Not Polyphasic Sleeping Day 4

I’ve been back on normal sleeping for several days. I’ve had no problems at all sleeping at night but during the day I have been really sleepy especially leading upto my previous nap times. And I mean eyes like lead sleepy.

I’ve been contemplating starting a new schedule of:

4.5hr core 1.30am to 6am
20min nap 12.30pm
20min nap 7.30pm

That would give:

6.5 hours awake
20 min sleep
6.5 hours awake
20 min sleep
5.5 hours awake
4.5 hours asleep

= 5h10min sleep, 18h50minutes awake.

I’ll do some internet research and see if anyone has tried a ~4h+2 x nap with success.

Polyphasic Sleeping Day 13

I have quit the schedule. I’ve had to give up my car and can’t afford to buy a new one. That presents some problems:
1. I can’t have my lunchtime nap in the car. I don’t want to sleep at my desk every day because of the negative effect I think it would have on my PR.
2. I have to walk to work. This means I will not get home until 6pm, if I spend 1/2 an hour napping when I get in then I’lll miss out on time with my daughters before they go to bed at about 6.30. I don’t think I can put a seven hour gap between the lunch nap and the tea-time nap.
3. I will be more tired at the end of the day. This is hard too cope with when the 1am dip kicks in.
4. If I’m honest, the loss of car has knocked my confidence a bit and I have lost the will required to make it work, espeically with these extra issues.

Things I have learned about polyphasic sleeping:
It takes about 9 days to get to the point where I feel awake for most of the day.
The 1am to 3am period is very dangerous. But if I spend that time active then it isn’t hard to keep going.
The white noise MP3 is essential for ensuring sleep during naps.

It comes down to priorities – I value my image at work and my daughters more than the sleep schedule, and willpower – you ned 100% to keep going.

Who knows, I might try it again sometime. I’ll certainly know what I’m doing next time.

Polyphasic Sleeping Day 12

I didn’t have time to post yesterday because it was my daughter’s christening then I had to fix the toilet (uuuughhhhh).

The white noise MP3 I mentioned has been working great & I haven’t failed at a single nap since I started using it. With its help I did five perfect naps on the run. Then I got complacent and after my 10pm nap last night I sat down under a blanket (it was really cold) to watch TV. I had hardly stopped all day setting up the christening, clearing up, making dinner + drinks for the hangers on afterwards and THEN fixing the toilet. I also had to take my daytime naps about 2 hours earlier than normal (see times below) to fit around the christening. Anyway that’s enough excuses, the short of it is that by 1am I just couldn’t stay awake and went to bed 2 hours early.

I have had enough positive signs to think that this is just a setback that I can learn from rather than a terminal end to it all. I know that 1am to 3am is the hardest time, so I need to go outside and do something. The days that I went to the supermarket I had no problems making it to 3am whatsoever.

The long sleep last night has made this morning much harder than usual. I was even microsleeping as I walked to work which is even more remarkable considering the temperature was a few below zero.

The upside is that my back isn’t nearly so bad this morning. Once I am adapted to the schedule it will be interesting to see whether a shorter sleep can fix my back like a long sleep does now.

Sleep (Day 11)

17.30 – 17.50
22-00 – 22.20
03.00 – 06.00
10.05 – 10.25
Total = 240 minutes = 4 hours.

Sleep (Day 12)

15.50 – 16.20
22.00 – 22.20
01.00 – 06.00
12.00 – 12.30
Total = 360 minutes = 6 hours.

Polyphasic Sleeping Day 10

Things are definitely changing. Whilst I still feel tired at points during the day, I’ve lost the hung over feeling.

My back is making me suffer but I’m keeping up a conveyor belt of ibuprofen and paracetamol which helps. I keep thinking that a good long sleep would do wonders but I can’t give in to that. I’ve also started sleeping on the floor for my naps which seems to be helping my back quite a bit.

A consequence of not feeling so tired is that for a whole day yesterday I didn’t get past drifting for a single nap. I had a 1.5 hour sleep at 10.30 last night when my 20 minute nap at 10pm failed to get into sleep.

I hit back at my naps with a full arsenal today though…

1. Set alarm for 30 minutes time.
2. Read my book on Einstein’s relativity for 8 minutes.
3. Start this utter GEM of an mp3 from here.
4. Get up at the end of the MP3 / when alarm goes off whether I slept or not (I have slept all three times I’ve used this plan so far)

The Einstein book is so good because it is damn hard just to read each sentence and even then I can’t really comprehend what he’s actually saying. With this plan I am hoping to nail 20 minutes for each nap to bring me back onto 4 hours sleep.

Sleep
17.30 – 17.50 (no sleep)
22.10 – 22.30 (no sleep)
22-30 – 00.10
03.00 – 06.30
11.45 – 12.15

Total sleeping = 340 minutes = 5.6 hours.

Polyphasic Sleeping Day 9

I still feel tired but much less so than yesterday. I’m having much more difficulty sleeping in my naps now, in the the last few I have drifted but not fully slept. I still feel refreshed after them though.

My trip out to the supermarket last night was really good. Keeping active at a time I knew would be difficult worked as planned and I sailed though to 3am. One observation – supermarket night time staff treat you differently than during the day, its almost as if they look down on you for shopping at such a weird time. Maybe they’re just grumpy from being up all night or maybe they have quite a lot of trouble with oddballs.

Here’s my sleeping times for the last 24 hours.

17.30 – 17.50
22.30 – 23.00
03.00 – 06.30
12.00 – 12.20
Total sleeping = 280 minutes = 4.6 hours.

Polyphasic Sleeping Day 8

Still. Really. Tired.

I had an extra 20 minute nap at 1.00 am – midway through my 10pm to 3am slot. I was fine for the rest of that period and I figure it was better to do that than nod off every few seconds until 3am. All other sleeps have been bang on time so hopefully that won’t have set me back too much.

My lunch time nap was really good – I fell asleep instantly at 12.03 and woke thinking “crap monkeys I’ve overslept” but it was only 12.09. I went back down and woke again at 12.16 and finally at 12.20 just before the alarm went off.

Tonight I’m going to go to the 24 hour ASDA at 1am to get some new sheets, duvet covers, pillow cases, and pillows. I have some family staying over this weekend and our spare set is a cheap-o ASDA set from 9 years ago. It’s actually nice to see that I’m still doing the same things as back then.

I feel a bit guilty buying cheapo ASDA pillows for my guests but sod it, M&S won’t be open at that time. I have always found a big factor in sleeping well is the quality of the pillow – it needs to be made of something firm and soft that stays fairly cold so that it doesn’t make the side of your face and ear hot. During this experiment I’ve found that a good pillow means instant sleep but a rolled up coat means about 5 minutes of falling asleep time.

As I write this blog I’m trying to avoid giving direct advice and just record my experiences. I just hope to contribute some more data on polyphasic sleeping to the community. There is loads of great advice out there anyway and my two cents worth would literally be worth two cents.

<new regular section!>
Sleep
17.30 – 17.50
22.00 – 22.20
01.00 – 01.20
03.00 – 06.00
12.00 – 12.20
Total sleeping = 260 minutes = 4.3 hours.

Polyphasic Sleeping Day 7

Today has been the first complete day with no snoozing or uncontrollable momentary nodding off. Last night was great; I cleaned the house, learned a new song on the guitar, watched two episodes of Peep Show and, two of Lost, and played Torchlight. I didn’t go for a walk because I have pulled my back and it was painful last night. I have a bit of a recurrent problem with back spasms – the only catch is that normally a good night’s sleep sorts it all out (d’oh).

I have felt background tiredness most of the time, a little bit hung over and just generally “odd”. I feel conscious that I’m not quite 100% normal and you really don’t have to be too far from 100% normal to come across as a complete whack job. This much sleep dep is going to affect anyone. I’m sure people are looking at me oddly when we’re talking too but I’m going to put that down to the beard I’ve been growing.

Anyway here is a summary of my progress at the end of the first week:

Plus points:

• Managed to keep to 3 hours core sleep with no oversleeps.
• Fallen asleep quickly for all naps except two.
• Have just started waking 1 – 2 minutes before the end of naps.

Minus points:

• No dreams during naps.
• Still feel tired about 65% of the time.
• Still not able to read without feeling drowsy.

I feel confident I can keep this up for the remaining 23 days and reach my target but unless I fully adapt and stop feeling tired the extra waking time won’t be worth it.

Polyphasic Sleeping Day 6

Wow, this is really really hard. I was hugely tired for the 10pm to 3am slot – I didn’t manage to read without feeling drowsy so I went for a longer than planned walk. Then I started uncontrollably falling asleep for the last half hour at about 2.30am. Possible causes:

• I failed to sleep at my 5pm nap (I think it was having a meal right before going down).
• I didn’t eat anything from after my 10pm nap to going to sleep.

The first hour today was just as bad and I couldn’t help microsleeping while eating breakfast and getting ready to leave the house. Standing in the cold waiting for the AA to come and start my car woke me up just fine! The car had to go into the garage so my place to sleep was gone for at least today and probably tomorrow too. I slept with my head on my arms at my desk at lunchtime which was okay.

I have several improvements to make:

• Don’t eat before napping.
• Don’t fail at napping.
• Eat some fruit in the 10pm to 3am slot.
• Extend my core sleep to 2.30 to 6. I’ll see if it is any easier to wake up tomorrow.
• If I am still microsleeping when I leave the house I will walk to work instead of driving, it’s just not worth taking any risks on that.

Update:

I failed at my 5pm nap again today – I made two efforts at 5.15 and again at 6.15. I didn’t eat before hand and I still just wasn’t tired enough to sleep.

Polyphasic Sleeping Day 5

It is the fifth day since I started on the Everyman polyphasic sleep schedule. My tiredness levels are up and down, it was really easy to get up this morning after my four hours core sleep from 2am to 6am but I was really sleepy from about 10am to 12pm. The sleepy time corresponded with a code review for someone at work, essentially a methodical boring task of double checking someone else’s work and as soon as we started talking about a potential problem I soon became more awake. That underlines how important it is to keep active.

I have had periods of feeling strangely alert / not tired in the slightest and also hung over (I’d say about 4 pints of Stella hung over).

I am also concerned that I have just been watching TV with my new time. That has been a good way to pass the time quickly while I’ve been fighting sleep but I don’t want that to continue so I have made a plan:

6.00 – 7.00: swimming

10.30 – 11.00: cleaning the house

11.00 – 12.00: read a book

11.00 – 12.00: learn a new song on the guitar

12.00 – 12.30: go for a walk.

1.00 – 3.00: watch TV or play video games.

Considering I would have liked to go to bed at about 11pm that shows how much I stand to gain from this – in addition to my main aim which was to stop feeling so tired on the 6 hours of sleep forced upon me by a new baby

I have also decided to record 5 portions of fruit & veg that I eat each day. At the moment I get about 3 which isn’t enough.

Polyphasic Sleeping Day 4

I haven’t said much about the naps so far but they are going well. 20 minutes seems just right, they definitely make me feel less tired for an hour or two afterwards and I haven’t felt any sleep inertia at all. I have been having my naps at 12pm, 5pm and 10pm and have been falling asleep within a couple of minutes. Tonight I am down to 2am to 6am main sleep so it is getting there now.

This morning I wrapped myself up and watched TV instead of getting going which was a mistake because I kept drifting off. After half an hour of that I went out to set the Church up for Sunday service and felt a bit better but still ended up feeling very tired all morning.

I have decided to try my utmost to keep this thing up until  January 1st (my birthday) and if it hasn’t worked by then I’ll give up.