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.
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.
Labels: polyphasic
posted by Kyle at 2:12 AM
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