Wide Awake Living

finally....

2006-02-23T03:03:00.000+11:00

It's about time I got around to this. It doesn't feel like it's been that long since my last post, but it's been quite busy. In short, holidays, a funeral, an extremely busy period at work, house and mortgage hunting have played havoc with my schedule. Missing a few naps here and there is very destructive to polyphasic sleep.

As a result, I've been a strange mix of mono- and polyphasic for the past week or two, which has been interesting - at first you feel pretty cruddy (physically) after getting extra sleep, but that smoothes out after a while. If I'm completely honest, it's gone on a little longer than necessary, primarily due to laziness on my part. But I did have some lovely sleeps.

So I'm back on the PS drug again, with tonight being the first full night in several days, and so far there's no issues (yes, it's early days yet!). I've been vaguely concerned that I might have to go through the transition phase again, but this is highly unlikely as

I never went completely back to monophasic sleep and
My body has learned to get quality sleep from naps

Speaking of naps, I did keep them up even when I had had extra sleep the night before, and I did notice a slightly different quality to them - they were lighter for a start, I was more likely to remember dreams, and also more likely to wake up before the alarm.

Anyway, if you take anything away from this, it should be that busy schedules and polyphasic sleep are difficult combinations to make work - miss one nap and you'll find it difficult, miss the second and you'll crash hard.

haven't

2006-02-18T16:37:00.000+11:00

No, I haven't forgotten. I'll post soon. I promise.

Health Concerns

2006-02-07T16:10:00.000+11:00

Continuing with the monophasic sleep patterns throughout the day (this being day two) have highlighted some issues.

First off, I'm generally feeling quite bad. Grogginess and inability to think very clearly are the main symptoms, meaning that I have to push hard to maintain any levels of productivity.

I'm also experiencing a very uncomfortable tightness around my head (not quite a headache), adding to the general difficulty in progressing with this.

In short, this monophasic sleep does not seem to be very good for me mentally or physically, and I'm starting to become concerned about the long-term health consequences of continuing with it.

I'm going to terminate this trial immediately, and switch back to polyphasic sleep - monophasic sleep is obviously a fad, as well as being clearly unnatural. One big chunk of sleep per day? How did that get sold to anybody?

In retrospect, it seems like such a stupid idea - it's also throwing away 40 hours of consciousness every week, for no real benefit.

Looking forward to my next nap!

Slow

2006-02-07T11:06:00.000+11:00

You might have noticed that I've been posting less entries over the past few days - things have been very busy at work and at home, and I've also relaxed somewhat with my sleep; I've had two large chunks of sleep over the past two nights. The is for a variety of reasons, including ..... I don't remember ;o)

Anyway, yesterday after my first chunk of sleep was just the same as previous times - I was able to continue through the day without being tired or requiring any naps. This again shows that the schedule can be relatively flexible if you need to take a day off from it.

Today however, after another chunk of sleep (4-5 hours) I'm much more groggy. Definitely not at my best. The extra sleep was somehow un-wholesome - like eating cardboard.

So it's back to full polyphasic for me, with a renewed focus on getting through my list of things to do. I can't stress how important it is to be motivated to do the tasks that you set yourself, otherwise the temptation to read, watch junk on tv, websurf randomly or generally just waste time is too strong - any or all of these then lead to drowsiness and inevitably, sleep.

Week 6 Stats

2006-02-05T20:57:00.000+11:00

If you remember, last week was fraught with oversleep issues, which I'm glad to say, I have successfully overcome. A lot of it was due to my getting a bit too relaxed with the whole thing. The main points that I addressed were

getting up off my ass the second an alarm goes off, and
keeping physically active any time that I'm drowsy

Thus the stats for this week are:

1207 minutes slept
2.87 average hours sleep per day

...which makes it the best week since I started, 6 weeks ago.

Here's the previous weeks' averages:
Week 1: 4.38
Week 2: 3.75
Week 3: 4.02
Week 4: 3.88
Week 5: 5.41
Week 6: 2.87

Coffee

2006-02-03T20:31:00.000+11:00

Over the past few days, I've started to re-introduce coffee into my system. This had to happen, because I like coffee a lot. A very big lot. So much so that my wife despairs at the vast amount of coffee related apparatus that I've acquired over the years.

For the moment I've settled on a relatively good espresso machine, a very good burr grinder (the experts often say that the grinder is more important than the espresso machine) and an air popcorn popper.

You might we wondering what the popcorn popper is doing in that list - it's for roasting coffee, and it does a great job! Batches are small, but the whole process is fascinating and fun - I recommend that anybody give it a go if you really want to know what 'freshly-roasted' means. Google it.

Back to the point - I started by taking a coffee just after my 1pm nap at work, and had no issues getting to sleep for the next nap of the day. So far so good.

Next, I decided to have a coffee after my 1am nap, which also had no ill-effects, in fact it probably helped through that difficult part of the night - and let's face it, nothing's going to prevent me from getting to sleep for my 5am nap.

Other coffees after various naps have also shown no problems, but I have been careful to avoid them coming up to a given nap, especially during the day.

I hope this gives some encouragement to those of you out there who may be considering PS but don't want to give up coffee long term. Depending on your constitution, you may even get away with drinking coffee during the initial few weeks of the transition, providing you limit it to just after your naps.

Good luck!

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Various

2006-02-03T04:56:00.000+11:00

Still going well, with only a small hiccup on Thursday - I made the mistake of skipping my additional 11pm nap in favour of fixing a wireless network problem - I just couldn't leave it alone. By the time it got to 2am I was un-recoverably tired, despite going for a brisk walk. I don't remember approaching the couch, but obviously we worked out some arrangement that allowed me to 'just relax for a minute' for about 3 hours.

So, Chris, while this still doesn't help much with our parallel experimentation into the benefits of core sleep versus additional napping, at least it doesn't prove me incorrect.

Fabs (an avid reader) has sent in a picture of something he invented. It's called the fabs-keep-o-wake and it looks very promising. Especially if you need a suntan. This is in relation to comments he posted here.

Thanks Fabs!

Another reader has sent in the following article:

A small study of 16 volunteers found that exposure to short-wavelength light, or blue light, perked them up immediately.

I'm going to make a full-screen image consisting of a solid blue colour, and see if it has any affect.
I'll let you know!

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going good...

2006-02-01T05:02:00.000+11:00

That's two perfect nights under my belt now, and tonight is shaping up to be a third, with relative ease.

I do say 'relative' for a reason, more on that shortly.

Today was a busy and stressful day at work - careful readers might note that the last two times I mentioned that were immediately followed by hard crashes. But not today - I was more aware of my tiredness, which probably helped, as it let me plan for additional naps.

The first of these was an accidental 5 or 10 minute snooze in front of the tv just after my 9pm nap (Reminder to self: no couch, no tv when tired!!!). I awoke from this feeling surprisingly refreshed and 'satisfied'. So no issues there.

Regardless of this impromptu 'napette', I still felt it wise to take an 'official' additional nap at 11pm, which I did. It was uneventful, but I do now feel as if I've pulled myself further away from the edge of sleep deprivation.

I promised that I would elaborate on my earlier choice of the word 'relative' which I used to describe how easy the nights are. It's become apparent to me that surviving this week with some good sleep stats to show for it is now merely a matter of applying the 'keep active' formula. And that's fine, even heartening.

What I have to struggle with every night (at least when I'm tired - when I'm not tired Wil should be love sen.

......

It's now a few hours later, and I've left the above as an interesting example of what happens if you try too hard to continue blogging while you're nodding off. I've only just noticed it now while finishing this entry. I don't have a clue how the thought that I was trying to communicate got mashed into what you see above, but it is interesting how I somehow managed to include the word 'love'. Anyway, I noticed myself nodding off, at which point I got up and did some cleaning to keep myself busy.

The point I was trying to make is that, at night, when you're tired, you really miss sleeping, and beds, and the freedom to lie down and relax. It's actually quite difficult. But this only happens when you're tired - you don't miss those things at all when you're alert, active, and awake as you would be during any normal day. I have to remind myself at the time that one of the main goals of this transition is to eliminate these 'tired' periods.

Time for my 5am nap...

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Update

2006-01-30T23:35:00.000+11:00

Ok, last night went very well, as you would expect given that there should be plenty in my sleep bank. Tonight has also started out well, I don't have the tiredness that plagued me the previous nights - my naps over the past 24 hours have been quite satisfactory.

I've been thinking about the additional nap theory to get around the crash-cycle, and have decided to make them short naps, or 'power naps', of approximately 10 minutes in duration. I do find these quite refreshing, and they have the added benefit of having close to zero sleep inertia attached, which I consider very important given my issues of the past week. Coincidentally, it's time for my first one now.....

.... and I'm back (that's right folks, you're getting live-action poly-napping, right here on wideawakeliving!!). I awoke with only minimal disorientation, but I wouldn't actually describe myself as 'refreshed'. Pity, I was hoping for more from the power naps. Perhaps I'll try 15 minute power naps, to accomodate the few minutes it takes to drift off....

In relation to last week, it's become quite clear to me that the root cause of the issue was the fact that I let my guard down - I got 'cocky' about the whole thing - after all I had just achieved four weeks of very successful polyphasic sleep, and it was only going to get easier, right? So I relaxed, took the pressure off, and things started to fall apart.

It's absolutely critical that you keep yourself moving and busy if you get tired or drowsy, even after four weeks - always have a list of things to do. My mistake was to keep reading or using the computer until I got so drowsy and mentally fatigued that sleep was too easy an option. In fact, I'm feeling a bit that way now, so I'm gonna get off my ass and start into the washing-up.

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Week Five Stats

2006-01-30T22:53:00.000+11:00

Ok, due to popular demand (1 vote counts for a lot around here) here they are, and despite all the spreadsheet cells filled with 60's, it's not as bad as I expected:

2272 minutes slept
168 hours in week
37.87 hours slept
4.44 ratio
5.41 hours average per day

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Week Five - No Stats

2006-01-30T01:54:00.000+11:00

I won't be posting stats this week - needless to say they're crap. I even stopped recording them at one point.

Looking back at the week, the issue seems to revolve around an initial oversleep, usually my 1am nap which extends for an hour in total. Upon waking from this, my mental state (due to sleep inertia?) is apparently quite susceptible to suggestion - the night seems spoiled and un-redeemable - so at some stage within the next hour I succumb to a quick nap from which I wake at 5:30 or 6am.

On the nights after an oversleep, it's very easy to stick to schedule - they're very productive nights with no tiredness. Then the next night, the naptime double-up happens again - last night it was my 9pm nap (that's never happened before!), and then my 1am as well.

Needless to say this is very frustrating.

So some resolutions:

Get the hell up as soon as the alarm goes off - it's possible that I may have woken at the correct time during the doubled-up naps, turned off the alarm while still lying down, and relaxed for just a moment........ It seems I wouldn't remember waking either - this memory-gap seems to be a recurring item in people's reports.
Be very strict about keeping active during 'tired' periods - don't let my mind linger on how comfortable the couch looks
Oversleeping during a nap is not an excuse to give up on the rest of the night

I've also changed my alarm to be quite a bit louder, and have started setting multiple alarms - one at my wake-up time, and two more at 5-minute intervals after that. This is in addition to the countdown alarm which is set to go off a minute or two after the very first alarm.

Also, Chris, in relation to my earlier post about testing the difference between core sleeps and additional naps, I've messed up a bit, and will have to postpone ;o)

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Contact

2006-01-28T03:02:00.000+11:00

One thing that I've not mentioned before is the fact that I wear contact lenses. Why would I? What's that got to do with the whole PS thing? Shut up with your damn questions, I'm getting to that!

Contact lenses are a godsend. I used to wear glasses when I was a teenager, the big horrible, then fashionable (so I'm assured) aviator shaped ones that cover half your face. As some of you may know, Ireland is quite a cold country (don't argue with me, I'm in Australia - Ireland is bloody cold!). Indoors by contrast, is generally quite warm, so making the transition between outside and inside causes glasses to instantly fog up - foomp! You have to take them off, wipe them with your lens-cloth, and replace them on your face - foomp! - it happens again. This cycle continues until the glass has warmed to the same temperature as the room, and moisture from the air no longer condenses on the lens.

The people in the room watch curiously.

At a certain point I recognised the need to be somewhat 'cooler', and my parents thankfully funded my move to contact lenses. Contact lenses at this time were somewhat barbaric - little disks of glass that could easily be smashed by a passing ruffian, piercing your eyeball and causing hideous pain and damage. Even when they weren't floating around on your cornea in little shards, they were quite uncomfortable. The things we do to be cool, eh? Anyway, it worked - I joined a metal band as a lead guitarist and rocked the parish.

After a few years the eyeball boffins invented soft contact lenses, although I believe I carried on in ignorance with the hard contact lenses for far longer than necessary. This invention was a good thing - they were so much more comfortable - you could rub your eyes, take a poke from a passing ruffian and so on. Just as importantly, they also let more oxygen through to the cornea.

As you may be aware, the cornea is quite unique - the only part of the body in which the cells are not fed oxygen via the bloodstream. Obviously you can't have blood vessels in your cornea, it needs to be transparent so that you can see. Instead, the cells of the cornea absorb oxygen from the air.

So contact lenses are designed to be 'gas-permeable', which means that they let the oxygen through to the cornea, at least to some degree. Some contact lenses are more gas-permeable than others. My original hard contact lenses weren't very good at this, and I had constant warnings from my optometrist that one day I wouldn't be able to wear them any more, that my eyes would give up. Only wear them for a few hours every day she said. I wore them all day, every day, only taking hem out to sleep at night. For years. Thankfully, the technology of contact lenses moved faster than my eyes deteriorated.

However, they're still not perfect, which brings me in a long-winded fashion to the 'point' of this post - the process of transitioning to PS, staying up all night with my contacts in (I have no spectacles) has not been kind to my eyes. They're getting bloodshot around the cornea as my eyes attempt to divert more oxygen to the right areas.

Dryness is another problem associated with long wear of contact lenses, and at its worst it can be extremely uncomfortable. Napping seems to trigger this with some efficiently. This can make the lenses stick like glue to the surface of your eye, and removing them is a painful exercise in eyeball-scraping.

Enjoying this so far?

Today, I went to my super optometrist. He looked at my eyes through various spikey beige chunks of instrumentalia and noted all of the symptoms of what I described above. An explanation of the cause as well as the point of my visit was all that was required to stop the inevitable beating. He also noted that my eyesight was improving, and further reduced the strength of my prescription.

"Wait a minute," I hear you say - "improving? They're not improving. You're myopic (short-sighted), yes? Your eyes will continue deteriorating for the rest of your life. You must be mistaken. Get used to it, or get laser surgery."

Well, that's why I called him my super optometrist. He's a behavioral optometrist, and has a slightly different approach to things. In relation to my eye-sight improving, consider the following: your right arm is a bit tired one particular day. On that same day you happen to be having a right-arm-strength-test, courtesy of your local well-meaning rightarmetometrist, who notes that the strength of your right arm is not what it should be (you're tired, remember?).

"You'll be needing an assistive exo-skeleton there", he says. "Noooo," you whine, "only the nerds have them, I'll look stupid!!". "Stop your whining you little brat!". That was your mother, smacking you in the head. "Listen to the rightarmetometrist, he knows best!" Smack! (That was another one for good measure).

So, on the appointed day, you head up to the rightarmetometrist and have your new assistive exo-skeleton fitted, all the while dreading going back out into the street, back to school, back to the inevitable staring, poking and laughing. The exo-skeleton kicks in whenever you go to move your arm, giving you normal,or just above normal strength in your arm.

It assists your muscles, letting them take it easy. They get very little exercise, nothing strenuous, and slowly begin to waste away. Soon you notice that the strength in your arm is waning. That's ok, the rightarmetometrist said that this would happen. All you have to do is pop back for another visit (pay the money) and he will 'up' your prescription. Thus is the spiral of degeneration and dependency on the palliative joined....

That seems to be one of the core practices of conventional optometry, which treats myopia as something akin to a disease, rather than viewing (hah) the weakness as something that can be addressed with some exercise. That's how your eye focuses - the lens in your eye is pulled by muscles into the correct shape in order to focus on the object that you're viewing. If this muscle is weak - perhaps you read too many books as a kid, and didn't spend enough time focusing on objects further away - shouldn't it be strengthened by working it out???

When I first came to Australia, my vision was something like -6 and -5 (that's diopters if you're interested: a -5 is the same as 20/600 vision), which is pretty bad. Now both my lenses (as of today) are -2.5. My vision with them in is less than perfect, which is the whole point - they have to do the work to adjust to something closer to 20/20. To be more precise, he keeps my vision at just above what is legally required to be able to drive a vehicle (the third line on the chart - if you can't read that for your driving test you're in trouble). It's not a very fast process, but your mileage may vary - I typically don't do the exercises, thus dragging out the entire process. But there's been steady improvement over the years.

How did I find out about this? A book by Jacob Liberman, called Take off your glasses and see which talks about the very strong link between suggestion, mental and physical stress and eyesight, and which also listed my optometrist as a practitioner. So I looked him up and made an appointment.

And that's it.

For now, I have to take it easy with the contact lenses - wear them as little as possible over the next few days, and not at all at night. My new specs won't be ready for at least a week, so in the meantime I've reduced the resolution and increased the font-size on my laptop. And I've to do my eye-exercises, which is one of the basics of behavioral optometry. At least I've got the time now ;o)

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mess

2006-01-28T00:45:00.001+11:00

Well, the last few days have been a bit of a mess. It happened again last night, with my 1am nap continuing until 3am, at which point I was woken by my wife. Both alarms had failed to wake me - or at least they had succeeded in waking just enough of my brain required to switch them off. No measurable amount of consciousness seems to be required to do this.

Subsequent efforts on her part to convince me to stay up and do something, or at the very least set my alarm for a nap were met (reportedly) by some lame-ass half-asleep attempts at fooling either her or myself that I was already doing it, or it wasn't necessary, or that the alarm was set ("see?"). These attempts at subterfuge, she notes, weren't worthy of a dull 2-year-old.

Anyway, once you're in that state - having overslept by so much, in the midst of experiencing wrenching sleep inertia, and with the depressing feeling that you've already messed up the entire night hanging over you, the most logical and comforting decision to make is to write off tonight, and start afresh on this annoying PS thing tomorrow. Everything will be alright tomorrow.....

Even as these thoughts are creeping through your brain, the wispy strands of warm sleepiness are already reaching up to you from the bed, sucking you back; surrendering to this and sinking back down into the cozy comfort feels soooooooooooooooooooo damn good..........

The difference is stark - staying awake is akin to swimming upstream, against a murky foggy, muggy suffocating current, constantly working - the other is relaxing in the same current, instantly being swept away in the water which becomes a warm cocoon of intense contentment.

Perhaps I'm being a bit too 'wordy', but I have to try and get across just how amazing it feels to give in and get some free sleep after so much tension has been created in the opposite direction - it's the ultimate definition and extreme embodiment of the simple word relax.

Anyway, it's a good idea not to let this situation occur - the main culprit here is sleep inertia, caused by over-sleeping. Whether it's because your alarm didn't work, or because you were woken at the wrong point of your cycle, you'll get the same result. The only things that will save you at this point are resolve, commitment, or discipline. Otherwise, you won't even remember that you woke up at this stage, and in a few hours you'll wonder why both alarms have no batteries in them, and why you have banana smeared on the right side of your body.

Just ignore that last bit, and move on.

So, resolve, commitment, discipline - none of which I've had for the last few days. Why? Did I ever?

I did four weeks of polyphasic sleeping, and very successfully I thought.* Perhaps my thinking that was part of the problem. I started to let my guard down - perhaps I naively believed that I was now a pro, fully adjusted, and would wake up naturally after 25 minutes of sleep. As it turns out, I wasn't and I didn't.

Perhaps in conjunction with these hiccups, or because of them, the initial burst of energy that saw me through until now seems to have dissipated. And lacking that army-type discipline, that unthinking commitment to continue regardless of the circumstances, I find myself in the situation where simple arguments at 3am are enough to get me crawling back to bed.

So what to do?

* Shut yer hole Al, I am not a failure!

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Core sleep

2006-01-26T17:03:00.000+11:00

I saw this post from Chris Beams on the uberman group at yahoo today, in response to another poster announcing that they were about to add some core sleep into their schedule:

Timely that you mention you're adding a 1.5 hour core period. Just this morning, I've decided to do the same. I've discovered a pattern in my schedule that usually begins with a night of extreme tiredness and oversleeping, then follows with one night of alertness and on-time napping, followed by a night of mostly on-time naps with considerable struggle staying awake, followed by a night of extreme tiredness and oversleeping. This cycle then repeats itself.

It appears that on that every-third-night when I oversleep, I'm making a deposit in my 'sleep bank', and then spending that over the next two nights (I don't know that this is physiologically accurate, but it appears to be a useful metaphor).

I, like you, am hopeful that injecting a 1.5 hour core sleep period in the early morning hours will help to regulate my need for extra sleep, and do away the unproductive and frustrating nights of oversleeping.

I've noticed I have a similar cycle, although mine is stretched over a few more days, and doesn't seem to be quite as severe as Chris'. Now, I don't really like the idea of adding core sleep - I think that it can be a little counter-productive in that it sends confusing signals to the body.

If we accept the theory that the reason we get tired is that the body hasn't yet become proficient at getting the required amount of REM sleep out of our naps, it's safe to say that I need to get more practice at napping.

So, we have the same problem, but my solution is this: add more naps - this means that
a) I get more sleep, and eliminate the crash-cycle (it's just not core sleep)
b) The body gets more practice at napping

Once the extra napping practice starts to pay off, I should be able to remove those additional naps one at a time. In this way, I continue toward my ideal goal, which is to be as close to pure polyphasic sleep as is comfortable and practical.

Anyway, I don't know if my way is better than Chris'. What to do? If only we could both try a method each so we could compare the results....

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... and two steps back

2006-01-26T16:13:00.000+11:00

I don't know what it is, maybe it's related to commitment or tiredness or self-control, but last night I let myself go, and slept for about 8 hours. Now, apart from being very well rested, I feel a bit dull and groggy - definitely too much sleep. (note: this is clearing as I go through the day).

I do intend to get back on the horse immediately, I've invested to much time in this to give up now. I've made a lot of progress, and feel that I'm down to the final few tweaks to make this work properly. In general these are

1) getting the most from my naps
2) getting over the drowsy period in the middle of the night - this may be achieved (at least partially) by achieving #1, and from working in additional naps as per my previous post.
3) integrating PS more with my 'day-job' - at this stage of the transition (at least I hope it's limited to the transition), any 'upsets' at work that upset or derail the nap schedule still have quite an impact.

Perhaps I just needed a break - moving to PS is hard work, and now that I've treated myself (with last night's sleep, and a delicious coffee this morning) I do feel somewhat more able to dive back in.

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Results

2006-01-26T16:11:00.000+11:00

This has taken a bit longer to post for a few reasons, some of which I may inadvertently touch upon here or in future posts. As far as the results go, they may not be worth the wait, however they were quite pleasing..

Between 1am and 3am, I was productive, yet a little tired - standard fare for anybody doing this type of thing - you can tell that it's the middle of the night, you're not at 100%.

The difference after the 3am nap, however were stark. At 3:30, it became daytime. I don't mean literally - you would have read about that in the papers - "DAYTIME COMES EARLY IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - SCIENTISTS ASTONISHED", "END OF WORLD PREDICTED, STARTING NOW". I mean that as far as my body and mind were concerned, I was at 100% (or higher) capacity. I had full energy, concentration, awareness and absolutely no tiredness or grogginess. It was obvious that this was how it was supposed to be.

Sounds simple, but sometimes these simple things can be overlooked in the midst of all the ruckus involved with transitioning to PS. I did post previously about getting extra naps to help avoid crashing, but I've never had such a good result in relation to general wellbeing and productivity.

So, a step forward...

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Tactics

2006-01-25T06:13:00.000+11:00

I was somewhat disheartened yesterday, so decided to change tactics somewhat. I developed a plan - a simple plan, but a plan nonetheless, and it was this: get more sleep.

No sooner said than done, I swung my plan into action, all of its intricate parts flowing together like the precise workings of a gentleman's carrying-clock. The risk was enormous, and I honestly didn't think I was going to make it for a while, but through some series of unaccountable miracles, it worked. I got more sleep.

How did I pull this off you might ask? And as you would expect, the devil's in the details. So here, they are, horns and all:

9pm Standard Nap, yet carefully considered in the light of what's to come
10pm Power Nap! The audacity! Never before attempted, yet through sheer force of will I pulled it off
11pm Additional Standard Nap. So soon, I hear you cry?? Yes. I make no excuses, it's in the plan.
1am Standard Nap. Yes Sir, I can still nap. I still have that special something, as the French say, a little "I don't know what".
3am Additional Nap. What?? Surely you can't be serious!! Yes I am. The non-believers may step outside at this point.
5am Standard Nap. And it goes on. How can he take it, you ask yourselves? The answer is in the stars......

As I write this, the experiment is over. Not the entire polyphasic sleep experiment, only this super condensed napping experiment. It had to end - the risk of destroying lives was far too real.

And the results? You'll have to wait for the...

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Bad day, Bad night

2006-01-24T07:06:00.000+11:00

Yesterday was a busy and stressful day at work. My 1pm nap was pretty unsuccessful, I probably got about 5 minutes of quality sleep during it. Additionally, I was delayed at work, so my 5pm was then pushed back by 2 hours. I felt pretty rough by then, with 'tight' feeling around the back of my head. Despite this, I had no problem performing or thinking well at work, it just didn't make for a comfortable experience.

So as I said, bad day, bad night - this all translated into another mysterious double-up of my 1am nap, after which I tried to do some work (work work, from work, you know?), but found myself spending more time fighting sleep than being productive. Then I just 'rested my eyes' for 3 hours.

Managed to be productive with some of the work work this morning (from 6am onwards). Bet you normal monophasic sleepers can't do that! Oh wait, you can. Bully for me.

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Week Four Stats

2006-01-23T23:00:00.000+11:00

Week four already, eh? Here's the stats, slightly better than last week:

minutes slept during week

1630

total hours in week (you could have worked this out yourself!)

total hours slept during week

27.17

awake:asleep ratio

6.18

average hours asleep per day

3.88

In case anybody's interested, here's a screenshot of the spreadsheet I use to track my sleep times...

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Double alarm 'malfunction'

2006-01-23T04:12:00.000+11:00

Nothing serious, but worrying nonetheless. As I was settling in (on the living-room carpet) for my 1am nap, I set my phone alarm for 28 minutes from now (1:25am - I remember), and set the countdown timer for 28 minutes.

Moments later, I awoke to the countdown timer alarm, which never happens - I always wake at the phone alarm and turn both alarms off. Stopping the countdown alarm, I check the time - 2am!!! WTF??

My phone alarm (which is still in my hand - usually the vibrations wake me before the 'ding's) doesn't seem to have gone off, and the screen doesn't have the alarm notification on it either. The alarm on it is still set for 1:25am too.

So I slept for 2 naps, back-to-back. I've no other explanation except that I must have woken, turned off the phone alarm and reset the countdown timer. Then I obviously drove downtown, woke up the local hypnotist, had all memory of the event removed from my mind, drove back to the apartment and slipped back into my nap as if nothing had happened.

So tomorrow night, I'll have somebody hide the car keys.

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Clarify

2006-01-22T08:47:00.000+11:00

I just wanted to clarify something from my resolve post - the extra sleep was not a crash -I didn't hit a sleep-deprivation wall that meant I couldn't go on, or have such a level of tiredness that I decided to give in - I just relaxed a bit too much, didn't focus on the goal, and thought it would be ok to get comfy on the couch for a few minutes.

So this was more due to a general lack of resolve and mental clarity - when I say mental clarity, I mean that my mind should be very aware of the rules surrounding the transition at all times - for some reason this rule had been relaxed recently.

I think I've sorted out the crash scenario with extra 'preventative naps' (assuming I'm able to see a crash coming!). What I need to do now is to follow through on my resolve to stick to the schedule like glue for the next week, and get over those tired periods that I have at night time - it's in those 'dark' periods that the bad voodoo happens.....

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Juicer

2006-01-22T08:17:00.000+11:00

We bought a juicer! It's a Sunbeam Cafe Series, with a 1000W motor, while most other juicers on the market tend to be sub-500W motors. So it's very heavy duty - it's even warrantied for commercial use. One of the first juices we tried consisted of beetroot, celery, apple, carrot and some ginger, and it turned out to be delicious.

So the fridge is now bulging with extra fruit and vegetables that we intend on using during the week - we even got some mint and coriander that can be thrown in to add some additional zing. Speaking of zing, I wonder if I can add chilli? Don't see why not - I could probably concoct some sort of indian-style vegetable curry juice. Or maybe not.

In my pre-health-kick days, I always thought that juicers were a bit silly- lots of people buy them, go nuts for a week, and then never use them again. I've since discovered that there's no easier way of getting lots of raw vegetables into your system, and if you're serious about your long-term health, this is up there on the list with cutting out processed carbs and sugar.

The only down-side to juicers - at least the only one I can see at the moment (we've had it for a week now) is having to clean it afterwards - this takes a bit of time and effort, however it fits neatly in with my recent love-affair for doing the washing-up (there's nothing better to help overcome sleep inertia). So I can see how other people get annoyed/discouraged having to wash so many bits every time they want an apple juice. I guess it's just a matter of weighing up the pros and cons.

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Resolve

2006-01-22T07:13:00.000+11:00

I'm a bit annoyed - woke up on the couch at about 6am. I vaguely remember part of my brain thinking this was acceptable at the time - clearly (to me now, at least) it was not.

This is the result of a lack of resolve, a slackening off or relaxing, when what I need is exactly the opposite - extra effort to push myself over the final hump.

And it's so close - I'm nearly there. It may not even take a huge amount of effort, but if I don't keep applying the pressure at this point, I'll always exist in the twilight of nearly being a polyphasic sleeper, something that was interesting but didn't quite work out. I don't want that.

Tiredness was also a factor last night, perhaps a carry-on from the day before, but also perhaps due to the fact that I've changed my nap-countdown-timer from 25 minutes to 20 minutes. This has been in effect since Thursday, and while it might be appropriate if I fall asleep immediately, if there's any delay it may be cutting out 5 minutes of vital REM sleep. I think I'll try changing it to 28 minutes, and see how that goes. If I wake up before it goes off, all the better.

So, today I'll be firming up my resolve, removing any potential obstacles, and planning ahead to ensure that everything is in place for those times of night when my commitment may be waning. One week from now I expect to see dramatic improvement across all areas of PS, especially night-time alertness and productivity and a general sense of well-restedness.

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Naparama

2006-01-21T15:25:00.000+11:00

I've been taking it easy today - I found I needed several additional naps to catch up, and not feel as if I'm dragging myself through the day. After each of these naps I've felt much better - 'wholer' in fact. I'm a bit surprised that missing 2 naps yesterday would have such an effect on my level of tiredness today, especially after having the additional REM stored up from the crash the day before.

So that's a potential drawback to taking free sleep in order to skip naps the next day, but one that can easily be remedied if you have the time to take in some extra naps.

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And lucky too...

2006-01-21T02:14:00.000+11:00

Well, today was interesting. I've learned a lot about how to deal with polyphasic sleep in the real world, and how flexible I can be.

After the extra sleep I got last night, I wasn't able to get to sleep for my 9am nap. I lay there for the entire time though, and found it quite relaxing. I felt it was important to do so, in order to help maintain the nap routine for the body.

Missing the 9am nap didn't seem to have any effect on my morning, everything went as if it was a normal day. I did feel slightly different, it's hard to describe, but I did feel somehow less 'flexible' during the morning.

For various reasons, I wasn't able to get my 1pm nap at work. Perhaps I didn't push it because I knew that I had the sleep banked, however things were extremely busy and it didn't seem viable at the time. I was however, interested to see what kind of effect this nap would have on me during the rest of the day - I was going to be in a 'danger' situation - an off-site meeting with other company managers for the entire evening.

One point to note is that my body did produce strong 'nap now' signals around lunchtime, but these subsided after a while, only to come back even stronger as it approached 5pm. These feel like a gentle tightening of the head and/or eyes - not uncomfortable really, but definitely noticeable. It was easy to ignore them and work on through - I didn't notice any degradation of my performance during the day.

Interestingly enough, I see tired people around me all the time - it's stunning to think that they're getting 6, 7,8 or more hours of sleep every night and still come to work yawning, slow, and sucking down coffee to get started at the day. Then they eat a bunch of sugars and carbs for lunch, peak for a while and crash again at around 3pm, at which point they require more coffee, carbs and a good smack around the face to keep going for the rest of the day.

That was me a while ago ;o)

But, as they say in many cultures, and many languages, with different inflections and tonal qualities which depend on the mood of the talker and the emotional ambiance of the situation that they're currently operating under, I digress.

My 5pm nap was then delayed until 7pm. Sleep didn't come as easily as usual for this either, but things started to slip back into place for the 9pm and 1am naps. During this time, I haven't felt quite as good physically and mentally, as I did before last night's crash - indeed, a lot of people have noted that they feel terrible during periods like this, or after switching back to monophasic sleep.

If you're an avid reader (and I've been assured that I have at least 2) you might recall that I had a previous crash just before a day where I had to fly to a client for an all-day meeting - both that instance and this are very good indications that if you have a situation coming up that will require your concentration for a day, without naps, a few hours of free sleep beforehand will help you through it with little or no trouble.

That should be useful to many people who are considering taking up polyphasic sleeping, but who have busy lives and difficult scheduling restrictions. I don't get the sense that it's something that you could do very frequently; it feels like a bit of a stretch.

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