Back to Monophasic Sleeping

Monday was my last day of a polyphasic-sleeping lifestyle.  On Monday evening I took my 9pm nap and refused to get up.  I knew I didn't have work due on Tuesday that needed to get done and I couldn't coax myself out of bed after 30 mins of sleep.  Lately, I had tried "stacking" naps on top of each other after a long sleep-drought, with some success (maybe).

As I return to a regular sleeping schedule, I REALLY want to list pros and cons I notice about polyphasic sleeping.  Here are some:

Pro: time.  Already I miss all my time.  Where did it go?

Con: I usually run hot, but I noticed feeling chilled on the uberman schedule.  I wore more clothing inside and outside.  I'm already back to feeling warm again.  Naturally, I was colder at night, but also during the day, even during the recent warm spell.  Now I've switched back to sandals and a t-shirt.  I can still tell when it's warm vs cold, but it cold weather doesn't chill me as much anymore.  Perhaps I wasn't eating enough while on the schedule.

Con: naps.  Naps are wonderful, but if they happen every four hours, they run interference with your life.  Near the end, I seemed to be able to stretch them out, but this may have made getting up from my naps even more difficult.

Con: you feel legitimately tired many times throughout the day.  Near the end of each awake cycle, you will feel sleepy.  It may be gentle, but it is still your body telling you to go to bed. 

Con: I gained time to work, but lost social time.  Time at work, to meet with students and other faculty, and time at home to spend with my family.

If I think of more, I'll add it as a comment or another post. :)

Two Impressive Polyphasic-Sleep Weekends

Before I forget any of this, I need to get it down. The last two weekends made use of the uberman sleep pattern. Here's what happened:

Just over a week ago I had potentially the biggest test of the schedule. Since wife and daughter were out of town visiting family, I decided to take a trip to Virginia to visit my college roommate and best man. Since the drive is supposed 7.5 hours long in each direction, I decided to spend FriSat and SunMon driving in order to maximize my time spent with my friend: all Saturday and Sunday. So, just after midnight on FriSat, I took off, headed for VA. I got sleepy right around the Ohio-WV border near Hocking Hills and luckily there was a rest stop right before crossing into WV. (I didn't see any rest stops anywhere in West Virginia the entire trip.) Perfect! After a half-hour I was good to go. The road started getting crazy, though, with sharp ups and downs through the smoky mountains (I was on 33 for most of it). I passed through Seneca Rocks and nearly didn't stop, then saw the State Park in that beautiful valley and stopped for a second nap. While sleeping, the sun rose and I had a gorgeous view of the rocks before I took off. I went up and down Shenandoah Mountain and arrived in Harrisonburg at 9am, much earlier than I'd expected.

Saturday and Sunday were excellent, except for the necessary naps. Also I fell asleep for about 4 hours on Saturday night. Oops! By this time I'd started not to beat myself up over these extra-long sleep periods that kept sneaking in. In fact, I'd decided just to stress out less about any of these things. This helped out the following weekend.

I drove back on Sunday in a less impressive manner. I decided to try and avoid the super-mountainy route and went south on 81 to 64 to cut through West Virginia. Despite napping directly before leaving, however, I was very tired and napped at a rest stop approximately one hour south of Harrisonburg. My next nap again came earlier than expected, and I pulled off of 64 onto a state park in WV (I don't recall the name) to nap. This kept me going until Ohio where rest stops are not rare (what the heck, WV? Also, where the junk are your Waffle Houses?). A big rain storm kicked up in the last leg home, but I made it fine.

Hurrah for the Uberman schedule for making this possible! It was great to see my friend! I realize, however, that it was also important that I felt (mostly) safe stopping and parking at state parks in the middle of the night. Seneca Rocks was pleasant and open; I could see for a long ways. The other one was a little less inviting (also it was completely dark) and I felt decidedly nervous. I'm not sure whether it was even kosher for me to drive up there and park. Hmmm.

(Also, I should mention that I slept a full 8 hours that MonTues. Oops!)

Then, just this past weekend, I travelled to Ann Arbor for the Michigan vs Minnesota game. Awesome! Prior to this, however, I had to decide whether to stay with the polyphasic schedule. If I did, it meant I would have a hard time staying awake between naps, especially during the game. Getting off the schedule, however, meant planning ahead and missing some productive nights. After an extremely productive WedThurs, I decided to stay awake for ThursFri, sleep FriSat and just not worry about it for Game Day. I'm not sure if I planned really well or what, but things definitely worked out. On Friday evening, I fell asleep around 6pm and set my alarm for 1:30am. I woke up, got half-way ready, took a nap (long sleeps don't leave you feeling totally refreshed when on this schedule) finished packing and got on the road by 4am. I stopped in a rest stop on I-75 and napped, then napped a final time when I arrived at 8am in Ann Arbor. At 8:30, I left the sleep-safety of my car and headed off to meet friends. I was parked a ways away and didn't expect to be back to my car until it was time to head home. Yikes! Still, I didn't let myself feel anxious. Instead I walked around, watched the band practice, tailgated, thoroughly enjoyed the game, tailgated again, and went shopping downtown. At the very end, I got drowsy, and returned to my car at 7pm. Ten-and-a-half hours without a nap! This is the longest I have been awake in weeks.

The trip home was a bit tough, but not bad. I sleep right then in the car, of course, and also stopped in a rest area on I-75 as well as a gas station in Urbana on US-68. There was also a break for food at a Waffle House up near Toledo. Yum!

I tried to take a series of naps after getting back to make up for my big break of sleep, but after three or four I gave in and took a long sleep. It's clear I don't always have the willpower upon getting up from a nap to shake off whatever sleepiness remains. This is the biggest signal that I'm not "built for" a polyphasic lifestyle; I have a hard time coming out of a sleep cycle.

The same thing happened last night. Again, I took a long sleep. At this point, on Monday morning, I'm not sure whether I'm going to take this opportunity to go monophasic or try to keep up with the naps and shift back to polyphasic sleeping.

3 weeks of polyphasic sleep

This last week has been the toughest. Most notably, during the night I've had trouble keeping awake between naps. The worst part comes right after I wake up: I have a very hard time leaving my dream state and returning to the real world. Both I and my wife have noticed this problem. It is especially unsettling to her, because it's clear I'm not in a dependable mental state as soon as I'm awake. With a four-month old, I want to know I can be called on at any time in the event of an emergency. As a scary example: twice now I have been so muddled that I didn't know how to turn off the alarm app on my phone while it was going off. Once my wife had to come out and turn it off herself, after it had woken her up too. I may need to search for a more simple device, especially if I can find something that wakes me up, but not the rest of the house.

In the past 8 nights, I've "messed up" at least five of them, meaning I've overslept. Usually this means I decided to go back to sleep directly after a nap. If I don't realize I need to reset my alarm before doing this, it's especially dangerous. I did not experience WedThurs because I slept through it. Waking up on Thursday morning was not pleasant; I had a headache and was groggy until I napped later in the morning.

Another big con for my current mental state is that I can't trust myself to lie down without having an alarm set. 9 times out of 10, I will fall asleep. That means I can't lie down to hang out with my wife if she's feeding the baby or to watch TV. This is what happened on Wednesday evening. I convinced myself I didn't need to worry; my wife could wake me up if I fell asleep. Well, she did this, but in my sleepy state I told her it was okay and refused to get up.

On the other hand, I really don't want to give up at this point. I am still extremely productive in the evening and have been able to work on looming projects before the deadline gets too near. 1-4:30am is a wonderful quiet stretch of time I have to myself for getting work done and paying attention to the housework. Cleaning the dinner dishes has become my responsibility, and I enjoy doing this in the middle of the night when no one else is awake to mess up the water pressure, etc.

On MonTues and TuesWed, I had a new experience: after a bit of trouble arising from a nap, I hit a period of hyperactivity. On MonTues, this lasted for hours, during which time my mind was more alert than I normally am during the day. Ever. I was as awake as though an airhorn were being blown directly next to my head, without the annoying noise. :) On TuesWed, I spent this time working on writing up a worksheet for my class, which turned out to be spectacular. Naturally, I was bummed on Thursday morning when I realized I had slept through WedThurs.

In all, it seems that I'm not getting enough sleep. I've been reading through some of Steve Pavlina's early polyphasic posts, and this helps me get some hints about how to cope. He got onto the schedule easily within 2-3 weeks.

My wife and I sat down tonight and discussed how to judge whether this project is successful. We agreed that the big test is being able to wake up and exit my dream state immediately. If I can't turn off my alarm reliably, I can't make decisions right away. (And any discussion I have with my wife will probably freak her out.)

Here are my plans:

* 25 minute naps instead of 20. This actually means I will set the timer for 25 minutes, not that I will necessarily sleep that long. I think 20 is a bit dangerously small, especially since I don't always necessarily fall asleep immediately. I am already interested to see whether I will come out of my naps better. I don't know why I hadn't considered this before; I was doing 25 minutes before (back before school started, maybe?) and I don't recall having the same trouble escaping naps. I may even need more time than others if I'm still having some trouble with apneas. Actually, I've had a lingering cough for a while now, and that has been aggravating my asthma when I lie down. This change could make a big difference.

* Sleep on the Sabbath. Byebye FriSat. I'm going to sleep instead. I observe the Sabbath---in my own way (sorry, Grandma)---and thus I'm not working during FriSat anyways. I think historic polyphasic sleepers threw in some 8-hour sleeps, though I don't know how often. We'll see how this goes.

* A long nap in the middle of the night. This gets a little closer to resembling the Everyman sleep schedule (as opposed to the Uberman, which I've been attempting). 2 or 3 hours of sleep as a long nap. Currently, my last sleep was one of these. I had a really hard time getting up from the long "nap" but I have not experienced the same drowsiness that I have had trouble with the past week+. (Unfortunately, I'm not experiencing the hyper-mode mentality, either.) This is the change I'm least excited about; it nearly doubles the amount of sleep I will get each day and seems to stray most from the Uberman routine I so want to adopt.

One thing I notice a bunch is how much I wish more was known about these sleeping habits. Although it's kind of fun to do something so unconventional (what a great discussion topic!) especially alone in the middle of the night, I wish more was known about what I'm doing. What are the health risks? How long should it actually take me to fully adopt the schedule? How will I know when I'm in the Uberman Zone? Is there a chance this is speeding up my aging? Are my telomeres in danger?

I kind of wish there was more support for being polyphasic. It would be great to go to a convention and hang out with other polyphasic sleepers for 21 hours a day and get tips from them. I get the feeling this might be a bunch easier if I were keeping the same schedule as a buddy or something.

TL;DR Been drowsy the past week. I'm not giving up, but I'm going to add in some more sleep.

Two tough nights than an easy one!

Day is breaking on Sunday morning. It's been storming all night long, but I have been awake without problem. I nearly forgot about my 1am nap and felt like the 5am one was unnecessary. I'm glad I hit them both, but this has been the easiest night to stay awake by far.

The past few nights leading up to this were off-putting, however. On Thursday I had a doctor's appointment; I had to go WedThurs without any food or water and then had to drink a bunch of chalky white dye on Thursday morning so the machines could take good pictures. This dye has given me cramping and back pain ever since. On ThursFri, I could barely stay awake. I think my body kept trying to convince my brain to lead us over to the sofa to lie down and recover. It finally worked; I don't remember anything after 4:45, but at 7am I woke up and realized I needed to get in to work!

In the middle of Friday, the cramps came back, and I was feeling overly drowsy. I fell asleep in the evening for a few hours accidentally, then received some minimal prodding to get me to sleep the rest of the night. I woke up at 5:30 on Saturday morning. Oops.

I could barely sleep on Saturday (First week of college football!) but I managed to lie down for all my naps, and usually got ~5 or so minutes of sleep. I was not sure how the night would go.

And yet, somehow, SatSun went just fine. Better than expected, even. I got the most work done of any night so far.

Let's hope this continues through the day today!

Trouble in Night 6

I am currently keeping myself awake the seventh night in this uberman attempt. By the morning, I'll have gone a full week without a "regular" sleep cycle. Awesome. I am still not as productive at night as I want to be. Staying awake is a bit more difficult if you know you're going to spend your time attacking a pile of work. Oh well.

Last night was really tricky, and I wanted to point out all the pitfalls I hit. Basically, I stayed up late to play some Magic, pushing my 9pm nap back to nearly 11:30pm. Oof! I made some terrible play mistakes at the very end that cost me dearly! Still, it was super fun to play, and it was nice to think that I had some real freedom in stretching out the cycles.

I realized I was deluding myself. Although these stretches are apparently possible later on, I wasn't quite at that point yet. I hit the hay for my 2am nap, but woke so confused that I almost went back to sleep. Luckily, I would have set the alarm again, but even more fortunately, my wife explained to me that I had already taken the nap; a second one was not a good idea. This is a real problem: rising from a nap so confused that I don't understand it is time to get up and try to get back to bed.

The trouble was not over, however. I was so tired, that I fell asleep sitting up in a chair. I recall looking at the clock around 2:40am and then remember jolting awake at 3:50. Oops! That's the longest I had slept in a long time!

Then things got worse. I somehow found my way back to the bed without an alarm set. I didn't wake up until Liv got me up, too late for me to watch the baby while she goes to her workout. Normally I am her alarm in the morning... oops! When I was awake, I was in a deep confusion and had a real hard time shedding my dream state. This is extremely frightening: when I try to defend or explain what I'm thinking, when I'm thinking about outlandish notions that were prevalent in the dream. I wish I knew how to better deal with this, but when in this midway mindset, you really don't want to lose your dream and are completely convinced that it has merit in reality. Yesterday morning I told Liv something about how I would have been better equipped to stay awake if I had friends willing to fold themselves into a short wall I could lean against. Something like that. Odd.

I'm not sure where I most went wrong, but I'm not planning on stretching out the cycles any more until I am much further into the schedule. We'll see how that goes.

Uberman Sleeping

I've done some major experimenting with altering my sleep habits lately, and I am realising how helpful it will be to have a log of what I'm doing, so here goes.

Short version: I'm working on changing my sleep schedule so that I only get ~2 hours of sleep per day. If it works, this will be accomplished by taking six 20-minute long naps every day. This is known as the Uberman schedule, a form of polyphasic sleeping. Normal sleep cycles yield about 90 minutes of REM sleep per night, but by training your body with some sleep deprivation, you can jump right into REM sleep in each nap and accumulate a similar total over the course of a day.

As with all dangerous ideas that get in my mind, I read about this stuff in multiple places on the Internet. Links: Wikipedia, Steve Pavlina, who did a really good job logging his own experience.

I started about three weeks ago, went for nearly two weeks, but then fell off it due to sickness. I think my first night without a big sleep was August 6th, but on the night of August 18 I had to get a full night of rest because I was running a fever. Those first two weeks were tough. They started off well, but got a bit wearisome. It apparently takes about two to three weeks before it's not a nightly struggle to stay up. It seemed to be getting more difficult for me as time passed, though. There is the possibility that I was getting sick and didn't notice it until very late. Right now I'm very interested in how to stay on the schedule if I do get ill and need to sleep for a protracted period.

The motivation for this experiment is perhaps obvious: Time. The summer was winding down faster than I'd hoped, and I still had lots to do to prepare for the coming semester. As a new dad, I want to be both selfish (spend time with my daughter) and selfless (help take care of the house) when I'm at home. Instead I realized I was going to be keeping up with my classes. When I first started the polyphasic schedule---and got the okay from my wife---my stress level dropped to near zero. Even though my first attempt failed in less than two weeks, the health benefit of not being continuously stressed about having time for everything is enough to push me a second time.

So, three days ago I started again. WedThurs (I am referring to nights by the days they span) of this past week was my last night of regular sleep. I stayed up all ThursFri (aside from naps at 9pm, 1am and 5am) and functioned nearly normally on Friday. FriSat wasn't quite as productive; I had to add a few extra naps (potentially the best way to overcome off-schedule sleepiness) and at the very end of Saturday I had a hard time falling asleep.

I'm currently emerging from SatSun, and this has been one of the best nights I've had. There was a bit of a mix-up with my 1am nap; I accidentally overslept. I think I was overtired heading in to the nap and it didn't quite get it done. I probably turned off my alarm but lay back down in bed. Oops! Dangerous! When I awoke again, I was extremely confused---emerging directly from a strong dream can be very tricky---and it took me a few minutes to get my head on straight. Unfortunately, I was still very tired. My ever vigilant wife convinced me I needed to force myself to get out of bed, so I set the alarm clock further away and took an extra recovery nap at 3am (I hope I didn't oversleep tonight).

I took another nap at 5am, and now I do not feel tired at all. I expect that around 9 I'll feel the usual gentle tug to take my next nap.

My experience from last time is that in the first week it's normal to alternate between good and bad nights, and it seems like Steve Paulina had a similar time. To stay awake between night-time naps, I find it helps to listen to loud music on my headphones. Hopefully this tactic combined with the fact that I was nearly there just over a week ago will help me get acclimated rapidly.

Now it's time to go clean up the yard before my next nap.

Pre-Calculating the cost of my next op

Okay, it looks like I'm going to have another operation sometime soon here.  This time I am determined to find out how expensive this procedure will be ahead of time.  How much will I be paying out of pocket?  If there is any legitimacy to our health care system, I should be able to figure that number out.

Here's my plan of attack:

* Call provider where service will take place to find out cost of procedure.

* Call Doctor who ordered the test and see whether I should expect any other bills for this op.

* Call insurance to see how they would negotiate that, etc.  Have them help me determine final cost, from deductible, max out-of-pocket, etc.

This seems like a huge hassle, but I'm very curious to know just how difficult it is... assuming I can get a straight answer at each of these steps.