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.