Polyphasic Sleeping, Days 6-7 (Sun afternoon, Monday)
Day 6 (Sunday late morning to end of day)
Since I took that extra 30 minute nap on Saturday around noon, and then forced myself to take all my other naps for that day at the regular times, I haven't felt as tired, even when running past my regular nap time by as much as an hour. I think that it might have repaid some of the sleep deficit I incurred when I was first adjusting to this sleep schedule. In the afternoon I completed some more of the website project I'm working on (something new for TerranRobotics.com, though it won't be going live for a week or two yet), played with the cats, watched a video, et cetera, and felt fine. Also answered some more e-mail (or maybe that was this morning).
(I also tried to find a used 20-40GB Quantum Fireball Plus, Maxtor D740X/similar, or Seagate 7200.7 (a particularly reliable model, according to StorageReview's Reliability Database) hard drive on eBay for no more than $0.50/GB, but no luck - it seems that there's been a bit of an upswing in demand this past week, and the drives are all pretty consistently going for $0.75-$1.00+ per gigabyte. Oh well, demand has to trail off eventually. Yes, I couldn't resist talking a little bit about computer equipment :)
Day 7 (Monday)
I figured out how my brain is trying to trick me into going back to bed sometimes when my alarm gets me up. Somehow, when the alarm went off, I found myself fiddling with the alarm trying to turn it off and thinking that it was signalling that it was time to go to sleep. This happened around 4AM today, if I'm remembering correctly. Once the rational part of my brain chipped in and said "Wait a minute, how does an alarm indicate that it's time to go to bed?!" I didn't have much trouble waking up and getting up. Funny ;)
I gather that it's a very good idea to start off on polyphasic sleep with no sleep deficit. So the idea is to get a good night's sleep the night before, then start napping during the day after a good nights sleep to kick off the polyphasic sleep schedule. When I made the decision to try the polyphasic sleep schedule, it was late in the afternoon, and I hadn't been napping that day, so I had to wait until the following day to start it (although I was chomping at the bit to go). I'm glad I did wait until the following day and then start taking the naps after my full nights sleep - I think it made things easier. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I'd been any more tired while trying to adjust to it.
For the most part, adjusting to this sleep schedule wasn't as bad as I had expected*, but some times I had to be very mentally determined to make myself get out of bed. I think one of the things that kept me going was that I was determined to keep at it even if I slipped up and overslept a few times, or "fell off the wagon", so to speak, and I knew that if I went back to sleep now it would only prolong the agony of the adjustment period.
* - (Bear in mind, I'm completely abstaining from caffeine and stimulants, and during the most difficult part of the adjustment period I was staying away from sugar - something I think I'm going to resume doing anyway, since sugar tends to make me irritable regardless of what my sleep schedule is).
One of the nice things I've noticed about this sleep schedule is that since I'm taking breaks for a nap every four hours, my performance doesn't decline appreciably the longer I've been awake. Contrast to sleeping from 11PM-7AM, and then being up all day - as a monophasic sleeper, I tended to grow more tired after about 3PM. Furthermore, since I'm getting refreshed every four hours on the polyphasic sleep schedule, if I get into a foul/depressed mood during one of my waking periods, chances are I'll feel better after my next nap, and it won't have a chance to last the whole day.
Since I took that extra 30 minute nap on Saturday around noon, and then forced myself to take all my other naps for that day at the regular times, I haven't felt as tired, even when running past my regular nap time by as much as an hour. I think that it might have repaid some of the sleep deficit I incurred when I was first adjusting to this sleep schedule. In the afternoon I completed some more of the website project I'm working on (something new for TerranRobotics.com, though it won't be going live for a week or two yet), played with the cats, watched a video, et cetera, and felt fine. Also answered some more e-mail (or maybe that was this morning).
(I also tried to find a used 20-40GB Quantum Fireball Plus, Maxtor D740X/similar, or Seagate 7200.7 (a particularly reliable model, according to StorageReview's Reliability Database) hard drive on eBay for no more than $0.50/GB, but no luck - it seems that there's been a bit of an upswing in demand this past week, and the drives are all pretty consistently going for $0.75-$1.00+ per gigabyte. Oh well, demand has to trail off eventually. Yes, I couldn't resist talking a little bit about computer equipment :)
Day 7 (Monday)
I figured out how my brain is trying to trick me into going back to bed sometimes when my alarm gets me up. Somehow, when the alarm went off, I found myself fiddling with the alarm trying to turn it off and thinking that it was signalling that it was time to go to sleep. This happened around 4AM today, if I'm remembering correctly. Once the rational part of my brain chipped in and said "Wait a minute, how does an alarm indicate that it's time to go to bed?!" I didn't have much trouble waking up and getting up. Funny ;)
I gather that it's a very good idea to start off on polyphasic sleep with no sleep deficit. So the idea is to get a good night's sleep the night before, then start napping during the day after a good nights sleep to kick off the polyphasic sleep schedule. When I made the decision to try the polyphasic sleep schedule, it was late in the afternoon, and I hadn't been napping that day, so I had to wait until the following day to start it (although I was chomping at the bit to go). I'm glad I did wait until the following day and then start taking the naps after my full nights sleep - I think it made things easier. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I'd been any more tired while trying to adjust to it.
For the most part, adjusting to this sleep schedule wasn't as bad as I had expected*, but some times I had to be very mentally determined to make myself get out of bed. I think one of the things that kept me going was that I was determined to keep at it even if I slipped up and overslept a few times, or "fell off the wagon", so to speak, and I knew that if I went back to sleep now it would only prolong the agony of the adjustment period.
* - (Bear in mind, I'm completely abstaining from caffeine and stimulants, and during the most difficult part of the adjustment period I was staying away from sugar - something I think I'm going to resume doing anyway, since sugar tends to make me irritable regardless of what my sleep schedule is).
One of the nice things I've noticed about this sleep schedule is that since I'm taking breaks for a nap every four hours, my performance doesn't decline appreciably the longer I've been awake. Contrast to sleeping from 11PM-7AM, and then being up all day - as a monophasic sleeper, I tended to grow more tired after about 3PM. Furthermore, since I'm getting refreshed every four hours on the polyphasic sleep schedule, if I get into a foul/depressed mood during one of my waking periods, chances are I'll feel better after my next nap, and it won't have a chance to last the whole day.
posted by Wireball at 11:59 PM
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