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Oct 28 / 1:10am

Fine-tuning the sleep schedule

After falling off my polyphasic sleep schedule about a month ago to deal with a flu bug I've been back on track for a couple of weeks now.  The only real change has been a 20-minute nap added around 10:00pm, and an hour and a half shaved off my core sleep.  So now my schedule looks something like this:

2:30am-6:00am          = 3.5 hours
12:00pm - 12:20         = 20 minutes
6:00pm - 6:20             = 20 minutes
10:00pm - 10:20         = 20 minutes

                          Total = 4.5 hours

Before, my core sleep had been 1:00am - 6:00am, but by 11:30 at night I would feel like a complete zombie.  I considered adding another hour onto the front of my core sleep to make it 12-6, but with the two naps later in the day that meant I'd be sleeping almost 7 hours a day, which kind of defeated the purpose.  It seems backward, but by adding that late night nap and trimming my core sleep I actually sleep less overall and I'm less tired throughout the day.  And the 10:00pm nap was a painless addition.

Most of the "standard" Everyman breakdowns I've read on the web actually advise either a 3 hour or a 4.5 hour core sleep -- something about 90-minute cycles being easier on the body.  Maybe after awhile I'll trim that extra 30 minutes off my nighttime core, but for now this is working beautifully. 

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Oct 21 / 8:38am

Unused

I've had no coffee for about a week while I get back into a polyphasic sleep schedule, and though it pains me to say it, I actually feel a lot better.

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Aug 30 / 6:13am

Two weeks of polyphasic sleep

A few months back I stumbled onto a blog chronicling an experiment with polyphasic sleeping.  Polyphasic is the term used to describe different methods of breaking up one's sleep schedule into smaller parts, mainly consisting of naps throughout the day, and in some cases a slightly longer period of "core" sleep during the night.  In the process, total sleep time can be cut down, sometimes to as little as 2-3 hours in a 24-hours period.  Way too enthusiastic, I leapt into it the very next day, without really thinking through the implications for things like my job and my marriage.  A few days later, after having her own peaceful slumber irreparably smashed at 4:00AM for three days in a row, my wife put her foot down.  It was also hard trying to find a quiet place and time to nap at work.  I was basically a zombie for the better part of a week, with nothing to show for it.  The experiment was a failure.

Kind of.  It did give me a taste for what it would be like to have an extra 3-4 hours per day, and for the past few months I haven't been able to shake the idea that it *could* work, if I could only get the details right.

So I'm trying it again, with a few small but important tweaks.  Once I talked to them, the people at work seemed fine giving me a quiet corner in the back room for 20 minutes in the afternoon.  The manager even brought in his spare futon and made a little napping loft for me and others to use.  Earplugs also help.  And I nudged my core nighttime sleep so that I get up around the same time as, or later than, my wife.  Coming to bed at 2:00AM doesn't seem to bother her (I've actually been doing that for years), as long as my alarm doesn't go off while she's still sleeping.  Below is the schedule I've been following:

Core sleep:         1:30AM - 6:00AM             4.5 hours
Nap:                    12:30PM - 12:50PM         20 minutes
Nap:                     7:00PM - 7:20PM            20 minutes

In practice, I'm sometimes not in bed till 2:00AM, and for the naps I've been giving myself 30 minutes for now so that I have time to settle in and get comfortable.  It comes out to about 5 hours of sleep a day.  This schedule is called the Everyman, because it's supposed to be easier for people with regular lives and responsibilities to adapt to.  In contrast to the Uberman schedule, which consists of six 20 minute naps throughout the day, every four hours with clockwork precision, and no core sleep.  An Uberman I am not. 

This last week brought some gnarly sleep deprivation, particularly from about 11:00pm - 1:30am.  The rest of the day I could keep myself awake by reading or writing or doing work on the computer.  The Wii came in handy too.  But after 11:00pm staring at a page or a computer screen wasn't cutting it, and on a few nights it came down to pacing and splashing cold water on my face for an hour or two.  From what I've read, week two is usually the worst week for those adapting to the Everyman, and I think I've begun to turn a corner.  It's 12:45 on Saturday night and I feel a little fatigued, but over all not bad.

I'll try to write another update next week.  Hopefully the nights of near-narcolepsy will be completely behind me by then.

Filed under  //  polyphasic  

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