SLEEP LESS, LIVE MORE

- a polyphasic sleep experiment - Hi, I'm a twenty-one year old Law student and I obviously don't like myself very much because I have decided to turn myself into a guinea pig by attempting to replace my sleeping completely with frequent twenty-minute naps. My saving grace: I did not come up with this insane idea. Hover over this blurb to view links.

[sleepless-livemore]

Abandoning Uberman till another time.

x

[sleepless-livemore]

So, I'm giving up. For now, anyway.

I took a nap at 9.15AM before leaving to go grocery shopping. I didn't sleep either this time, and the alarm went off just as I was falling asleep. I dragged myself out of bed groggy and cranky.

While out getting groceries, I started feeling pretty crappy. I was sneezing and feeling cold, but I was sweating even in an air-conditioned area.

Once I came home, I decided to take another nap and this time I set my alarm for 45 minutes later instead of 30 minutes as I usually do, because it takes longer for me to fall asleep.

I think I fell asleep after about 25 minutes or so.... until 4PM, which is the exact time my class starts. I slept through like twelve alarms. >.<

I am so discouraged, and this is getting out of hand. I can't keep risking skipping classes.

I might try again this weekend... but unlikely, Idk.

:-(

[sleepless-livemore]

Starting Day 1

I delayed my 2.30AM nap to around 3.45AM and lay down on the sofa with a dim lamp on. I didn't fall asleep, but the rest felt good for my back. I've been getting a lot of muscle twitches in my legs when I lie down. Not uncommon or inconvenient, but oddly frequent.

After my nap, I pretty much just watched TV till about 5+ when I started moving around a bit and putting things back in their places.

My stomach was feeling a bit odd from like 3AM to 6AM onwards, but it's settled now. I didn't eat anything odd, so that was strange.

Around 6.15AM, I added in another nap because someone pissed me off and I really just wanted to lie down and sleep at that point. I wasn't exactly sleepy but I was a bit tired of having so much time to kill and the body aches were back again. I didn't sleep this time either because I kept thinking about all the things I needed to do (mostly chores and errands that I had been putting off).

It's about 7.10AM now and I'm about to go take a shower and leave to get some groceries to stock my fridge. I'll probably have some brunch after that then get in another nap or two before leaving for my class which starts at 4PM.

Wish me luck, I'm feeling pretty drained.

[sleepless-livemore]

End of Day 0 -- Feeling More Optimistic

So I took my 10.30PM nap and although I didn't actually sleep, I felt a bit better. I had my dinner at around 9PM, and that was late, yeah, and because I was too lazy to cook, I had McDonald's. -.- I'm realising that I'm going to have to make serious dietary changes if I'm going to get on a polyphasic sleeping schedule.

I fought drowsiness after that for an hour or two by reading Steve Pavlin's polyphasic journey, and I must say, it inspired and motivated me a whole lot.

Dietary changes. After reading Steve's thoughts on why he thought he adapted more easily to being a polyphasic sleeper because of his vegan diet, I thought about how I was feeling, and for the first time in... ever, really, I'm seriously thinking about becoming a vegetarian (I doubt I could ever be a vegan), or at least cutting down meat significantly from my diet.

Many of the blogs I've read and vlogs I've watched on polyphasic sleeping have shown that most people feel the need to change their diet and have lighter meals to accommodate the frequent napping.

Plus, for some reason, quite a few mentioned having grape related cravings, which I found quirky. Personally, my nose has been turning up at the thought of heavy meals today and I'm just craving something lighter -- like fresh salads and smoothies. I have never craved a salad before -- odd.

Caffeine. I'm avoiding it. I might slip up after a while because I love the taste and smell of coffee, but for now I'm avoiding it. I'm going to try and stock up on decaffeinated tea and coffee.

Nicotine. The urge to smoke has decreased quite a bit. My lips chap every time I have a smoke and I feel uncomfortable being dehydrated, so I'm not smoking quite as much.

Plus, the nicotine's giving me a sort of caffeine-rush feeling -- I feel energised for about half an hour, then I get drowsy again.

Physiological changes. I feel a bit dehydrated even though I am constantly sipping on water, and I feel the need to drink more fruit juices, so I'm going to stock my fridge up with those, plus a whole lot of fruits and veggies. I have a slight flu, and phlegm in my throat, but they've been on and off over the past week, so I don't think it's related to the sleeping changes.

I also mentioned feeling achey, and I've realised that warm showers and stretching helps with that. I might add yoga into my daily routine as well.

Psychological changes. I sat down and reevaluated my reasons for doing this. Sure, it'd be nice to have more free time, but I'm mostly curious, and I feel like this would be a huge achievement for me and a huge confidence boost in my will power and self-discipline. Plus, it's making me want to go on a healthier diet and cut out smoking, which is an added perk.

The higher level of productivity and a higher sense of consciousness I've read and heard about sounds amazing, so I can't wait to experience that.

Motivation. I think I need to go easy on myself and not get so discouraged every time I slip up. I have been sleeping monophasically for about two decades, and naps have never been a part of my daily routine (I always oversleep), so I need to understand that it might take me more time to adapt to the Uberman way.

I'm focussing on how positive the results are going to be once I get through the uphill period, and I'm excited to get there, but I'm making a mental note to phase myself and not get ahead of myself.

To-do list. I haven't quite figured it out yet, but I have a lot of interests and an endless collection of movies and TV series to keep me entertained if all else fails, so I think I'll be okay. Meanwhile, I'll keep my eyes peeled for more interesting and productive things to spend my time on.

It's 2.10AM now and I have a nap scheduled for 2.30 but I'm not all that tired tired so maybe I'll delay it a bit.

x

[sleepless-livemore]

One thing I’ve noticed is that instead of making a daily to-do list as I used to, I now chop up my intended actions by cycle. So I have very short to-do lists of what I want to do during the 3.5-hour periods between naps. And since there’s no real end to the day, this process is continuous.

Because the nap times are so short (30 minutes maximum with actual time spent asleep of 15-20 minutes), it feels like I’m awake around the clock. The naps are just short breaks in a state of otherwise continuous consciousness. This results in a very different perception of time. There’s no sense of fighting fatigue before it’s time to quit for the night. I can be in the middle of a project, take a nap break, and go right back to work without the massive interruption of a nighttime reboot. The process of living shifts away from the day-to-day intervals and instead becomes like a continuously flowing stream. This felt very alien at first, but I’m growing to like this new approach better. My days are no longer so quantized — one day flows smoothly into the next.

In a way this does make me feel more conscious than I used to. The sun comes up, the sun goes down, other people wake up and go to sleep, and I’m always there to perceive it happening. I don’t disappear from the conscious world for hours at a time. The day-to-day calendar is no longer a good model for my sense of the passage of time. Those sharp lines between days no longer exist. I’m going to need to do some restructuring of my time management tools to adapt to this new way of living.

-- Steve Pavlina

[sleepless-livemore]

Well, I overslept. I set a dozen alarms for my 2.30PM nap, and I did wake up. I felt slightly refreshed, but my brain was convinced it wasn't enough, and I just couldn't muster up enough will power to drag myself out of bed.

So I slept for another four hours.

I'm still not totally refreshed. My back is aching and I'm kind of nauseous, for some reason.

I'm debating giving it up till Thursday when I'm done with classes for the week, then trying again during the weekend, but I don't know.

:-/

[sleepless-livemore]

This is helping.

Thoughts of someone who was on the Uberman schedule and loved it, but unfortunately, had no use for it so went back to his usual monophasic system.

[sleepless-livemore]

Grr.

I'm not sure how to explain how much the idea of a twenty-minute sleep scares me, so... can we regress a bit? :-/ I wanna sleeeepppppp, ugghhh.

I am weak.

No, no, no.

Sleep is for the weak.

No. :-(

[sleepless-livemore]

Why am I doing this to myself?

Only four hours since I started and I already cannot remember why I ever wanted to do this.

Through the course of our lives, I think I can safely say that most of us have learnt that sleep is to be valued. As a university student, sleep is almost priceless -- every chance you get, take it.

And now, here I am, denying myself sleep. Yes, I could take an early nap, but it would still only be twenty minutes long. I could take it whenever I want, but it would STILL ONLY BE FREAKING TWENTY MINUTES.

It doesn't matter if I turn in early or late, BECAUSE IT WILL ALWAYS BE A TWENTY MINUTE NAP.

...

This was a stupid idea. I like sleeping too much to be doing this.

And I want to cry a little because I won't technically be able to 'turn in' anymore. No more 'hitting the sheets'. No more 'calling it a night'. God, this is unnatural.

But okay. Thinking rationally. Recalculating priorities. Focussing on maximising my conscious time.

What I'm worried most about now is actually being able to sleep well. I've never been able to sleep properly or even fall asleep quickly when I know that I have very few hours to sleep. With only twenty minutes, you can only imagine the tantrum my brain is throwing. But I guess both my brain and I are going to have to learn that it's always going to be twenty minutes -- take it or leave it.

Another thing I'm worried about is feeling physically well. When I go without sleep for over twelve hours, I start getting achey and tired. My limbs feel heavy and I literally won't be in the mood for anything except lying down. I'm feeling that way now, and I don't know if my upcoming nap is going to fix it. And that's worrying because I have two essays to hand in this week.

If I'm not blogging in three hours, you'll know I overslept. :-|

[sleepless-livemore]

Polyphasic sleep cycles alter the way one looks at time.

The rest of the world is busy waking up for the day and sleeping the night away. The monophasic sleepers of the world, as it were, are the norm. But those people spend one third of their lives sleeping. On a polyphasic sleep schedule, where the body is trained to fall asleep, achieve REM quickly, and then awaken refreshed after about 20 minutes, only one twelfth of your life is dedicated to sleeping. Several 20-30 minute long naps take place over the course of the day, blending day and night, making the weeks run together. Time becomes your oyster.

What would you do with a quarter of your life back?

Source unknown, but intriguing write-up.

[sleepless-livemore]

Day 0 -- How I Changed My Mind

I crawled into bed at 8AM, after being awake for about thirteen hours or so. I've been sleeping a bit too much lately, and a bit too well -- in fact, a Google search on that is what landed me on an Uberman article. My theory is that because I was sleeping later each night, I eventually started waking up later during the day as well, and got fewer hours of daylight, thereby possibly increasing my melatonin levels.

The reason why my good luck with sleep recently was bothering me a bit is because I've always been a troubled sleeper. No nightmares or anything of that sort, but I've always had trouble falling asleep and sleeping peacefully. Somehow, I wasn't quite a light sleeper, yet I had difficulty getting a peaceful night's sleep. All that changed recently, and I don't have any answers besides my melatonin theory.

Anyway, I guess a few of my search words were something along the lines of sleeping less, because eventually I found out about Uberman and polyphasic sleeping. I was excited at first to try something new, but the math was just not fitting in with my schedule, so I decided to try the Everyman with two naps. I was supposed to start yesterday but I overslept, which now feels like a blessing in disguise.

Anyway, I was just reading a few articles on my phone in bed earlier, when I decided to read more about Uberman (I was just that drawn). I tried putting my phone away and sleeping a couple of times, but I just couldn't. I decided spontaneously, after reading Vlad's comments on how there can be a slight buffer in nap timings.

I took a twenty-minute 'nap' at 9AM -- I didn't sleep at all, but it was quite refreshing to close my eyes and lie down comfortably. As I haven't been up for over twenty-four hours just yet (that's when most officially start the schedule), I'll have my next nap after five and a half hours, at 2.30PM, to set my schedule into motion.

I'm feeling a bit insane for starting this project on a freaking Monday, so wish me luck!