours of sleep. When I'm not sleeping any more than 3 hours at a time, I haven't been experiencing this.

I haven't been any hungrier or thirstier, and ingesting more liquid just seems to be a result of spending more hours awake while sipping some water/tea. I still don't eat much at night, and never have, even when I've stayed up most of the night in the past. I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and one or two snacks a day. It's rare that I have a snack after dinner. I know some people experience more hunger when they're awake more, or feel driven to eat to keep themselves awake when they're fighting sleep deprivation. That doesn't really ever happen to me. I typically don't become hungry between dinner and breakfast. The way I'd describe it is that my digestive system seems to go to sleep at night, a few hours before my typical sleep time, and it takes a while to wake up in the morning. The earliest I eat breakfast is about 6:00.

Actually, the previous description is probably inaccurate. What is most likely going on is that my hunger follows a circadian rhythm, and I've never developed a need to eat at night. I'm usually doing low-energy activities when I first wake up, too. When I take my nap just before lunch, I wake up hungry. So sleeping itself has no effect, it's the time of day.

There are different reports about how polyphasic sleep affects weight and stress hormones that might contribute to weight gain. Some seem to report experiencing release of these stress hormones from sleep deprivation, and having associated increase in appetite and weight gain. I haven't experienced that, so I would say that's a good indication that I haven't felt much sleep deprivation so far. I've actually lost some weight, but it's <5 pounds, such a small amount that I can't say for certain whether it's connected to the polyphasic sleeping or not. Lots of things can cause minor fluctuations in weight. Some report losing weight with polyphasic sleep due to expending more calories since they're awake more, and I'd say that's a possibility.

I definitely don't think I'm getting any increase in stress hormones. In fact, I would say that I've been more relaxed due to having a sleep schedule that I'm happy with and that, so far, I haven't had many problems keeping. Probably having some more time awake during the peaceful nighttime hours helps as well.

I haven't intentionally changed my diet any while changing my sleep schedule, and I haven't noticed a difference in what I want to eat, either. I briefly covered how I typically eat in my "about" section. Basically, I'm an omnivore (I have some of everything), but I try to keep my diet natural and avoid eating chemical preservatives and refined sugar. I eat a lot of dairy, vegetables, fruit, and white meat. I haven't intentionally eaten beef in about 12 years, since I first heard about madcow disease. That made me aware of how badly beef cattle were treated, the bad diet they're fed, and the sloppy butchering process that was contaminating meat. It also made me realize that I do believe in respecting cows for providing us with milk. I have eaten buffalo and lamb occasionally, as they're said to be healthier red meats, and the animals are supposedly treated better since raising them is not the big industrial operation that raising beef cattle is. That basically covers it. Oh, I also have a little caffeine every day from tea and decaf coffee, usually at breakfast and lunch.

Also, just to avoid confusion and for full disclosure and whatnot, I want to point out that I am female. I have that written on the blog somewhere, but I know that can get overlooked. I think it's cool that the internet is so anonymous that some people couldn't tell, and it's not a big deal to me if anyone assumes I'm male. I just wanted to point it out while talking about physiology here.

That's all I can think of for now.

Day 22: Futility of extra naps

2010-01-22T12:19:00.002-06:00

Everything has been going well overall with the schedule. I'm having no problem with going to sleep at night and waking up 3 hours later, feeling refreshed and alert. I've even moved my core sleep back a few nights when I wanted to stay up late for doing something. I've gone to sleep as late as 2 and woke up at 5, and continued the schedule as usual, taking my 90-minute nap around lunchtime. I've actually been able to move my nap some as well on days when I had nothing to do in the morning or wanted to be available at noon for something. I originally wanted it to be about 11:30-13:00, but one day I did it about 9:30-11:00, and another day 10:30-12:00. No problems from this, so it seems that I'm getting relatively adapted and having some flexibility in my schedule.

Although I'm having no trouble waking up at night from the core sleep, I am still sometimes getting sleepy about an hour after waking up from the core. Like my body still wants to go back to bed at the early morning time when I'm typically sleepiest. So I have not yet overcome that urge to sleep then completely, although I am getting much better at waking up with the alarm.

I thought I might try to abate the sleepiness some by taking a 30 minute nap when I'm really tired. I've found that adding in short extra naps doesn't really do much for me, though. I wake up feeling just as tired as I did when I went to sleep when I nape in the early morning; evening naps are better and usually refreshing. I think that, again, this is just due to me being most sleepy in the morning. Taking an extra nap then doesn't really seem to do anything, and doing so probably just prolongs the difficulty of getting over sleeping then. The best thing to do is to just keep my waking time as consistent as possible and do something to wake myself up then, to make it clear to my body that this is no longer the time for sleep.

I know other people have said they had success with extra naps, but I'm now thinking that it might be a futile addition that doesn't really solve the problem. Perhaps it depends on the schedule. Those without a core sleep who are training themselves to always sleep for 20-30 minutes might do better with it.

I feel that I've made some progress in no longer being so groggy immediately upon waking from the core sleep (something that was a real problem for me with previous attempts), and I've at least trained myself to do something there. Or maybe this schedule just works out better for me. I feel like it hasn't been so difficult at all compared to trying to do other things in the past. There are many reasons that could be, and most of it probably has to do with having previous experience and having developed some skills in efficient sleeping and the desire to keep going with this.

Day 18

2010-01-18T18:48:00.002-06:00

I want to correct an erroneous assumption I'd made in the past. I believe I've said in this blog something that I've often heard others say and that I'd previously thought true: sometimes it's hard to fall asleep because my mind just won't be quiet. I've determined that, although laying in bed with my thoughts racing is related to not sleeping, the unquiet mind does not cause the lack of sleep. Rather, it is being in bed, in a quiet, dark room, and unable to sleep, that causes my mind to wander like that. Sometimes being in this state will make me suddenly feel more awake as I think of something that I want to do when I get up, and I anticipate doing that. However, this is caused by and not the cause of sleeplessness. Because, truthfully, when I am really, really tired and sleepy, no amount of racing thoughts or desires to do something will keep me awake while I'm lying in bed. No matter how burning that desire is to just read a little more, or whatever I'm doing, when I'm genuinely sleepy, I can't do it.

I'd previously mentioned maybe taking a short, 20-30 minute nap this time of day on days when I'm tired, but I was unable to do it today. I am feeling rather fatigued, although I don't know if that's due to polyphasic adaptation or due to my workload/spending too much time busy. For me, being fatigued does not equate to being sleepy. I'm not sleepy, so I am unable to nap. Other than the fatigue today, though, I feel that I'm doing fine with my adaptation. I hope to get some good sleep during my core tonight and maybe get rested up. I had no problem waking up from the core this morning, but found myself dozing a little while I sat in bed. As I enter what should be the harder part of the adaptation, I need to be vigilant against that, and make myself get up and work on the computer at that time. The artificial light helps one stay awake. I'll reserve reading for daylight hours if I find myself getting too tired at night.

I'm not sure how long to test a sleep pattern before determining its efficacy. I'm going to say that 2-3 weeks should be a decent test. If after 3 weeks I am fatigued and sleepy for long periods before or after naps, this is probably a sign that it's not working. So I will try to pay close attention to my energy levels for the next couple of weeks and see if there's any improvement.

Day 16

2010-01-16T11:28:00.004-06:00

I am back on the schedule and the adaptation path after two good naps today.

I learn the lesson again and again that I need to sleep on my back. I may start out feeling more comfortable in another position, but I will wake up with my head starting to ache after a bit, and keep doing so until I just sleep on my back. Sleep is much deeper that way.

I had a very interesting experience entering my morning nap today. I did not feel that tired when I laid down for my nap, but did feel like I could sleep. I relaxed and started to daydream, and the daydream just became deeper and more detailed until I was lucid dreaming. Very odd, but satisfying experience.

Not much else in other news. I spent my time this morning playing STO beta, which may be a waste of effort, but it was a lot of fun and a good motivator for getting up this morning. Probably not going to play it much except to check in and see what they're improving on it. It's a surprisingly enjoyable game.

As of this writing, I don't feel the least bit sleep-deprived, but of course that's to be expected with just getting back on the schedule after freesleeping for almost a week. I hope for a good nap again tonight, and some productive activity later.

Day 14 Update: Resetting

2010-01-14T14:09:00.004-06:00

The spring school term began this week, so I've been rather busy and not thinking about polyphasic stuff too much.

The weekend prior, I decided to do some intense gaming to finish up some stuff I had been working on in an MMO and wanted to be done with before the semester started. As a result, I stayed up too late on several nights, not wanting to nap, and so went back to just sleeping when I was too tired to stay up. Of course, I can't keep a schedule with that and just slept whatever time my body felt like (which varied considerably, although I still always wake up around 8), and it's not very restful to do it several days in a row, but it's difficult to go back to sleeping normally again the next night.

It seems paradoxical, but when you stay up until you're exhausted, it's like you oversleep when you do rest, and find it difficult to sleep again the next night. I find that I don't feel 100% after sleeping the sleep of the dead, but I have a hard time going back to sleep at a regular time the next night because, although I'm tired, I'm just not sleepy. I've been freesleeping up until today this week, trying to feel more rested after the mental exhaustion of the weekend and this week, but still staying up late doing stuff online or reading because I was unable to fall asleep until the early morning hours.

Tonight, I'm going back to my designated schedule. My attempts to rest up and reset by freesleeping don't seem to be doing anything; sleeping without a schedule doesn't aid getting back into sleeping on a schedule, for me at least. If I'm unable to sleep at my preferred time again (before midnight), I will try staying up until my late-morning naptime (11:30-13:00), sleeping then, and then getting my 3-hour sleep that night.

Days 5 & 6

2010-01-07T18:49:00.002-06:00

I was definitely leaning this way with my last post. I didn't want to give up my 3-nap schedule--which I liked so much in theory and believe could have had a chance if I'd had the time to have three equidistant naps and adapt to sleeping at each one--but it seems to be incompatible with my schedule. Looking back, very rarely did I actually take 3 naps. My schedule was such for days 5 and 6 that I was sure that I couldn't work in at least one of the naps, so I ended up taking a core sleep at night and hoping that I could get at least one nap. And since I'm feeling good with this so far (although two days certainly isn't enough to know if I'm adapting), I will continue.

My plan has now changed to sleeping 3 hours at night, getting a 1.5 hour nap in around lunchtime, and then taking a short nap when I get home at night as necessary. The most realistic times for me to sleep are 23:00 - 2:00, and 11:30 - 13:00. That gives me wake times of about 10 and 9.5 hours--very close to equidistant. The only hurdle to overcome will be falling asleep at 23:00, something that my body just doesn't want to do most days, unless I give it a couple of hours of cool-down time. Well, if it's the only way to get this schedule to work, then I will just do that.

I've been researching ways to deal with "delayed sleep phase," and it seems to be a difficult, but hopeful, situation. There are a few suggestions for how to get there without losing much sleep, but the basic goal is to just keep sleeping at the time I want to sleep and waking at the time I want to wake until my body adjusts--and it *probably* will. If gradual adjustment of this type doesn't work, the next step is to stay up until I'm good and tired, sleep at the desired time, and repeat as necessary. One can do this over a period of many days and gradually move the sleep time, or stay up 24+ hours and try to make the readjustment all at once. I've tried the latter before, actually, and I don't think it's very effective on just one repetition. The brain tends to go back to its desired sleeping schedule after its gotten sufficient rest. Perhaps many tries at it, coupled with having a supremely strict sleep schedule that includes time to prepare for sleep would work.

Since I *think* I finally have a schedule that nothing will interfere with greatly (and if it does, it shouldn't be by more than an hour on the average day, like maybe I'd move my noon nap to a bit earlier to go out for lunch or such), I'm going to give it my sincerest try, and hope that I will just adjust to it over time with nothing more than giving myself an hour or so to cool down before my evening sleep. I hope that, since I am sleeping at a time that I normally don't, and will be wide-awake when I'm normally sleepy, this will be enough to break me of wanting to sleep then, and I will get over it.

Too bad sleep experiments involve so much waiting to see what will work and what won't.

Day 4

2010-01-05T13:55:00.000-06:00

Even if I don't sleep for all of my naps, I appreciate having time throughout the day to meditate/doze. It's mentally and physically restorative for me. I usually get up feeling awake and like my mind's been cleared. It gives me quiet time to think, and I often get up at the end of the nap time with a plan for what I'd like to do for the rest of the day, where I did not have a clear idea before. Perhaps this thinking/planning and anticipation of doing something later is part of the reason I don't sleep much during the nap (sort of like how I sometimes had a hard time sleeping due to dreading something I needed to do when I got up, or being anxious about a deadline), but it still has a positive effect for me.

I didn't sleep during my afternoon nap today, and I pushed my evening nap back to the point where there was no sense in taking it. Instead, I opted to sleep from 2:00-5:00, which I quite liked and will definitely be doing in the future if I decide to go with 2 naps instead of 3, due to my continued failure in scheduling them well. I woke up feeling awake and good... until I started feeling tired and kind of down at about 6:00, and laid down and dozed off and on until after 8. Someone else in my household has the flu, and I hope I'm not catching it. Other than feeling bad then, I've largely felt good and healthy while adapting. I was disappointed in myself for doing that, and I felt kind of lethargic for a bit afterwards.

It seems that getting a lot of sleep or a little sleep does not make a big difference in my energy level (at least in the short-term), something that I've observed before. It's more about sleeping well (good quality of rest, such as from sleeping in bed and minimizing background noise), sleeping intelligently (sleeping before I get exhausted, planning sleeps for the correct amount of time and at the right times), and being positive about sleep (resting with the thought in my mind that I am doing it to have more energy for later). When I dread sleep and put it off until I'm exhausted, this makes it worse. And sometimes I don't intentionally do this, I end up doing it because I can't fall asleep and wake up when I want to and I get frustrated with this. That's what I'm trying to remedy. Keeping the positive attitude in mind, that this is a part of health-maintenance that I'm doing so that I'll continue to feel good, helps me to sleep better. That's why my blog is "Sleep to Wake."

Anyway, I skipped the noon nap today, I really don't need it after that. I will try to take at least a short nap this evening. I think there are two ways that I can proceed while keeping my desired schedule. I can either A) keep the schedule of 3x 90 minute naps that I have been trying (however poorly) to adapt to, or B) accept that the evening nap is difficult to keep, and instead opt for sleeping 3 hours + 90 minutes + another 30 minute nap if necessary. In the latter case, I would sleep 2-5 am, have my 90 minute nap after working in the morning and before school, from 11:30 13:00, and then, if I'm tired, take a 30 minute nap when I get home at about 19:30. I still don't have confidence in the shorter naps, but I realize it is something that I should consider, because it is difficult to work in longer naps, even when they are fewer. I think it's hard to adapt to a sleep schedule in which one is taking naps with the intent that the sleep-cycle lengths of them will be different. In other words, if I sleep on 90 minute cycles for a core sleep and then take 20 minute naps, I'm expecting my brain to do different things at different times. That is the hardest thing to adapt to, and for this reason, I've kept away from doing Everyman.

Whatever I end up doing, it's just going to be difficult to work in an evening, post-school nap, because my classes go until so late. Maybe I'll be so tired on those days that I'll have no problem with taking a 90 minute nap and won't feel like doing anything else. I don't know. Or maybe I'll finally get lucky with trying to fight the "delayed sleep phase" and fight the sleepiness in the morning, and be able to move my night sleep back to a time where it is easier to take only two naps a day, because they're evenly spaced. If I were to go to just two naps, it would be ideal if they could be from 22:00 - 1:00, and then 11:30 - 13:00. In the mean-time, I'll keep trying my 3 nap schedule. It might actually be a good way to gradually move to sleeping earlier in the night.

Day 3.5: the rest of the day

2010-01-04T09:21:00.000-06:00

The regular nap times (even the ones that I barely doze off for) seem to be having the expected effects on my memory and energy levels. Although I have felt tired and sleepy sometimes, there has not been a period when I felt tired and sleep-deprived for hours at a time. I've had only a couple of times that I can remember being mentally exhausted and having difficulty functioning at a normal level. I've been doing mental activities such as reading and writing without any difficulty, even during my late night awake period. To my knowledge, there hasn't been any trouble with my memory. I'm remembering each waking period well, and remembering what I've learned in that time. I've been reading texts in anticipation of going back to school in about a week. Soon, I'm going to start studying language again. I've just been waiting until I really felt strongly about doing it, but I ought to just go ahead and start.

I went out for a long period around lunch-time, and as a result, didn't get to do a nap until 15:30. I was actually sleepy then, and had no trouble sleeping. I slept about 80 minutes and woke up naturally. Sleep was normal and I experienced REM. Too bad not all of my daytime naps are like that. However, I didn't feel like sleeping again until rather late in the evening.

In anticipation of possibly being gone for the day and missing my afternoon nap and delaying my evening one, I decided last night to just lay down when I'm tired and sleep until 5 am. I thought it was important to get an adequate store of energy before-hand, because I cannot anticipate taking any naps. I got tired at about midnight, and woke up at 5:00, during an REM phase, feeling really well rested. I sat in bed and listened to the radio for a while as I didn't feel like reading, and dozed off again shortly at about 6:30. I felt lazy for doing that, and will be sure to stay out of bed at this time until I'm more adjusted to waking up so early.

http://www.glenrhodes.com/?p=132 -- Here is an interesting article on sleep that confirms that someone else has had success with doing something similar to what I am doing. If 3 naps fails to work out for me, I think I will go for the 3 hours + 90 minutes biphasic schedule. It seems I can definitely do a 2:00-5:00 core, although if I only take one daytime nap, it'd be more ideal for my core to be earlier, maybe 1:00-4:00. The only problem I have with that at this time is scheduling it around my classes, which are in a solid chunk during the afternoon.

If I could move my sleep to earlier in the night, it wouldn't be a problem. I've had difficulty with trying to schedule a core sleep in the past, and sometimes wake up groggy from it, but that could be a failure to time it well. I didn't do well with Everyman, and I'm not sure why, because I've often slept just a few hours at night in the past, so I should be used to it. I'm thinking it was probably the 20 minute naps that disagreed with me, I'd need a lot of time to adjust to those, and they are still difficult to schedule. Also, having my sleepiest period come early in the morning rather than during the night does not help with good scheduling.

I could try napping from 2-5 as I said, and then having another nap when I get home in the evening, but one of my aims so far has been to not interrupt the evening hours that I'd normally spend with the people who are important to me. The "delayed sleep" problem definitely needs to be fixed for me to ever have a schedule that I find acceptable. If I could have a really early core sleep, like 1-4 am or midnight-3:00, that would be perfect. However, that would also be less naps per day, so I wouldn't be serving my purpose of having sleep spread out throughout the day to promote wakefulness and memory retention. I have faith that one can adapt to more frequent naps, but so far, I seem to just be sleeping for two a day, and I keep having my evening nap really close to my morning nap. I don't know if having those two so close together does any good, maybe it would be better to just have one. Anyway, this gives me something else to think about.

Day 2.5, Day 3

2010-01-03T09:33:00.000-06:00

Day 2.5, 1:39 am

As I go on with my adaptation, the mental component of sleeping self-discipline becomes more apparent to me. It's amazing, the different that attitude makes in my success or lack thereof. Although I can't hypnotize myself into going to sleep, thinking that I am sleepy or should be sleepy seems to have some affect, and same goes for feeling awake. I took my evening nap a little early tonight, at about 20:30. I hardly slept at all, and that's probably due to setting the nap at a time that I have very rarely ever gone to bed at. However, I did sleep a short while toward the end of the nap. I was a bit sleepy when I woke up, but I resisted the urge to go back to sleep by telling myself that, even though it was night, I was awake and it was time to get up, and I'd feel much better about myself if I got up now and napped again at 3:30. I did get up, and felt awake and very alert within a few minutes. And now, it is 1:39, and I am feeling quite relaxed, but also very awake. I find myself occasionally thinking, "I should be tired at this time after so little sleep," and marveling at the fact that I'm not. I don't think that controlled thinking or a positive attitude bears the full responsibility for a successful adaptation, but it could make the difference in whether or not you oversleep. When I tried to adapt back in September and October to my Dymaxion-like schedule (I tried to do Dymaxion, but allowing myself 1-hour naps to try to assure that I had adequate time to fall asleep), my state of severe stress and my doubts about whether Dymaxion worked and whether I could do it probably made a difference in my lack of success in falling asleep and getting up on time. Now, I just need to figure out a way to relax more quickly to sleep. I think doing quiet activities directly before a nap often has an impact. One way I've been able to put myself to sleep at night in the past was to peacefully read something that wasn't too exciting. This seemed to make me sleepy if I was already tired, although it sometimes took an hour or two. Anyway, I'm going to spend at least an hour prior to my nap this morning reading a textbook or such to try to make it easier.

I hardly slept for my afternoon nap either. I took it rather late, after 13:00, due to being busy earlier. I'm going to say the failure to sleep was a combination of taking it too late and being disturbed during it.

Day 3, 8:07 am

I had no problems falling asleep at 3:30--except that I had an odd series of lucid dreams, and woke myself up in the middle of the nap. Lucid dreaming is not new for me, but waking up during a nap is. One of the dreams, the one I most clearly remember, was just a very vivid still life scene that I was experiencing. It somehow seemed more vibrant than just seeing it normally. I could see minute textures on everything. It was a closet that had some of my clothes in it that I was seeing, from an odd upward angle, but I don't think it was my closet. Very odd. I realized it was a dream and tried to change the scene so that I could see something else like this, and tried to picture a familiar forest, but it didn't work and I moved and woke myself up. I've had weird lucid dreams before, although not quite like that. It was rather like an image that I had seen during the day was stuck in my mind (although it wasn't exactly like reality). Prior to the dream, I had been trying to move, and I think dreaming that I was moving, but finding it difficult due to sleep paralysis and getting annoyed at this. I know I didn't move because I woke up in the same position I had fallen asleep in. I think that stories of astral projection are the result of lucid dreaming. I've had such dreams of getting up and moving around before, and actually one dream of finding that my body was paralyzed from sleep, so I left it and tried to go somewhere, but found that everything looked strange and it was hard to find my way, so I went back to bed. Many lucid dreams tend to be of real life things, so that may be where one could imagine it actually happened.

I slept from 3:30 to 5:00 without a problem, except the short awakening. I was very sleepy when I woke up at 5 and found it hard to get up. I set my nap alarm for 20 minutes and took another short nap, thinking this would lessen the sleepiness, but I was wrong. It did nothing. I won't be doing that again any time soon, and will instead just be strict about getting up at 5:00 and going on. After I did force myself to get up, I quickly felt less tired and had no trouble functioning.

It seems that my sleeping problems seem to be due to me being geared to sleep in the mid-afternoon and the early morning. I already suspected this, but the fact that I should be tired for my evening nap after a day of not sleeping much, and even then I never am, seems to confirm my suspicion. I'd say that I'm producing melatonin from about 2:00 - 8:00. I start getting tired around 2:00, I'm asleep within 5 minutes when I lay down at 3:30, and I find it hard to wake at 5:00 and will continue to feel sleepy off and on until about 8:00. When I free slept the day before, I naturally woke up at about 8. Now I know what difficulty I need to tackle if I am to ever be good at waking up early and taking naps at other times.

I realized that I've been always writing these blog posts in the morning, so they don't really cover the day listed in the title, just the day before. I'll try to remedy that by posting in the evening or during the night in the future. This one is already long enough, so I will publish it, and write 3.5 covering the rest of the day later.

Day 2

2010-01-02T09:35:00.000-06:00

I now also have a blog at http://xialuote.trypolyphasic.com. For now, these two blogs are duplicates of each other. Trypolyphasic.com is a very nice community for information on the subject, and I like the community of bloggers that is developing there.

Here's a link relevant to the subject of taking 90 minute naps:
http://www.saramednick.com/htmls/pdfs/Mednick-NN03[8].pdf. To summarize, this is a study done on how taking naps that include both slow wave sleep (SWS) and REM was found to promote learning. Participants also slept an average of about 7.5 hours at night. However, those who included a nap between training sessions did significantly better than those who only slept at night. This lends support to my belief that breaking your day up with naps will promote better learning. I don't think the amount of sleep matters as much as the frequency of sleep. In other words, sleeping every few hours for up to 90 minutes is better than taking your sleep in one go. Of course, one also needs to not be sleep-deprived for this to be most effective, so that is the caveat. My purpose is to see whether I can successfully adapt to 90 minute naps spaced throughout the day without feeling sleep deprived in between.

Nap report: Yesterday, I was late getting to my 11:30 nap, but I still enforced the 13:00 wake up time, as that isn't really negotiable in my schedule. I woke up then feeling like I could sleep more, but feeling alright otherwise. However, I delayed my evening nap more than I wanted to, and didn't take it until 23:00. I was tired when I woke up from it, in part because I had a hard time getting to sleep. Last night was one of the coldest so far this season. I used an electric blanket to warm up, and initially had a hard time getting warm enough to sleep, but then woke up during the nap feeling a bit hot. From about 00:30 to 3:30, I did some reading on the computer, and then played a game for a bit, which is different than my usual nightly routine of sitting down and reading a book or something else quiet. I got to my next nap a little after 3:30, and could not fall asleep for it. Again, I was cold. I used the heating blanket, but didn't turn the temperature up so high on it, and it was rather slow to get me warm. By the time I was comfortable and drowsy, it was 5:00. I was feeling really sleepy at this point and knew I needed the rest, so I just laid back down and went to sleep without setting an alarm. I didn't really like doing this as I want to be strict with my 5:00 wake time as well, but I also didn't want to get too tired and crash later, so I felt like it was necessary. I slept for about 3 1/2 hours, at which time I woke up on my own.

I'm starting to wake up tired from my naps, so I feel that the hard part of the adaptation is coming up already, meaning I need to be strict with waking times, and do what I can to fall asleep within 10 minutes during my naps. I need to review tricks that I used to use to fall asleep to help me with that. Something I'll be doing tonight is pre-warming the bed with the heating blanket before getting into it, and not leaving the blanket on during the nap, which just makes it too hot. I also need to review some relaxation techniques, and definitely be on time for naps today. I have plenty of time between naps, so there's no reason to be late getting to them again. Perhaps being tired between them will help me sleep for tonight's.

Day 1

2010-01-01T10:55:00.000-06:00

I'm surprised that I'm not tired... but I'm not. I was unable to really sleep for my afternoon and evening naps yesterday -- I was just too awake and wired, although I did still lay down and rest for a few minutes each time to try to stave off mental exhaustion -- so I just stayed up until it was time for the morning nap, figuring I would sleep extra good for it and the next afternoon nap. I went for my nap a little early, about 3:15 (instead of 3:30), went to sleep quickly, and woke up at about 5:11. Amusing that my alarm worked, but it still took me a while to wake up. And I'm glad that my alarm still isn't bothering anyone.

Since it's probably been a while since I covered this, I'll explain: I discovered that I wake up to the sound my cellphone makes when it vibrates while setting on a hard surface, such as my desk, or even sitting it on a book somewhere works well. The advantage of this is that this is a gentler sound and I wake up without being startled by the blaring of an alarm (I hate the sound of one of my alarm clocks so much that I seem to have a conditioned response to turn it off as quickly as possible and sometimes do so in my sleep without fully waking), and it seems to be a sound that someone in the next room can't hear (unlike my alarm clock). I've yet to get any complaints about it.

Anyway, I woke up very tired, probably more tired than I went to sleep, so I decided to take another nap for the one I missed during the night. It was hard to stay awake and I wasn't in the mood to fight it, knowing that I needed the rest, so I took another nap from about 6 - 7:30. However, I found it kind of hard to stay asleep, and I kept waking up and dozing off again. I guess I had it in my mind that I was determined to be awake during the morning and I had some fear of oversleeping, so I did sleep and have REM, but I didn't sleep well. Perhaps I was also just too tired to sleep deeply, something bizarre that does occur with me, and something that I think precluded my adaptation to Uberman (which was probably doomed anyway because I wasn't a firm believer in the efficacy of the strict schedule). The too-tired-to-sleep thing can sometimes happen to me after working on a project over night, or even with extreme physical activity (although it's difficult to say in that case whether I'm too tired or too "pumped" to sleep), such as on days where I spent the whole day hiking.

I was feeling a little disoriented when I got up at the end of the nap period, and I simply rested a while, but I felt much better about an hour later. I am definitely taking my afternoon and evening naps if I can make myself do so. I think I'm doing good, but I need the rest to recover from not being able to sleep much yesterday, so it is important that I try to get it to avoid crashing.

Day 0: Happy New Year

2009-12-31T16:31:00.002-06:00

Although I've been working on my new adaptation for about 9 days now, I'm going to call this day zero, because I think I've finalized my (flexible) schedule for the coming term, and my napping went very well today, about as well as I could expect. I feel like I'm firmly on the road to adaptation now. Also, it will be easy to keep track of my days with having January 1st be day one.

Last night, I didn't feel like going to sleep until about 23:30. I went to bed, focusing on my 1:00 awakening... and possibly as a result of this anticipation, I didn't fall asleep until most of my 90 minute duration was over. I had just barely drifted off and don't think I'd hit REM before the alarm went off. I got up alert, but still feeling like I hadn't slept as a result. I decided that I would just go back to bed so that I could perhaps be well rested for my new waking time of 5 am, and also because I would be late napping today due to being busy during the afternoon, and late with napping tonight, due to it being new year's eve. So, I went back to sleep shortly thereafter and got almost 4 hours of restful sleep, waking up at 5 am as I wished. I felt good upon awakening, better than I expected. I spent some time thinking about my sleeping schedule after waking up, and decided that I am satisfied with it. If I continue to feel as well rested for the coming days, I will definitely be sticking with this. I think having the two nap times close together during the night makes it easy to change them into one sleeping period on days like this when I either get to bed late or won't be able to nap during the day. For example, I have a day trip coming up in the near future. For that, I will probably just plan on trying to get 4.5 hours of sleep the night before, and then take my next nap whenever I get home. I don't want to interrupt the trip to take a nap unless I just really need the rest for the drive back. If I start to get drowsy, I can enjoy some ice-cold caffeine and see if that wakes me up.

I decided to (on upcoming days, not today) aim for a 21:30 naptime for the evening. With naps at 3:30, 11:30, and 21:30, that means I have 6.5 hours, 8.5 hours, and 4.5 hours of waking time between naps. Not equidistant, but not bad, and I should be able to easily move them an hour either way if this ends up not feeling right or being inconvenient. I feel that I have plenty of afternoon and evening hours in there, which was my goal. I want to keep this flexible, yet I know that even with that aim and my other measures to try to make this schedule as customized and easy and natural as possible (such as trying to adopt the 80 minute naptime that my system seems to favor), my ability to sleep well in the future will benefit from trying to have some rigor in it as I am trying to learn a new way to sleep. I am being mindful of one of my original pursuits in polyphasic sleeping, that of training myself to sleep more efficiently by getting a certain amount of rest each day, and resting before I become exhausted. I want to break the cycle that I sometimes fell into of not sleeping some days and then wanting to crash on others, and sometimes having groggy days just because of only sleeping when I was very tired. I don't expect to make myself be able to sleep on a strict schedule, but I think trying to train myself to wake at certain times on days when nothing interferes with this will benefit me in the future. I realize that it is best to at least try to sleep before you get overly tired. At least with 90 minute nap times, if I don't fall asleep during them, I can meditate and then get up and go about my business until I'm tired enough to try again or another nap is scheduled. I know if I don't fall asleep within that time, I'm definitely not tired. And if I get tired after that, I know it's not that long until another nap. It was always a dreadful feeling to not be able to sleep at night with trying to be monophasic, and to know that I had to get up at x time but wouldn't be getting a full night's rest, and this time that could be spent on other things was being wasted with trying to fall asleep and I'd just be groggy the next day unless I got a nap.

I'm surprised that I actually felt good with the 5 am wake time. When I tried to improve my monophasic sleep, I dreaded going to bed early and trying to get up before sunrise, even though I thought it was probably a good thing to do. It was very different to be awake and energetic at that time with having actually slept beforehand, instead of staying up all night. Anyway, I hope I am on the way to accomplishing another of my polyphasic goals, which is to be both an owl and a lark at the same time.

Okay, that's enough obsessing over schedules for now. Happy new year!

Progress report

2009-12-30T11:14:00.002-06:00

First, I want to thank those who read and contact me with comments. Discussing this has been constructive and educational.

I'll talk some on how I've been doing. I don't expect to know how well this schedule works versus Dymaxion (my preferred schedule, but one in which I felt like I wasn't getting enough sleep on and gave up trying) until I've been adapting to it for some time. Then I can rate my energy and cognitive function versus that and the way I usually just stay up until I'm sleepy and then sleep for however long I have time for or can stay asleep.

Right now, since I am having trouble feeling like going to sleep around the times that I picked, I am focusing on at least trying to wake up at those times and become adjusted to that. The last two nights, I haven't felt like going to sleep until about 2 am, very close to my desired nap time of 4 am, so I just went ahead and slept until 5:30 and woke myself then. I was tired after waking up at this time, but I'm focusing on trying to at least get down the tactic of getting up at the same time every morning. There is nothing bad about this, whatever sleep schedule one is on, and I feel like developing that habit will lead to other successful training. I think this is a good morning wake time, and I could move it slightly in either direction. I'm debating changing my sleep times to 3:30 and 11:30, so that I could then wake at 5:00 and 13:00. As for my evening sleep, since this is the hardest time for me to feel like falling asleep and to schedule it around other things, it would be nice if I could shoot for about 22:00 for it, but we'll see what happens.

So, one of my tactics is trying to always wake up at about the same time for my morning and noon naps. Some things I'm doing to help me wake are focusing on what time I want to wake when I go to sleep, and giving myself an incentive to get up at that time, such as doing a fun activity then and not at any other time. Stuff I've been doing is reading a book, but I may switch to something more exciting to help myself wake more quickly. I'm still having trouble getting my mind awake at a set time and I've come close to going back to bed the last two nights. Another thing I'm doing is that when I wake up in the dark, the first thing I do is turn on a light. Even before I turn the alarm off. This really helps.

That's it for now, as I actually feel like taking my noon nap today, so I will try to do so.

Why fewer naps?

2009-12-29T08:58:00.004-06:00

I've been asked why I'm choosing to come up with my own plan, that has the "impossible" feature of having fewer naps, rather than stick to more traditional methods.

First of all, I want to say that I don't really take kindly to people claiming to be against a dogma, and then these same people replacing one dogma with another. If you're open-minded enough to question the need for 8 hours of sleep every night, then why are you not able to question the need for other sleeping methods as well? This is something that I just can't understand. I thought the whole point was to experiment and find different ways of doing things, the basic assumption being that there are alternatives, and we are free to discover them.

There is not one alternative, and "Uberman" is not the best sleep method. It has some crucial flaws, some of which I have previously discussed (need for a strict schedule in which no more than one nap can be deviated from, need to constantly find a peaceful spot to nap, and the need to stay in the state of mind to be able to fall asleep every four hours or risk severe sleep deprivation as crucial, scarce minutes of sleep are missed), and another that I will get to momentarily. It is something that some people have found best for their lifestyles. It is not proven to work for everyone or to give everyone the rest that they require.

Additionally, it is not a new invention that should be touted as a replacement for any other form of sleep. The idea of it has existed for centuries (with claims that various people from Ben Franklin to Nikola Tesla followed this pattern, hence why it is also often called DaVinci sleep), and people have been experimenting with it all the while. What is new is that we have groups of people on the internet claiming to follow it as a long-term lifestyle. It is treated as a lifestyle, because proponents claim many things must go with it: changes in diet and lifestyle, scheduling naps, never being far from a spot to nap. The time spent sleeping is so vital that it becomes the anchor to your schedule, and trying to schedule it around something else doesn't always work out.

Of course, Uberman does have one benefit (besides the time saved; more on that soon) that attracts people to it: if you are able to sleep on each of your naps, you will wake up refreshed. Getting refreshed every four hours throughout the day and night sounds great. However, as I see it now, the schedule comes with sacrifice and downsides that I'm not willing to accept for that one benefit. Perhaps I can successfully refresh myself about every 8 hours instead, which would be enough for me. My goal is to be able to get about 4 hours of sleep a day without the tiredness that comes with receiving all of that sleep at once, during the night.

Moving on to the other suggested schedule, "Everyman." This is aptly named, because this is the way that most mild insomniacs end up sleeping, so it is rather more common than thought, and not something that a supposed insomniac like myself has to do anything special to adapt to. For many years, I have often slept just a few hours during the night, and then taken a couple of naps during the day when I had a chance to. Thankfully, I did not receive my rest this way every single day, because it sometimes left me really groggy. This schedule is easy to fall into, but I don't really believe that it's ideal for me, either. Sometimes I felt fine with it, and I even endeavored at one point to try to "adapt" to doing it every single day because of this. Then the obvious occurred to me, that I had often slept this way out of accident in the past. My mother sleeps this way. So, it's not really a new discovery, either. The assumption of many that all of the "bears" (non-ubermensch) sleep 8 hours a day is ludicrous. I'd say that very many people get 6 hours or less, and very many have difficulties sleeping that result in them falling into Everyman patterns. Again, not a revolutionary discovery. One can be comfortable with this if one becomes solidly used to and accepting of it, but the important key is to get all your naps and get them on time. Those who intentionally follow Everyman usually take 20 minute naps during the day; they are vital, and so if you are unable to fit them in or fall asleep with them, this is a problem. These are rather more refreshing and flexible when you are getting a core sleep in addition to them, and I usually had no trouble falling asleep for the first nap on that plan, but that was because I was so sleepy by the time I reached it. The short core sleep does not set well with me, as it feels like it's either too long or too short.

With my plan, I will be getting about the same amount of sleep as with Everyman, but I hope to make it more efficient by having equal naps throughout the day. This was my goal with the sleeping four times a day for 60 minutes that I attempted earlier, but then, I was not aware that an 80 minute nap was about my optimum time. With resting for 90 minutes, allowing myself 10 minutes to fall asleep, I will be receiving 240 minutes of sleep a day (ideally), or 4 hours. With sleeping three times a day, I hope to spend less time overall falling asleep, and get more actual sleep.

This brings me to my main point: having six or four naps a day is horribly inefficient, because with each nap you add, you are adding more time to fall asleep.

If you are anything like me, and you normally aren't walking around in a zombie state in which you are ready to fall asleep as soon as you lay down, and you can't fall asleep on command, then it takes you some time to fall asleep. If I'm really tired, I take 5 minutes to fall asleep. Normally, I take more than that, and even when I'm ready to sleep right when I lay down, I may take 10-15 minutes to be out. One point I was never clear on with the talk of the Uberman plan was the actual time one spends sleeping. It is said that you sleep for 2 hours a day. Does this include time falling asleep? Let's say I set my nap alarm for 20 minutes each time I lay down for an Uberman nap. I will sleep for, at most, 15 minutes of that time. If I am not in the state of mind to sleep (something difficult to achieve every four hours), I might take 10 minutes. At best, I will be receiving 60 to 90 minutes of sleep a day if I do that. That doesn't sound like enough to me. If it is, and you feel you can live on that, bless you. Now, if I factor in a 5 - 10 minute falling asleep period, then I will set my nap alarm for about 30 minutes each time I lay down. I will get 2 hours of sleep, if I sleep each time. However, I will have spent one hour trying to fall asleep. I'm not spending 2 hours in my figurative bed, I'm spending 3, and only sleeping for 2 of them. This is enormously inefficient.

Let's say I reduce my naps to 90 minutes, 3 times daily. If I take 10 minutes to fall asleep at each, I will have spent 30 minutes falling asleep and acquired 4 hours of rest in return. If I had to spend 3 hours in bed with Uberman to get 2 hours of sleep, I would only be spending 1.5 hours more in bed (4.5 hours) and getting twice as much sleep. Not to mention the convenience of having to only schedule 3 naps instead of 6. With Uberman, time spent asleep is only twice the time spent falling asleep. With my plan, it's 8 times as much.

This is much more efficient and logical. I'm taking naps for the period of time that I believe to be optimum for me, getting three of those naps spaced throughout the day to help keep my energy up, not having to keep a very rigid schedule of naps, spending less time trying to fall asleep, and having to sleep 4-5 hours less than the prescribed 8-9 hours. This just seems logical for my lifestyle, on multiple levels. If I can find a way to get enough rest and energy from polyphasic sleeping, I believe that this is the way for me to do it. I can't advocate my plan for anyone else at this point, since I am just beginning it, but I am really enthusiastic about it at this time. I think I also decided what I would call it, too, should it be successful.

Another day, and some thoughts on procrastination

2009-12-28T11:13:00.003-06:00

I didn't feel tired enough to fall asleep for my evening nap until about 1 am. I slept until 2 am, and woke up tired, due to not having been able to get my rest earlier. I went ahead and took my nap at 4 am as planned, and woke up feeling better, but still in the mood for more rest. I took my nap 90 minute nap much earlier, at about 8 am. Right now, I feel good, awake, and don't think I'll be in the mood for a nap at noon. I'm trying to make myself think of sleep, but can't really. I have too many other activities on my mind, such as getting ready for the new year.

Over the last few years, with being overscheduled (and having too many personal obligations), and often dealing with stress and the urge to procrastinate (which often led to my resulting sleeplessness, both being too busy to sleep and too wired to sleep) that results from being too stressed to face things, I've developed a strong aversion to procrastinating now. I always want to get things done now, and done correctly. I've also learned that tasks are rarely as difficult as we think they'll be. Things that I used to want to procrastinate on often turn out to be something simple and easy to accomplish when I get to them, if I simply approach them with the mindset that I will get them done, and done immediately. Prolonging them only makes it more annoying to finally finish them, and realize it was something much easier than I had thought, in my stressed-out frame of mind. Things also become more difficult to do, the longer you wait on them. If you are certain that something must be done, and you know (or can find out) how it should be done, then there is never any reason to hesitate. Hesitation is only warranted when more time is necessary to plan something out; taking the time to figure something out fully is usually better than making a rash decision, when you can afford that luxury. Of course, some things just need quick decisions, as hesitation doesn't always make things clearer. However, if you know what you must do and yet you wait, you are just prolonging something that could be easily dealt with and that will quickly become history.

Caffeine, white noise, etc.

2009-12-27T13:30:00.005-06:00

One more benefit of the new sleep plan that I forgot to mention: 8 hour awake periods allow me to continue enjoying my caffeine. I know I sound like such a stereotypical geek saying this, but I'm not going to give that up anymore. I enjoy the occasional caffeine high too much, as well as all of the wonderful delivery methods of it. I got many delicious flavors of tea and a new teamaker for Christmas. I love tea, and I think it's good for me. I also really enjoy the occasional espresso or cup of coffee (although I limit myself to about one a day to avoid making myself sick from it), and caffeinated candy as well. Sometimes I crave a good Nuka-Cola. The only thing I don't like are those horrible tasting energy drinks with their aspartame and ginseng and ginko. All that stuff tastes terrible, and is worse for you than any bottle of soda could ever be. Too concentrated a dose of caffeine is not good, either, and some drinks have enough caffeine in them to give a person of small stature a heart attack. The only energy drink I ever liked the flavor of was Vault, and it gives me such an adrenaline rush that I feel like time has slowed down. I used to consume quite a bit of caffeine, but I never really became desensitized to it the way that some people do.

After trying it for several weeks, at varying times of the day, I've concluded that white noise tracks, such as the Placebo sleep track that many people use for napping, are virtually useless for me. It's not that they don't cause me to fall asleep. More times than not, if I'm tired, I will sleep with the track -- but it's not a normal sleep. It is more like falling unconscious for several minutes. Falling asleep to the track goes like this for me: the white noise will give me some degree of sensory deprivation and allow my mind to drift, and I will become unaware of my surroundings, and eventually the track, and just be lost in my thoughts -- then I hear the noise signalling the end of the track, and I wake up, not realizing I was asleep and not feeling like I'd fallen asleep. I will wake up tired and feeling like the nap was totally unsatisfying. I have never dreamed with these tracks. It just feels like I've blacked out for a few minutes while lost in meditation. If I'm not tired, it's a rather interesting experience, but if I am tired, it leaves me tired and cranky, because I didn't actually get restful sleep in which my subconscious took over and I dreamed. It's like a twilight sleep, not fully aware, but still consciously thinking. I never oversleep with the track, but my sleep is totally unsatisfying.

What does work for me is simply relaxing and falling asleep on my own, and trusting an alarm to wake me up (which my cellphone alarm always does, although a traditional buzzing alarm may not). If I lay down on my bed and clear my mind, relax my body, relax my facial muscles, and ignore my senses, I will fall asleep. It may take a while, but it will happen. And I will receive refreshing sleep, and I will dream for almost every nap. I can sleep as little as 20 minutes this way, and still wake up feeling like I've slept and dreamed and at least recharged some. This is the only way to sleep that I've found restful and acceptable, and so I need to build my schedule around allowing that to happen. I need time to let myself fall asleep under my own power and to sleep naturally. While I sometimes fall asleep while trying to nap somewhere away from home, it's not the same. If I'm not comfortable in a bed, I won't really get the most from my sleep. It'll do if I've nothing else, but it's not ideal. So, I need to plan my schedule around being able to sleep at home, even if it means I have to go longer between sleeps and get more sleep in one go.

The schedule that I will loosely follow, allowing some flexibility to deviate as necessary, will be something like this: napping with the alarm set for up to 90 minutes at the hours of 4 am, 12 pm, and between 7:30-midnight. I selected these times because I'm busy during a solid chunk of time between 2 - 7 pm, so ideally, I should sleep right before then. I know I'm going to want to do different things in the evenings, so I can't rely on always sleeping when I would normally get home at 7. So I need some flexibility there, but will still plan to work in an evening nap. I always experience a dip in energy and a rise in sleepiness early in the morning and in the afternoon, so trying to channel that sleepiness into naptimes during the early morning and about noon would be good. Theoretically, this sounds like it should work. Based on my experiences with trying to find a schedule that my body and my mind find acceptable, this should work. I have much more of an idea of what I need and what I can reasonably shoot for than I did back at the start of the fall term, so I feel more confident in my ability to find something that works for me now.

I've been trying to follow this schedule since the 23rd of December (in hopes of becoming fairly adapted before the start of the spring term, if I am going to be adapted), and while I've been averaging about 5 hours of sleep a day (about what I would get if I slept 90 minutes at each naptime), it hasn't gone to this schedule yet, due to being too busy to nap much during the day. On the night of the 22nd, I went to sleep at about 4 am and woke up at about 7 am on the 23rd, tired but alert. I then slept again for about an hour at noon. I was unable to fall asleep again until about 2 am that night, and slept off and on until about 11 am, my longest sleep (although not in a solid chunk). On the 24th, I was up until about midnight, and then slept until about 2 am. It wasn't a restful sleep. I gave the 26-minute white noise sleep track one of its final trials, trying it three times in a row, and not really getting any satisfying sleep during that time. However, on the 4th trial, I was wide-awake and fed up, so I simply got up and went about doing some things for a while. I was excited about Christmas, so I was able to do a bit of preparation work and then relax and read a book until about 6 am, when I decided it would be good to sleep again. I slept from about 6:30 - 8 am, and then was up until about midnight, hardly feeling tired or sleep deprived during the day. Exhausted then, I slept in a solid chunk from about midnight to 5:30 am, when I got up to do some shopping, tired but alert. I was out and busy for most of the day, not having a chance to nap again, although my energy never really dipped much. In fact, I felt very energetic and light-hearted. I noted that I wasn't very hungry that day; whether that was due to the sleep, or due to having eaten plenty the day before, I'm not sure. That night, I was sore and exhausted, and decided a longer sleep may be in order (and perhaps unavoidable), so I slept from about midnight to 7:30 am. After that long sleep, I didn't feel like a nap again until about 4 pm, when I set my nap alarm for 30 minutes and had a very refreshing, dream-filled sleep.

My plan tonigh will be to bed down again at about 10 pm, and 4 am, and then noon tomorrow. I'll see what kind of reaction this brings.

New plan

2009-12-27T13:05:00.003-06:00

I've mentioned in this blog before that I had considered the idea of trying to only nap when I was tired, instead of trying to stick to a schedule, something that often doesn't work for me, either because the schedule is difficult, wrong, or gets interrupted by daily life. It would be better to do a semi-free-running form of napping, where I simply take a nap when I am able or I feel like it, rather than trying to tell my body when to nap. The only thing to be wary of would be making sure that I get naps often enough and for the duration that my body needs. For it to be effective, I would have to limit the duration of my naps and have a certain frequency to them, so that I am not just "crashing" when I sleep. I've done well with free-running sleep in the past, this is what I've more or less ended up doing for some time now, when I was able.

The only thing that would be new for me is trying to limit my free sleeping to an optimal duration. I'm not sure what this would be. I am sometimes good with a 15-30 minute nap. Other times, I will naturally sleep for about 80-120 minutes. I've tried doing 20-30 minute naps X number of times a day, and I will often have naps where I don't fall asleep, barely fall asleep, or wake up still tired. I've adapted to napping, but any set schedule has so far seemed to fail. I don't fall asleep that quickly unless I am already dead-tired, and I don't know that this is the ideal state of being for me. Trying to force myself to adapt to a certain schedule didn't work out so well, either. Doing common adaptation tricks like sleeping on the floor just made it more painful, because what little sleep I did get was uncomfortable. I wasn't adapting; I was just not sleeping, and learning to be fine with it. I learned that I could not sleep and still function sufficiently, but this is not maximizing my sleep time, nor is it taking advantage of having a nap schedule with my sleep spread out throughout the day. It was just getting over the pain of sleep deprivation. Was that healthy? I don't know.

It seems like laying down and setting my alarm for 90 minutes works well for me. I take a few minutes to fall asleep, and usually wake up refreshed after that time. I'm considering the idea of sleeping for about 90 minutes, 3 times a day. I've been trying this the last few days, and something about it seems to be working. I have been awake more than 8 hours at a stretch during that time, but I was not experiencing pain of sleep deprivation during this, and I was experiencing some of the positive effects that I sometimes associate with being tired but continuing to go. I felt energetic and less anxious. What causes this state? Is my brain drugging itself because its tired? Am I getting too much adrenaline? I still have some worries about this, but physically and mentally, I feel fine. If nothing else, the longer I try this, the more I adapt to being flexible on my sleep, and sleeping less in general. I don't need 8 hours of sleep a day, and as far as I can see, I am just as healthy without it, and feeling as good as ever.

Anyway, this is the (loosely structured) schedule that I am endeavoring to follow now, and one that I think I can stick to fairly well. Unless it suddenly becomes possible for me to fall asleep instantly and get all my rest in 20 minutes, a 90 minute nap seems to be right for me. I believe it is something that I can easily adapt to, and feel well doing. It is still more optimal than a long chunk of sleep once a day, but it is more sleep than the usual 2 hours that polyphasics get. On an average day, I'd be getting about 4 - 4.5 hours of sleep. It is also less frequent than every 4 hours, so although I would be taking sleep breaks less frequently, I would also lose that annoying feel that I'm always either preparing to sleep or trying to wake myself up that I got with the DaVinci plan. 8 hours both seems like an optimal time for me to go without feeling sleepy, and something that I can easily adapt to my schedule, as I am often out doing things for more than 4 hours at a time, but usually less than 8. I believe that 90 minute chunks of sleep will allow me some flexibility on the 8 hour spacing, as well. It's not such a short time that I will be so reliant on frequency, like "Uberman" sleepers learn to be.

Anyway, I'm hopeful about this endeavor. And happy with the few days that I've been trying it so far. I was able to both be up early and feel rested enough for Christmas and the day after. I'm excited about polyphasing again, and I will try to keep a good log of my experience on this trial, to best ascertain whether this works for me.

2009-11-01T14:34:00.003-06:00

I'm still here, and still not sleeping "normally" most days. I'm still debating about what is the best sleep plan for myself. I've been very busy doing all of the things that keep me up at night, so I haven't given much thought to making an update on what's happening to me lately. I will be doing such an update in the near future.

Progress?

2009-10-02T07:25:00.003-05:00

Wednesday night, I was not in the mood to sleep. Didn't get to sleep until the pre-dawn hours, slept about 3-4 hours and wasn't groggy when I got up, but wasn't really in the mood to do anything. I went to school and had an uneventful day. I got about a half-hour nap in the car, slept for just a few minutes of that, but it felt good. I was really tired by the time I got home, but still didn't feel like sleeping until about 10 PM. I was thinking about my nightly nap and wondered if the solution to my difficulties in waking between 12 - 6 AM was to just nap earlier until I was more adjusted to waking during the night. So I decided to try to nap from 10 - 11 PM. I fell asleep around 10:30, and woke up at 6 AM. I'm going to blame this in part on sleeping in my bed. Habits usually have a place, and if you return to that place, the habit comes back. Monophasic sleep is a habit that comes with going to sleep in the bed at night. So, I need to try to improve the pallet and try that again. Additionally, I blame not having my cellphone. It was charging at this time, and I didn't bother to go unplug it and set the alarm. I thought my alarm clock's obnoxiously loud nap alarm would do it. However, I find that I've been conditioned to turn that one off without waking up, and there's about a 25% or greater chance that I will just do this at any given time. I'm less likely to do it if there's either a light on in the room or it's daytime, but this can definitely happen anytime I set the alarm for night. So, I'll make two adjustments tonight: cellphone alarm and not sleeping in bed. I'll continue these until I'm conditioned to wake at night.

On the other hand, I'm definitely making some progress in that I can consistently wake up at 6 AM. I woke up feeling refreshed and decent and productive, even though it was still dark out. In the past, I've often had some trouble waking up at 6 AM, and it was especially painful during the winter when it was still dark during this time. So, I'm at least getting better at getting up early in the day, and even though it was almost dawn at 6, I did wake up in the dark without a problem and without grogginess or depression. If nothing else, I've accomplished that. If I don't succeed at polyphasic, maybe I can at least be a scheduled and non-failing monophaser who can be productive during the day. I'm still confident that I can adapt to waking myself up in the middle of the night, though.

Waking up

2009-09-29T22:41:00.002-05:00

This blog now has a new title.

There's not much to say about my progress on adapting to my chosen schedule. It seems that I'm still wanting to take the core sleep. The last two nights, when I woke up from my 11 PM nap, without really thinking about it, I laid down and proceeded to take another nap, waking up around 3 - 3:30 AM. I've been sleeping the best at my 5 AM nap, which makes sense, as I'm most accustomed to being asleep then. I also wake up feeling more refreshed from it, as it puts me waking up at about dawn. I've had trouble sleeping during my evening nap, although it's not getting darker at that time of day. I've been tired at 11 AM both days, and slept well then, aside from disturbances.

Now for something a bit more interesting. I've found that changing my sleeping time to a stricter schedule that I actually like has been a systemic change for me, and I'm starting to do better with doing other things on schedule around my naps as well. I've tried to come up with a regimen of stuff to do when I wake up, to give me something to look forward to doing when waking up, and to help me get adjusted to being awake at those times and making productive use of the hours.

Before going to sleep, I brush my teeth. I've been doing that more with polyphasic, as I don't put it off 'til "bedtime." If I'm not tired before my 11 PM nap, I exercise a bit and then try to relax and put myself in the mood to sleep. When I wake up, I go wash my face, have a meal, snack, or at least something to drink, and try to go right to work doing something. As an extra incentive to get up from my night and morning naps, I've contemplated doing my internet time then instead of in the evening, or maybe working on a project I'm really looking forward to finishing.

I'm still doing well as far as tiredness and energy levels go. About average. I wake up feeling really good from some naps, from others, I have grogginess. I think I'm seeing an improvement in productivity, but I still have a lot to do. My mood has been even. I still have bouts of anxiety, but I think sleeping at regular intervals, and having a schedule that assures that I at least lay down and try to sleep, has done something to improve my depression so far. I woke up with anxiety at about 3 AM the last two nights (which is why my sleeps didn't last longer than that). I keep thinking that it's because of the work I have to do, but it probably has more to do with my attitude. I know people who handle more and do better with it. I'm hoping to find a way to let the anxiety go, and I hope to eventually experience more of the mood-enhancement that most polyphasic practitioners claim to feel.

Adjustments

2009-09-27T21:23:00.002-05:00

I'm either going to have to figure out a better time to do the core sleep, or stick with shorter naps. It's still a problem for me to get up and stay up from the core sleep without feeling really tired. Last night, I woke up from it and was so tired and sore and down that I didn't feel like doing anything, so I just took another nap shortly after waking. I think part of the problem might be staying in bed. It could also be that, even though I think I'm inclined to be polyphasic, I'm still not getting the most out of my naps because I haven't been doing it for long and am still wavering on finding the best schedule for me. The solution is to pick something and stick with it for a few weeks and see how it suits me.

I have three options:

1) put the core sleep at a different time, maybe dawn, so that waking up from it isn't so hard,

2) stick with the schedule that I made up (with the help of my best friend) that sounded good to me, napping 4 times a day for one hour,

3) go with something that's considered tried & true, like Uberman.

I'm reluctant to do #3 because I know I have days when I'm guaranteed to miss a nap, and on other days, I have a frustrating lack of control over my schedule that will probably make me miss a lot of my naps. If I were a free person living alone and setting my own schedule, I'd probably have no problem with it, but I'm not. If someone in my household wants me to do something at a certain time, I have to do it, or risk social unrest.

Number 2 would be my preference, because I feel like the one-hour nap time is an optimal one that allows me plenty of time to get to sleep and (I hope) get through all of my sleep cycles. I don't doubt that Uberman works for others, but I am still skeptical about whether it is adequate resting time. Also, my friend has been encouraging of me to try forgoing the core sleep, saying that I should be able to handle it, and if it's a problem, then just stop.

I've been really hesitant to give up a longer sleep period, for fear that I'll be missing out on some essential sleep cycle, but the goal of my experiment was to give something different a proper try in order to empirically see for myself which system was better. I'm going to remember that.

So, my goal now is to try one week of doing nothing but one-hour naps, 4 times a day. There will be one day a week when I know I won't be able to do that, but for the others, I have a good probability of getting my naps at least close to the strategically scheduled times. After a week, I'll evaluate whether I want to keep going with this option or try another. If I fail to get my naps, feel that either the schedule or the napping is not working for me on the long-term, and I'm too tired, I'll switch to having a short nap at night followed by a foredawn core-sleep of about 3 hours, and see how that suits me.

Since everyone gives a name to their sleeping schedule, I've elected to just call my schedule "Quad," as I can't think of anything better. Tonight is the first night of strictly keeping to it, and I'll start updating on how it goes from here.

11 Days

2009-09-26T23:14:00.000-05:00

It's been about 11 days since I officially set out to alter my sleeping. I slept more than usual last night. I started out wanting to take an hour nap at 11 PM and then go back to working, but I was disturbed in my nap by the cat again (she seems to be hiding in my room about the time that I wish to nap and then popping out to annoy me once I lay down). This time, she knocked something over and broke it while trying to get me up. I didn't get to enjoy my nap, woke up angry, and didn't really feel like going back to sleep or doing anything productive. I played a game for a little while, then decided to take a long nap because my arms were sore from work I did on Friday. I slept for about 5 hours, didn't feel any less fatigued, so I took another brief nap shortly after waking. My hope was that it would be good to get some extra sleep, as I do believe it can have some effects on healing and mood. It didn't really help me with either today. I've felt depressed and like I don't want to sleep since then. I'm not any less sore or achy, although I didn't exactly make it better by sitting for most of the day. Once again, I wonder if less sleep is actually better for my mood. I'm going to try going for less sleep again tonight, and see how that leaves me feeling. I don't feel like I overslept last night, but I can't say that the extra sleep did anything for me, either.

It works; now what?

2009-09-25T22:37:00.001-05:00

Not very much new to report today. Everything is going along well. I haven't had any difficulties with the transition, other than a few nights when it was hard to wake up and a bit of worry about whether or not it's good for me. Perhaps this is because I'm already rather used to dealing with sleep-deprivation, however. I'm not used to it in the way that it's a daily occurrence for me and my normal state of functioning; most days I am not sleep-deprived, and I know the difference. However, I am able to make myself stay awake and function while sleep-deprived pretty well, and for the most part, it doesn't cause me a great deal of pain. I was also in the habit of napping when I had the time, so that wasn't really something new for me to adjust to, either.

I've had seem very odd sleep patterns in the past, and it wasn't odd for me to stay up all night because I was doing something I couldn't put down. For a while when I was 18 and not really doing anything that required me to be up all day (basically NEET), I slept from foredawn to mid-afternoon. My typical day was to do some work that required daylight during the afternoon then (such as fixing up the house or yard), enjoy some time outside at gloaming, and then spend the rest of the evening chatting or playing games, maybe take an evening nap, and read or study during the late night hours. I didn't eat much during this time; my appetite seems to actually follow a circadian rhythm in that I don't get hungry much at night. I would have dinner and a snack and that was all I felt like eating. And I've noticed that with my current polyphasic schedule, I don't get hungry late at night either, but I will get hungry around dawn. Others that I've told about this have speculated that it's simply because I don't do much that's physically active at night, but I'm not sure this is the cause. I don't do much physical activity as a student either, but mental activity will make me hungry all the same.

I felt very physically tired last night, however, and after taking an hour nap and waking up still feeling wiped, decided to have a recharge sleep of a few hours. I woke up early and proceeded to have an active and productive day, doing some shopping and cooking for the week ahead, watching a movie I'd been meaning to get to, and working on an assignment. I didn't feel like napping during the morning, and at my afternoon nap time, I couldn't believe that it was still so early in the day. Not because I was tired, but because I'd gotten a lot done. I slept only a short time and am back at work now, and will probably have a short core-sleep later and continue working tonight, in hopes of getting caught up on some things.

Anyway, even though I am not following something as strict as Uberman and have had a flexible pattern, I feel like I can be successful on a polyphasic schedule. Overall, I've been sleeping less, but feel like I'm getting more out of my time awake. The only question that remains for me is whether it's sustainable. I think I've gotten to like it more than I thought after starting, as I initially had some reservations about whether I'd be happy giving up long sleeps. Maybe I was really oversleeping before, because I seem to be doing just as well with less rest. Now, I'm not sure I'd want to give up on the possibility of having more time and still having plenty of refreshing naps.

End of the day reflections

2009-09-24T19:49:00.000-05:00

I ended up incidentally taking short naps today, and did pretty well with it. I was busy almost straight through until now. I only took a 20 minute nap at lunch, and comfortable in my new napping spot (I figured out that I could lock the door from the inside, and I remembered to bring a scarf with me to use as a pillow), I actually slept for most of that time, because I was well-tired by then from working most of the night and morning. I had some nice white noise of the building in the background, a little sunlight streaming in the window (I always prefer to wake up to light, makes it so much easier to get up), and the only disturbance I had was what sounded like a squirrel briefly jumping around in the ceiling. I actually dreamed, and I feel confident that I experience dreams rather than hypnagogia, because I forgot where I was during their duration, something that I usually don't experience when merely dozing and having twilight-sleep images. I had lunch when I woke up, felt rather refreshed, and went on working. I got tired again around 3:30 and had about 20 minutes of downtime then, relaxing in an armchair, although it was too noisy around me to sleep. I also had one cup of coffee and a Powerbar around this time, because I needed to be awake and alert for several more hours before I could get home and nap.

Overall, I was a little tired, but had no problem doing mental tasks and being energetic. I felt like I wanted to sleep toward the end of my evening class, but I wasn't too tired to concentrate and didn't actually fall asleep. So, I went a day without a core sleep and with minimal naps, and I felt better than I would if I'd not slept at all. Also, just the knowledge that there are polyphasic sleepers who get by on about as much sleep as I got helped me to feel okay with it and to not feel the despair that I used to feel at having to work late and early and not catch much sleep. I didn't have the extreme tiredness or mood swings of sleep deprivation, but I still had some of the light-hearted, easy-going, uninhibited feeling that I sometimes get when I do voluntary sleep-dep. I think this is probably something like the "euphoria" that some polyphasic sleepers say they feel. It's a balance between being refreshed from napping but also having that "Eh, whatever," feeling that you get from being very sleep-deprived. I'd like to know what hormones it is that cause the latter, because it's been such a common feeling for me with being sleep-deprived. Being in that state actually sometimes makes work easier. I procrastinate when I'm afraid of screwing up or feel overwhelmed, and I lack these worries when I'm sleep-deprived, so it's easier to just go along with circumstances and get right to work and get it done when I need to. It's not a feeling that I dislike.

Anyway, after today, I think I could do something like Dymaxion or Uberman, and I think I'm feeling what it'd be like to be on those plans, but I'd rather get more sleep than either of those afford (when I can get it) and have more flexibility on missing naps. I'm going to stick with my "Quad" schedule of 4 x 1 hour naps, I think, and see how I feel. I'm not dead-tired, but feel as if I'd have no trouble napping at anytime now. It's an odd feeling, and I'm going to have to reflect more on whether or not I think this is healthy. It sure beats the depression that often accompanied my "monophasic-fail," though.

Quick nap updates

2009-09-24T01:37:00.000-05:00

I've been awake since midnight tonight, it now being about 1:30 AM. I decided to turn my 11 PM nap into a one-hour instead of a three-hour. This was done in part because I needed the extra time tonight, and because I seem to feel better being sleep-deprived rather than groggy from a longer nap. I haven't completely given up on a "core" yet (mostly due to my culturally-instilled superstitious belief that I'm going to die if I don't do the majority of my sleeping at night), but I'm still feeling like I'm more suited to shorter naps. I can actually get up from them and not feel like a zombie brought back to life. I laid down for an hour nap, slept for about 30 minutes of that, with no memory of dozing off or dreaming, and woke up tired but alert and capable of working. Productivity is about average (no more or less than usual), reflexes are adequate.

6:50: My 5 AM nap was predictably harder, although I did get some sleep. I settled down on the palett I'd made on the floor to use until I got more adapted to the schedule, but I kept getting disturbed by noises. This turned out to be the cat, and she eventually came over and started to talk. I told her to settle down and take a nap too, and she laid down by me and proceeded to try to tickle me with her tail for the rest of the hour. I tossed and turned and couldn't get comfortable like I initially was again, and decided I wasn't going to be able to sleep at all like that again today. I was aching too much at that point. Since it was almost daylight, I decided to lay down on my bed and set my normal alarm for 30 minutes. I did that, and actually got a little sleep. I'm glad I did, as I'm sure it will be needed. I feel refreshed, though still tired. I feel a little less productive than earlier, but confident that I can do everything I want to today, once I wake up a little. I think I'll probably sleep good at my 11 AM nap. Not sure what I'll do tonight. I'll have to skip my evening nap, so I might just take a longer core when I finally get home.

Would you?

2009-09-23T19:34:00.001-05:00

I think the true test of whether or not someone honestly believes something is good is to ask whether they would encourage their children to do it. This is the question I would pose to other people experimenting with sleep: would you let your kids do it?

I don't know what my answer would be. I would encourage other adults I know to at least try it, particularly if they are having problems with insomnia. With children? I'd be inclined to encourage them to get as much sleep as they want, no more and no less. I don't think I'd actively encourage them to adopt a certain sleep schedule; I would just encourage the healthy habit of sleeping when tired, and getting up and doing something when you wake up. Although I've read claims that oversleeping is a problem, I don't know how much of a problem it is, so I don't know if I'd be concerned about that in children. I would be concerned that undersleeping or not sleeping at night would be bad for one's hormones, but I don't know that polyphasic sleep or getting less than 8 hours sleep at night constitutes undersleeping. In short, I suppose I would trust that their bodies would tell them what was right to do, particularly if they had not been socialized to sleep a certain way or had not experienced insomina-producing anxiety. I would probably encourage sleeping on a schedule, but I don't know that this is necessary or healthy, although most people believe it is. I try to make myself stick to a schedule to combat insomnia and to assure that I get at least some rest.

Would I want to practice polyphasic sleep long-term? I don't know about that either. I think it has its advantages, and it may feel better and better as I get more into it. At the same time, I sometimes wonder if I'll miss the long sleeps that I sometimes have when I have nothing more pressing to do. I think occasional sleeping-in is good, but I don't know that I could do it and still stick with something as strict as most polyphasic schedules. All I can say is that, right now, I'm having a good time experimenting with polyphasic, and the regular napping is better than insomnia or not having enough time to do anything. I'm looking forward to giving it a good trial, and will try to objectively measure its effects after I feel that I've really adapted.

Lucid Dreaming

2009-09-23T15:01:00.000-05:00

I've been having intense -- or intensely memorable -- dreams when taking naps. Not so much with core sleep; I wake up like I've been woken from the dead and have little memory of falling asleep or dreaming anything. I have to search my mind to remember when I slept and why I'm getting up. This was also typical of my monophasic sleep when I got less than 8 hours, so it seems to be about the same thing.

I often begin to dream as I'm falling asleep, which is something that was always typical of my naps and sleep entered into while being sleep-deprived or utmostly tired. I thought this was a sign of entering directly into REM sleep, but have learned that this might not be the case, as REM does not necessarily equal dreaming, and I may be experiencing hypnagogia. These do not seem to be the same as a traditional dream entered into with REM or NREM4 sleep, but they have a free-flowing dream-like quality.

During my morning nap today, I experienced one of the first lucid dreams I'd had in a while. I often had lucid dreams or dreamed of waking from a dream and doing things a few years ago, when I did free-running sleep at odd times and took afternoon and evening naps. With the dream this morning, I fell asleep very tired and already feeling half-asleep, and with the intention of having a lucid dream. I entered into a dream shortly thereafter, knew that I was dreaming, and was then able to control what I was seeing and feeling. I also remember feeling that I had control over my body and my ability to wake, as opposed to feeling sleep paralysis, so I made a conscious effort to not move too much or open my eyes or otherwise go down the path of accidentally waking. It worked quite well, and I woke up easily and was not startled when my alarm went off. I was still pretty tired and could have gone back to sleep, but I otherwise felt well.

I realize I'm blogging quite a bit. There are a couple of reasons for that: 1) I feel like I have a lot to record in new ideas and experiences and evaluations of those experiences, and I have a subject that lends itself to frequent, short records of this, 2) I hope that my experiences might be interesting or useful to others, especially my friend who is reading this blog and is also interested in polyphasic sleep (although cautioning me about experimenting with sleep in general), and 3) I find blogging to be very therapeutic when I'm feeling stressed, as I am lately. I also hope that I can accumulate this material into a useful record for myself, to monitor my progress and better keep track of what works, what doesn't, and my conclusions or questions about it all.

Caffeine

2009-09-23T12:53:00.000-05:00

I've cut coffee out of my diet, which is something often recommended for people adapting to polyphasic. Using it is antithetical to taking naps; if you drink a cup of coffee, when nap time rolls around, you're either a) too wired to sleep, or b) so exhausted that you pass out and don't want to wake from the nap. Drinking coffee (or anything else with large doses of caffeine) causes peaks and valleys in your energy. I'd rather be more even in my energy level throughout the day, and not have any trouble taking a nap when I need it. Besides, naps are healthier and more refreshing than any stimulant. If I feel like I'm craving something to refresh me, a nap is the best thing. I'm also going to cut back on refined sugar, although I know I can't cut it out of my diet completely. I've been trying for a while to consume it sparingly, and I will continue to do so. If I have to eat something with a lot of carbs, I'll try to time eating it right after a nap. As I have my nap schedule now (5, 11, 5), I usually eat when I awaken from my nap.

I will, however, continue drinking tea of all sorts. I've found that tea does not cause spikes and lows in my energy level like coffee, soda, and energy drinks do. This makes sense, as most teas have about half of the caffeine. Also, tea is good without anything added to it, whereas sodas and energy drinks always have sugar or a disgusting-tasting artificial sweetener, and if I get coffee at a cafe, it usually has something in it, and truthfully, coffee is so acidic that it's not pleasant to drink much of it unless it has a little milk or sugar in it. Milk, while good for you, is not low-carb either, and consuming enough carbs of any type can cause the same energy spikes that refined sugar does. One of my friends claims that high-carb diets are why many cultures are biphasic -- you need an afternoon nap to recover from a lunch of rice or noodles. I don't think consuming such foods is bad, it is just important to be mindful of how it will affect one's energy level. Also, I'm going to, in the future, continue having an occasional cup of coffee as a treat, but I'm just not going to keep a daily habit of drinking it. I'm especially not having it when I'm trying to work -- it makes me way too jittery, and then exhausted afterward.

Anyway, tying this in to my experiment, I've had no problems cutting out the coffee, and I think it probably contributed to my success in napping and waking up refreshed yesterday. Also, yesterday morning, I had some chamomile tea about an hour before my mid-day nap. Perhaps that was helpful in allowing me to be relaxed enough to sleep in public.

On Stress

2009-09-23T11:13:00.000-05:00

I want to start out by thanking my only reader for all of the helpful suggestions so far. The encouragement in doing what I want to do is very appreciated.

I got a reminder last night of my most important goal in this experiment: reducing stress.

I watched PBS with someone a little last night, and they had a program on about studying stress and its effects on humans and baboons. Very interesting program. One conclusion seemed to be that stress was cultural, as baboon troops existed that had very reduced stress because they did not have a competitive culture. But the most important conclusion: stress causes or contributes to just about all illnesses, and it is deadly.

A little bit of stress can be helpful, even enjoyable, but chronic, worrying stress is extremely harmful, and that can't be overstated. So, how do I reduce stress in my life? I've found that a lot of it has to do with attitude. I don't know what a good term for this phenomenon is, but if you make a conscious effort to believe something, sometimes it works out that way. I try to have the attitude that what I'm doing isn't a life-or-death situation and I don't have to be stressed about it, and things will often work out better that way. I'm less likely to procrastinate, make mistakes, etc. if I'm not stressed about what I'm doing.

Other than that, I don't really know how to reduce stress. I try not to attempt more than I can, but often end up doing this due to circumstances anyway, or because the stress of not being able to do what I want to is greater than the stress of already being overwhelmed with stuff I have to do. I try to avoid bringing in clutter and baggage and new stuff to handle, to attempt to prevent stress. I try not to put myself in situations that I feel like could lead to stressful outcomes, such as hanging out with drama-llamas. And above all, trying to consciously practice an easy-going attitude seems to help and really make things go easier.

Monophasic sleep was a big source of stress for me, because I wasn't regularly getting rested with it, I wasn't finding the time to do it, and so on. All things I've talked about in my "background" blogs. So, trying polyphasic sleep, although it may result in the short-term stress of sleep-deprivation (something I'd likely experienced anyway), was an attempt to cope with long-term stress. Perhaps that, and the fact of how deadly stress is, is more important to focus on than whether or not anyone has scientifically proven that polyphasic sleep is healthy. For me, in my circumstances, it might well be.

Sleeping update: I'm thinking of going back to regularly spaced short-naps, because I'm not feeling the "Everyman." The core sleep is very hard to wake up from, and when I awake, I'm often so sleepy that I don't care about anything and just want to go back to sleep. Last night, I woke up from my core, and took another long nap an hour later. That made me wake up feeling pretty bad about myself, as I had intended to use the time to study. One piece of advice I'm going to follow tonight is to not sleep in my bed. I will sleep in the dark, but just not in my bed. I'd rather get more out of my rest by being more comfortable while resting, but I'll accept that, until I get used to a polyphasic schedule, I'll get tired and wish to sleep too long if I use my bed.

Now to try to make up that time I missed and see if I can get everything done today & tonight. And try not to be stressed about it.

Adventures in Napping

2009-09-22T21:31:00.000-05:00

I had a much better time napping today.

I was rather tired after my long core sleep this morning (from about 2 AM to when I dragged myself out of bed around 7), and looked forward to attempting my midday nap. I remembered to bring a blanket with me, and intended to try sleeping in my car. It was cloudy, though still hot, but I wanted to give sleeping in the car another go anyway. I had previously attempted sleeping in the backseat of the car sans pillow or blanket. I rolled up some coats and a winter scarf that I always leave in the car to make a sort of pillow, but it was just too bright for me to really drift off, so I used a black shawl that was also there to try to cover up with. This did not work well at all, as it increased the temperature, and I couldn't find a way to put it over my face without feeling stuffy. I couldn't just blindfold myself with it like I sometimes do with one of my lighter scarves. Also, I felt kind of like someone might look in the window at me. I can't say exactly why this bothers me, but it does.

So, today, I decided to try to find a more secluded parking spot, and my intention was to set up a blanket fort in the back seat to partially block the light and any people that I imagined might be trying to spy on that poor student napping in the car. When I arrived at my usual parking lot, all of the more secluded spots were gone, and I was forced to choose between driving to another parking lot and having a long walk back to my building, or parallel parking by the sidewalk. I decided I'd either disregard my paranoia or find other parking arrangements when it came time ot nap, and I opted to practice my rarely-needed parallel parking skills, and left my good work there to be admired while I went in to class. When I came back, a good spot had opened up in an area where fewer people parked, and so I hastily moved there, cracked the windows to try to catch a breeze, draped my blanket across the backseat, and climbed under to try to nap.

Now, I don't know if my blanket fort is less conspicuous than simply napping in the seat -- it might cause more curiosity for it's unconvential nature, and people wondering what's under there, rather than being able to immediately see that, oh, it's just someone sleeping. However, it did do the trick of giving me a feeling of privacy and blocking some of the light, while not suffocating me or making it unbearably hot. My blanket didn't block all of the light, probably because it was thin and light blue, but I hope that it at least reflected some of the heat. Another color might be more light-absorbing, but it'd also be heat absorbing. After I was able to quiet down my brain a bit, I had a brief, light sleep, in which I actually dreamed (and woke myself up in the process by dreaming that I was in bed and oversleeping). After that, I began to feel more hot and found that I probably wasn't going to go back to sleep easily. I decided to head inside and try another napping spot I had spied previously, but which seemed too good to work.

There's a classroom which has a couch in it, much to the displeasure of some professors, as students will go to sleep during class on it. Now, this room is usually occupied all day long, but I've noticed that there don't seem to be as many classes scheduled for it this term. I had been kind of keeping my eye on it to see when it was free, and it seems to be during the time that I'd take my midday nap, and possibly later in the day as well. I have actually laid down on this couch before, when I was really desperate for some rest. It's a good spot to rest, as it's just private enough. The only problem I had with it (aside from the potential embarassment of having someone come in and wake me up mid-nap) is that the couch is really, really old and worn. It doesn't look dirty, but in a building full of American students, you know it is. Why? They put their feet up on everything. When I came into class this morning, there was a guy who had his feet up on the armrest of the chair next to him. This bothers me not only because it's dirty, but because it's disrespectful -- not to the object itself, but to the people who use the object. If you don't show any concern for the cleanliness of objects that others use, you are indirectly showing no concern for the people who depend on using those objects. I don't know, maybe these kids have never thought about it, or maybe they treat their own stuff like this at home. I've seen people doing stuff like jumping on their couch or sleeping in their bed with their shoes on in sitcoms and reality shows, but I thought this was just people acting abnormal in front of a camera, not wanting to take the time to take their shoes off, whatever. Who knows, maybe they really do act like that all the time. I think that's crazy, though.

Anyway, my only real reservation about the couch was that I knew it'd probably be dirty. However, I tried to get comfortable sitting up on it, and succeeded in doing so, to finish out the duration of my nap. It was rather nice, and I intend to nap there again, I think. But I might bring my scarf with me to rest my head on, just to ease my concerns about hidden dirt and mold in the couch's fabric. The room itself was very peaceful, convenient, and perfect for a nap. It probably won't be available every time I want a nap, but maybe I can use it most days.

I also discovered that I like waking up to my cellphone's alarm much better than my alarm at home. I really like my alarm clock for it's non-alarm features, and the multitude of alarms I can set on it. However, the alarm sound is really grating, it's loud (with no volume control), and I've come to dread it to the point where I've occasionally had trouble settling down for a short nap with it. I hadn't used my cellphone's alarm much before, but I discovered that I can set some rather pleasant chirps on it that are just disturbing enough to wake me, and I can set the volume at anything from very soft to overly loud. I should probably start using this as my alarm at home. It would solve the problem of worrying about whether my alarm wakes anyone else up, as well. I don't think my alarm clock is loud enough to wake up someone asleep in another bedroom, but you can hear it from outside my room, so maybe someone could hear it in the still of night. Anyway, I'll give the cellphone a try for a while, and see if I can continue to avoid that dread-reflex that other alarms give me.

Oh, I also felt very refreshed after my short naps today, and wasn't fatigued during the afternoon. I was in a good mood and had no trouble with staying alert and working for most of the rest of the day. Not at all how I felt after my core sleep. Although I feel like the idea of a core sleep is good for health reasons, as it provides an abundant time in which to experience the benefits of multiple phases of sleep, it is really, really hard for me to wake up from a long nap/short core sleep. I'm debating whether I should continue trying to work with it and give it a fair trial, or if I should try all short naps again. I do think less than 1 hour is my optimal nap time. But if I lived off of naps alone, I'd probably be dogged by worries about whether I'm getting enough sleep. I guess this is a dilemma I won't solve until I figure out which is worse, over- or under-sleeping.

Insomniacal

2009-09-22T08:24:00.001-05:00

I still have trouble making myself just go to sleep at night.

What's happened for the last few days is that I will delay going for my core sleep, and end up combining it with the pre-dawn nap. As a result, I'm not getting evenly-spaced rest, and I'm still not learning good napping habits. I'm just having my typical "fail at monophasic" type sleep. What's even odder is that, even with going to bed so late and so tired, I could not fall asleep for more than a half hour. Maybe this is attributable to the bad mood I was in earlier over the amount of work that I have to finish this month. I was gung-ho to get something done, as well, but I came to the point where I was too tired to continue and just needed to rest.

I suppose it's a result of old habits. I want to stay up late and work. Part of the reason for trying polyphasic was so that I could both enjoy staying up late and getting up early, and refresh myself and get some needed breaks during the day, rather than fighting constant tiredness.

If I can make myself stick to any sort of schedule, things will be much better for me. The consistency of rest is something that I need to make long periods of work easier and more productive. So what is my aversion to schedules?

Basically, although I'm feeling tired during the day, I'm not feeling tired at night, not until well after midnight. That's about when I'd feel tired when I was doing monophasic. So, I'm still not over that yet. I don't know whether the solution to resetting my schedule is to stay up and make myself tired and then start taking naps (a way that some choose for adjusting) or start out forcing myself to sleep and wake at the scheduled times until I begin to fall asleep at those times. I had hoped to do the latter, and I'm going to keep trying until I can conclusively say whether or not my schedule will work for me.

It looks like it's going to be a nice, rainy day today, so I'm going to try taking a mid-day nap in my car to take advantage of the cool weather. I've yet to find a spot that's both secluded and comfortable for sleeping indoors.

Nights & Days

2009-09-22T00:57:00.001-05:00

One thing that those adhereing to polyphasic sleep often mention is that days seem to blend together when there is no void of sleep to separate one night from the next day. This does seem to be a real -- and interesting -- effect. So, this brought up a question for me: if I became polyphasic, would I still stick to my system of defining nights and days?

My system isn't really revolutionary, it merely addresses what I see as a flaw in our current technical definition of when a day begins. I think this flaw results from the fact that most people aren't awake in the hours after midnight, so they don't give much thought to what they're called.

To me, it simply doesn't feel right that days begin in the middle of the night. It seems to me that mornings, and days, begin at the time that a new day dawns. This might seem like I'm just playing with semantics, but semantics are important. People live and die by semantics. I know basically why it is said that days begin at midnight. This is the time that is typically used to symbolize when the Sun is at the nadir, with noon being the zenith. So, the idea is that a new day begins at the darkest point of the night, just as a new year begins in winter. I can understand that, but this way of thinking has issues.

In addition to this midnight transition just not feeling right, it brings up problems of description. Basically, my gripe is this: if a day begins at midnight, then are those hours after midnight morning or night, and of what day? It just doesn't seem right to call them morning, because morning is associated with dawn and daylight. But if I call them night, this is problematic as well. For example, let's say I told a friend that I had a dream Saturday night. Technically, if Saturday begins at 12 AM, then if I had a dream at 3 AM on Saturday, this would be Saturday night. Yet, in natural language, we would typically describe that as Friday night, and if I said I had a dream Saturday night, someone would be more likely to think it occured at 11 PM Saturday or even 3 AM Sunday. With our current system of defining things, unless the hours between 12 AM and dawn on Saturday would be called Saturday morning, then Saturday night is split in two parts, the hours before dawn and after sunset on that day.

My proposed solution to this problem was that, just as noon and midnight represent the approximate zenith and nadir of the sun, we set the times of 6 PM and 6 AM to represent the average time of sunset and sunrise, and say that one night begins at 6 PM and the following day begins at 6 AM. I have support for this way of thinking: days begin at 6 AM in Groundhog's Day and Majora's Mask. Do you need more evidence than that?

Anyway, I've been pondering if I feel any different about the feeling of when days begin now that I'm regularly awake during those questionable post-midnight hours that seem to be in time limbo. I'm definitely feeling how days seem to be less distinct from each other, and not having any problem with that. I feel like there's less of a disruption and void in the flow of time, although I wouldn't say that days seem to blend together. However, it wasn't just waking up at or after dawn that made me feel like the day begins then. I still stand by my conviction that it's not natural to begin a day in the middle of the night.

Events

2009-09-21T22:31:00.001-05:00

My last few posts have been all about my thinking and nothing yet about the actual experiment. That's common in my writing. I tend to focus on ideas before events, and quickly get tired of writing just about events. This project has consistently held my interest, though, and I want to see it through.

Anyway, after I found out about polyphasic sleep, I spent my free time for the next several days reading about it. I really, really wanted to try it, but I felt that it was necessary to study it first and figure out what -- if anything -- was wise to do. I definitely wanted a change over the depression and sleep deprivation I was experiencing, which I felt like stemmed from my lack of a consistent sleep schedule and the stressful work that was both taking time away from sleep and making what sleep time I had uneasy.

Last Monday, around the time it was transitioning to Tuesday, September 15th, I decided I was going to have to stay up late to finish a project I was working on. I wanted to sleep, but knew that I couldn't really take the time -- and this is when I decide that circumstances had presented an opportunity in which I could either suffer through my usual sleep-deprivation or give Uberman (6 x 20 minute naps) a try. And so I went for it, deciding if ever there was a time to start the experiment, this was it. I had been contemplating it over the weekend and had a burning desire to try it, and now I knew that if it worked, I needed it.

From my previous experiences with having to wake myself up during the night, I knew I had trouble actually waking during the night. I have a tendency to sleep through almost anything during the hours between midnight and six, if I'm tired enough. And I was. From my previous experiences, I knew the only sure way to cause myself to actually wake up during the night, as opposed to simply turning off the alarm in my sleep, was to keep the room well-lit, and sleep with my eyes covered. The idea was that I would be able to sleep lightly with the brightness mostly blocked from my vision, but once I woke up and removed the blindfold, the ambient light would help me awaken. In this way, I was able to not miss my alarm, although I still had trouble wanting to stay awake. This is my biggest struggle with sleep-deprivation: once I get to sleep, I do not want to be awakened for anything, especially something unpleasant, like finishing a really dreary and taxing project. When I wake up in that sleepy state, I have trouble convincing myself to get up. The light helps with that a bit, as nothing is so depressing to my sleep-deprived mind as waking up in the dark.

I discovered the helpfulness of light in waking incidentally, as I occasionally fall asleep while reading in a relaxed position. I will naturally wake up no more than three hours later if I fall asleep with the light on, usually. So I began to figure out that this was a necessity if I absolutely had to get myself up during the night. However, on successive nights where I considered employing this tactic to help me with Uberman, I felt uneasy about doing it, as I remembered that my father used to remind me why it was important to sleep at night.

The reasons why it's necessary to sleep at night and why I find it hardest to awaken at this time are the same: melatonin. And this was my biggest concern with attempting the Uberman schedule, or anything else other than monophasic. Melatonin is what makes one tired, and the onset of darkness is what produces it in the greatest abundance, apparently, which is why it is sometimes most difficult for me to awake at night. If anything is evidence for why people must sleep at night, this is it. The production of melatonin is necessary to the hormonal system. Lack of melatonin may be what worsens my depressed states. It's also believed to be helpful in general physical well-being, and to perhaps prevent certain forms of cancer that may be hormonally related.

So, this has been my greatest difficulty and concern in modifying my sleep schedule. But if I can't get enough monophasic sleep at night anyway, due to either time constraints or being unable tos leep, sleep during the day or with a light on is better than no sleep.

I found that, as is normal for most people, I wasn't able to get much sleep with Uberman. It became apparent that it was going to take several days to adjust. Meanwhile, I wasn't sure that I wanted to miss the sleep. I only got very light sleep with my naps on Tuesday, and that night, I was sick with food poisoning. I decided, when I found it difficult to get up from my 8 o'clock nap, to let myself have some free-running sleep in order to help me feel better, or at least be knocked out and not in pain. I slept from about 9 PM until early the next morning. I went on trying 30-minute naps every 4 hours (I decided on 30 minutes because I was hardly falling asleep with 20), and succeeded in at least falling asleep with my naps during the day on Wednesday, but again was left with the dilemma of whether to sleep with a light on or have a very difficult late night.

After doing some reading, I found that most people experience a sleep cycle of about 90 minutes. Earlier, my best friend had suggested to me that, because of my school schedule, I try sleeping every 6 hours for an hour, rather than doing the 6x20 plan. I liked the idea that I would have more time to fall asleep, have more flexbility on naps, and perhaps get more total sleep while still sleeping only 4 hours a day. I decided to try starting out with four naps of 60-90 minutes, depending on how tired I was/what time constraints I have. I barely have time for a 90 minute nap during my lunch break, and 60 minutes might be a more realistic goal for that one. From my previous experience with napping, I believed it was true that there was an optimal nap period in which one could get enough rest to feel refreshed, but not sleep so long that they entered a longer monophasic-like cycle. I believed this optimal nap time seemed to be less than 2 hours, so 60-90 minutes seemed about right.

With embarking upon trying Uberman, I realized that it wasn't really a good time in my life to be sleep-deprived, the highs one gets from being sleep-deprived aside. So, I liked the idea of trying to slowly transition into being polyphasic by starting out with longer naps. Perhaps my thinking on this is completely wrong-headed, but I figured that, if I was suited for being polyphasic at all, it would be easier to find that out by starting with longer, more comfortable naps, and then perhaps trying to cut down on the time spent napping in the future. Others advocate that, if you are going to do 120 minutes of sleep today, the only way to do it is to jump right in. Perhaps that's so, but I'd like to try this more appealing schedule first. I don't like the idea of a strict schedule, and it would be very difficult for me this semester, since I spend a good deal of my day in class, only getting a significant break at lunch.

Anyway, after trying this for a while, and finding that I'm still having a hard time becoming fully-alert at night, especially when sleeping in the dark, and with my added concern of not getting enough sleep during the dark hours, I'm considering trying a core sleep and three naps instead. The schedule I originally outlined for myself was to sleep 60-90 minutes at 11, 5, 11, 5 (except on some days when I have to skip the 5 PM). I'm now thinking that, to assure I have enough sleep at night, and to avoid the difficulty of getting myself up when it's hardest, I should try something more along the lines of having a core sleep from 11PM - 2 AM, and then having one hour naps at 5 AM, 11 AM, and 5 PM. I don't know yet if 2 AM is the optimal time to wake up, but I like the idea of having my 5 AM nap also be in the dark, and still awakening at 6 AM, leaving me a couple of hours to get organized before classes start.

Anyway, this is the current state of my experiment. I wish to give it a fair try before assessing it further, but it sounds workable. I'd be getting about 6 hours of sleep a day, and having naps begin at regular 6 hour intervals on most days. It sounds feasible, as I've gotten by for days at a time on less sleep. But my tolerance for sleep-deprivation may make it difficult for me to judge how well I feel on it until I've been doing it for a while. I'm not cutting back on my sleep much, but I probably can't, unless I have more time for guaranteed naps. As it is, I'm still not sure I'm getting much sleep during naps, but it will probably take a while to become accustomed to having a nap schedule at all. If the premise of polyphasic sleep works, I should soon start getting to the point where I get more out of my naps. At least I can now rest easier with the assurance that I will get some sleep. If nothing else, what I want to get out of this is the ability to nap well and refresh myself so that I no longer have sleepless days after I'm unable to get a full night's rest.

With all of that explained and a trial schedule finally settled, I'll try to start doing day-by-day updates of how I'm getting along with it, and what advantages, if any, I'm gleaning.

Why Change What Works?

2009-09-21T18:16:00.001-05:00

So, monophasic sleeping works. Why try something different, then?

For the reason that most experiments are done: to either find a better way, or confirm that there isn't a better way.

What reasons do I have to suspect that there may be a better -- or at least alternate -- way of getting in my daily sleep? The idea that one can receive more benefit from sleep that's taken when needed in the amounts needed seems logically sound. If sleep works like eating, or ingesting your daily vitamins/nutrition, then it is better to do it in the smallest necessary dose, and only when necessary. Indeed, many processes related to daily maintenance of health seem to work this way. There is some evidence that sleep is no different, which I can anecdotally back up: if you miss a night of sleep, you don't have to sleep 16 hours the next night to feel rested. I typically don't sleep more than 12 hours after missing one night of sleep. In fact, I can be sleep-deprived for several days, and then sleep my typical 9 hours one night and wake up feeling completely rejuvenated. Sleep isn't something stored (as those who feel tired the afternoon after a night of monophasic sleeping know), and it isn't something which one has to take more of to satisfy a deficit. Just having some sleep when tired is enough to make one alert, and to apparently take advantage of its health benefits.

Additionally, I want to seek something that may suit me better than attempting to be monophasic. There are a myriad of reasons why I am dissatisfied with being monophasic, and often have difficulty adhering to a monophasic schedule. These are:

1) It is a major disruption to the flow of what I am doing. This is something which I talked about in my first post. I do not seem to be mentally geared for quitting what I am doing and going to bed at a certain time with the intention to stay there for the 9+ hours which it takes me to feel well-rested on a monophasic schedule. I usually only go to bed when I am exhausted and can no longer function, which is often late at night or in the early hours of the morning. Perhaps the solution to this would be to attempt to change my attitude toward work/sleep and follow advice on trying to wind down my activities and get into a relaxed mood before a scheduled bedtime, to facilitate the transition to sleep. This is something which I've attempted in the past with limited success. If being monophasic is necessary, this is what I should do. But I often do not like it. I've attempted to approach monophasic sleep with the idea in mind that the recharging of energy is as important as the expenditure of energy, that having some downtime in the evening is good for my mental health as well as necessary to help me sleep on a schedule. However, I found this difficult to adhere to, especially with the extended periods of mental activity that are necessary for going to school, and it is difficult for me even when I'm just amusing myself during my days off. The stress I feel from my demanding schedule makes it difficult for me to relax at all, so that I end up in a state where trying to force myself to relax makes me more stressed. I become frustrated with my inability to relax and sleep at night, I feel like I am failing at maintaining my health, and become more frustrated and depressed in turn. In short, what I've been doing in this area has not worked so far. This is why I seek alternatives. If polyphasic fails to work for me long-term, then I will be forced to try the relaxation followed by scheduled monophasic sleep route again.

2) Sleeping for short periods of time is not only less disruptive to my flow of work, it also takes full advantage of required rest periods. Many articles on the importance of sleep highlight how sleep is necessary to the functioning of the short and long term memory, and how sleeping improves mental and physical performance in general. This gives me an idea: taking breaks from work is necessary anyway, as one's performance degrades over time. The suggested breaks are usually something like 15 minutes per every 90 to 120 minutes of work. So, why not take those breaks as sleep breaks? This seems like it would be a novel way to fully utilize both required sleep and required break periods.

3) Most patterns of polyphasic sleep promise extra time due to requiring less sleep when it is taken throughout the day rather than in one long period. The benefit of this is obvious. Despite all the warnings of some polyphasic sleep articles that having the extra time can be boring or prolonging your working hours can even be maddening, I haven't found this to be the case. If I actually do run out of things to do with that extra time, it would at least allow me the luxury to take my time with the work that I am already doing. I don't see any disadvantages to this. However, it may just be the case that one can only comfortably work so many hours in a day, and prolonging those hours is unhealthy, sleep or no sleep. It could be the case that humans need 8+ hours of sleep simply because it provides a needed mental respite from reality and demanding activity. I don't know, and haven't really seen someone else address this matter. I suppose the only way to find out is to try it and see what my own state of mind is.

4) Taking naps can divide up a monotonous day in which one might otherwise be daunted by the prospect of 16+ solid hours of activity. Sometimes, a job is easier to do if it is taken in chunks. Now, although I sometimes hate giving up what I'm doing and going to sleep before it is finished, I don't hate sleep itself. I often enjoy my sleep and look forward to it. So, getting to enjoy it throughout the day may be more motivational than the idea of waking up in the morning with the knowledge that sleep is going to be at least 16 hours away, assuming I meet all of my deadlines for the day and don't have to be up through the night.

These are the major reasons, and enough for now. Later, I'll finally delve into my attempts, advantages I've actually experienced, sleep-deprivation, and difficulties and concerns.

Background Continued

2009-09-20T14:37:00.000-05:00

As I attempted to research sleep patterns that night, I came across the first mention of Uberman and Everyman that I'd seen. These were mentioned on a website (that shall not be named to protect the guilty) where someone attempts to refute the possibility of polyphasic sleep without really giving any scientific evidence explaining why it's not possible, and also by using some ad hominem attacks against other bloggers who wrote about their failed experiments to transition to a new sleep pattern.

The lack of scientific evidence given in defense of the 8-hour nightly sleep model is common. Those who make these laxidasical arguments often don't directly argue against polyphasic sleep models and don't even seem to realize what they're doing. Instead, what they commonly argue is that sleep deprivation is bad. Well, of course, but no one is proposing that one follow Uberman in order to become sleep deprived; the idea is that one can get by with less sleep if that sleep is taken in little snacks instead of as one big meal. Although the metaphor may not hold here, this is the best way I have come up with for describing the difference between monophasic and polyphasic sleep. I think of sleep as being like eating. It is possible to comfortably live on one large meal a day, provided that this meal is large enough; however, it is not necessary, and one can get by with eating less if one eats more frequently and only when one is hungry. If you try to eat just one meal and make it last the entire day for you, you may end up eating more than you need.

Back to common arguments I've found against polyphasic sleep: they seem to make the assumption that one is choosing between two alternatives, either getting 8+ hours of sleep at night, or being sleep deprived. These arguments don't seem to consider whether it's possible to survive on naps, and indeed, this could be because there is so little research on this subject. Most sleep studies I've read about set about proving that one cannot live without sleep or that sleep deprivation is bad or that one will suffer the effects of sleep deprivation if one sleeps monophasically for less than 6 hours a night. The subject of alternative sleep patterns is hardly broached at all, and most seem to assume that there is no viable alternative.

In fact, one report aired on Sixty Minutes that I've seen referenced a lot, and which I just recently re-watched, starts out making the logical fallacy that 8-hour monophasic sleep is necessary because we do it. I'm not kidding; a sleep researcher went on national television and said that something is necessary because we did it. Now, a statement like that might be acceptable if one were talking about the philosophy of Fatalism, but this sort of argument is not something that one wants to be making in the field of empirical science. Of course, he's not alone. My biggest gripe with contemporary evolutionary theory is that it often seems to rely upon such arguments, in short saying that because we can use X for Y purpose, then X necessarily evolved to serve this purpose. One can talk about something serving a function in evolutionary theory, but unless one is arguing for some kind of deist evolution, where one believes that we evolved according to some sort of plan, there shouldn't be any talk of purpose or necessarily evolving one way or another in evolutionary theory. Belief in atheistic evolution is predicated upon the idea that we evolved from chaos and without design or purpose, so anything that we evolved could just as well be incidental and indifferent or even dysfunctional as it could be functional. To assume that something evolved in the best possible way or to serve a certain purpose is a very wrong-headed way to approach evolution, but this is what many people seem to do. They work backwards by looking at what function something serves in our lives, and then speculating about what factors could have caused it to evolve to serve this function. The assumption is that this function is necessary or good and that we must have evolved to be just this way, when a more plausible truth would be that X evolved incidentally and we adapted it to function Y, or created function Y in order to use X. Humans walk because they have feet; they don't have feet because they walk. This is a distinction which I think is important and which I often see others failing to make. This is purely speculation on my part, but I believe many people are adapting the idea of evolution to the framework which creationism used, and failing to notice that they are doing so. Basically, they are replacing the role of God in creationism with the word evolution. Creationism makes statements like, "We were created with feet so that we could walk;" some evolutionists say things like, "We evolved with feet so that we could walk," not realizing that they are just taking the old framework and inserting a new word.

Anyway, I am critiquing the application of evolutionary theory here, and not the theory itself. I don't really believe one theory is better than another, as any theory about the origin of life seems to be impossible to prove or disprove under our current understanding of the universe. It is just as well to me to say that we were created by a being we can't possess knowledge of as to say we appeared by way of a process we don't possess knowledge of. In the olden days, people kind of explained things they didn't understand by attributing it to the gods anyway. I'm only pointing out that there is a logical fallacy in saying that we appeared incidentally and without design while at the same time saying that we evolved a certain way for a certain purpose. Besides, any speculation on how we evolved and why is merely speculation.

Back to sleep research: The report which I watched starts out with a very encouraging twist of logic in which some scientist (I assume he's a scientist, but evolution help us if he is), says that 8-hour periods of nightly sleep must serve some important purpose, because being unconscious for that period of time at night puts us in a very vulnerable position. Well, this is true that it does makes us very vulnerable, but saying that we do it does not prove that is necessary, nor does it explain why we do it. And the question of the necessity of this sleep pattern is not addressed. He goes on to simply say that, 1) sleep is necessary, 2) sleep deprivation is bad, 3) we function better on adequate sleep, as opposed to undersleeping, and 4) sleeping for 8-hours nightly works. The report does not delve into whether this sleep pattern is instinctual or necessary. It doesn't even appear to consider the question of whether frequent, short periods of sleep are better than long, monophasic periods of sleep. But such reports of this seem to be held up as proper proof that polyphasic sleep is wrong, when the matter isn't even directly addressed.

As far as I know, the 8-hour monophasic sleep is simply a cultural convention. Although I've not yet found anything academic on this matter, I've heard people say that the conventional way we sleep is nothing more than convention, and there have existed cultures that did things differently. The gist of the theory is that it became ingrained in our culture to sleep 8 hours during the darkest period of the night in order to make the most of daylight work hours and to be able to work long shifts without a nap break. In short, it's like eating a huge breakfast so that you don't have to eat the rest of the day. Because we are trained from infants to adapt to monophasic sleep, and our whole culture functions on this style of sleeping, it's something that is ingrained in us -- but not necessary.

Even if we evolved to sleep a certain way and it's instinctual, this does not mean that it must be so. I can imagine reasons why we might incidentally evolve to sleep this way. In the days before electric light and 24-hour stores, there was really little advantage to staying up and working during the night. It was a time to socialize and rest, because you couldn't really do anything else. And, when your alternatives are trying to work by candle-light or rest, it makes sense to aggregate all of your resting time into one monophasic period that fills the darkest hours of night. Again, this would allow you to wake at dawn and take the best advantage of daylight hours, working through them without any sleep. But this does not mean we must be this way today, unless there's just some mechanism in humans which causes them to suffer and die if they deviate from the schedule sleeping 8 hours in the dark of night, sort of like how a Vulcan will die if he doesn't return home on a regular basis. And claims that we have to sleep a certain way or else seem just as odd as that. I've been looking for research that proves this, and I'm not finding it. All I'm finding is that sleep deprivation is bad for you -- but proponents of alternative sleep patterns claim that they aren't sleep deprived, and that there are ways to function well, perhaps better, without one long chunk of sleep.

For the reasons outlined above, I'm willing to believe that their claim is plausible, unless I see evidence otherwise. I will continue to search for it, but right now, I'm willing to conduct my own experiments in sleep, because I'm convinced that there's at least a strong possibility that I can change my schedule without suffering serious consequences. Because sleep seems to be an individual and subjective thing, this may be the only way to find out what works for me and what doesn't. So, here is the frame of mind I'm in as I've been conducting my experiment. Next time, I'll write more about the beginnings of my experiment, and my current schedule.

First Post, Wherein Xialuote Gives Some Background to the Blog

2009-09-19T22:17:00.000-05:00

I've been experimenting with sleep patterns for a few days now.

Last Thursday (or would you say the Thursday before last? I'm always confused by these terms), after yet another night of attempting to stay up to complete an assignment, followed by a day of sleep deprived haze, I was attempting to find some amusements before bed, because I was basically too tired to sleep. This is a state I've found myself in many times before. After a day of fighting to stay alert, fueled by the adrenaline rush of meeting a deadline at the last minute, I was feeling wired that night. When I'm sleep deprived, it's like being high and hyper. I get to a point where I know I'm dead-tired, but I feel great anyway. I don't want to sleep.

I was hunting on YouTube for something to watch to try to calm down before sleep. I'd lately been looking for episodes of Pete & Pete (one of the best shows ever), and I came across the "Nightcrawlers" episode, which is about younger Pete's attempt to stay up for 11 days straight. Fun episode. Anyway, while watching it, I glanced through the comments, and came across a thread wherein a few folks were discussing sleep habits. One mentioned something about the famous rumors that Einstein had an odd sleeping pattern wherein he worked for a few hours and slept for a few, rather than being monophasic. Now, this wasn't my first time hearing something like this. Occasionally, such rumors crop up, but they never seem to be substantiated. I vaguely remember the episode of Seinfeld wherein Kramer attempts to follow a plan of taking short naps every few hours, because some historical figure was said to do it. And he failed. Such claims that someone actually did this always seem to be unsubstantiated, and short attempts to duplicate them fail when someone gets tired and gives up after a day or two, declaring that there's no benefit to this sleep pattern, because they were tired after trying it for a while. Obviously, it goes against everything that's natural, right?

At this mention of the idea this night, however, my curiosity was engaged. I began pondering the possibility of alternate sleep patterns with more than passing interest. I thought about the implications for my own life, should such a pattern be possible. I suppose it took considering this idea in the frame of mind I was in to really catch my attention. Throughout my teenage years, I had done a very loose and inconsistent free-running sleep. I slept when I felt like it and for as long as I liked. Sleep was a nice pastime when I was tired and had nothing else to do, and I often looked forward to it. I slept all night if I felt like it, I slept from morning to night if I felt like it, I napped when I was tired. I slept on my bed, on my couch, on my closet floor, on the floor in front of the TV. I just basically did whatever felt right at the time, and got up when I either had something to do or no longer felt tired. The idea that I could get more out of sleep or have a more practical application of it wasn't a concern.

However, when I began a busy schedule at college, sleep deprivation was no longer a novelty. It was a real concern for my health. I began having fits of depression as a result of both being sleep deprived and not having time to do the non-school-work activities that I wanted to do. Nothing sucks like trying to be monophasic and either not having the time or failing to fall asleep due to stress. And I never got used to having to quit what I was doing for the night and go sleep for 9-10 hours (about the time I have to sleep in order to feel well-rested with monophasic sleep, especially when I'm sleep-deprived and not on a regular schedule). I often couldn't make myself do it, and ended up staying up too late trying to cram in a few hours of Stuff I Wanted To Do and then getting a short and crappy sleep that left me feeling tired and depressed. It was really irritating to think about how I'd have to stop in the middle of what I was doing and go sleep for 9 hours and then wake up in a totally different state of mind.

I had gone through whole months where I was very sleep-deprived and extremely unhappy about it. It hadn't occurred to me during that time that there was some alternative to sleeping at night that could work, and as a result, I had many days where I stayed up most of the night and day while trying to complete some project. It left me feeling horrible about everything, especially my failure to have a regular, healthy sleep schedule. I felt like I was killing myself because I was either too stressed or too busy to get in a solid 8 hours of sleep. I tried different things to try to do it, but even if I cut out extra-curricular activities, I still could barely finish what I wanted to in a day and then have time to relax and hibernate for 8-9 hours. I felt like a miserable failure and didn't understand why others could do it but I couldn't.

There are a myriad of reasons why, at that moment and ever since, something -- anything -- other than trying to be monophasic and failing looked appealing. And I finally decided to investigate and try to get some conclusive information on whether or not anyone had successfully slept polyphasically (a term I'd soon learn) for any period of time and whether it could work for me. My journey began here.

To be continued in tomorrow's post.