Everyman Sleeps

Life in the everyman sleep cycle.

[theeverymancycle-blog]

Slower adaption part2

Since I am breaking up my nightly sleep into 2 chunks, I will not be able to get my normal rest. I will then begin taking one nap during the day (Siesta!). This upcoming weekend (May 25-27) I will begin the next phase of the transition.

On Friday I will wake up in the morning as usual, continue through the day, sleep at siesta time, and wake up after 20min, but when my normal nightly sleep approaches I will not sleep. Instead I am going to start something called naptation (nap+adaptation). During this phase I will have 20 minute naps every 2 hours, without any other form of sleep. This will train my body to take efficient naps. My body will cut out the periods of light sleep and skip to REM or SWS.

REM is short for Rapid Eye Movement, and it is the stage of sleep that we have dreams in. SWS is short for Slow Wave Sleep (our brain has periods of fast brain waves and slow brain waves, this stage has really slow waves). It is the really deep sleep that our body uses to repair itself and many other important things.

Come Monday, May 28, I expect to be very tired and in need of some rest which I will then provide myself. I will go back to my schedule of sleeping in 2 chunks at night and taking a siesta in the day til the next weekend when I will begin naptation again.

On the Monday after the second weekend of naptation, I hopefully will be accustomed to napping and will no longer be very tired. Once I have reached monday, the real fun begins and I will begin sleeping for 3.5 hours at night and sleep for 4 naps in the daytime. When I begin to feel fully rested from this schedule (3.5hr core and four 20min naps) I will switch to my final schedule:  3.5 hour core at night and three 20 minute naps during the day.

[theeverymancycle-blog]

Slower adaption

I have previously posted that I will be beginning my adaptation to everyman on Tuesday (May 22) night. This is no longer true. I will be starting tonight, but I will be subjecting myself to more gradual adaptation instead of jumping into the schedule cold turkey and getting ridiculously sleep deprived until my body switches to the everyman3 schedule.

My new plan goes as follows:

I will go to bed at night at the same hour 11:00pm and I will sleep for 3.5 hours. I will then wake up fully (splash water in my face, turn on fluorescent lights, the whole bit) and after I am fully awake I will finish my night's sleep (3-4 more hours). This will make my body accustomed to waking up after 3.5 hours which is what I will eventually be doing. After a week of this I will continue to the next stage of the transition, which I will post about later.

[theeverymancycle-blog]

Polyphasic sleep bad for growing?

I found out some more information on living in a polyphasic sleep cycle before you are done completely growing. Apparently it can be bad for growth to change to polyphasic sleep (I reiterate, CAN, as might be). There are many different opinions as for why this is, as with most things that have to do with sleep. One theory is that in the switch between monophasic sleep to polyphasic one becomes very sleep deprived before one’s body becomes accustomed to the new system. Another theory is that the stages of sleep that are shortened to make room for the “more important” stages of sleep are actually the stages that are useful in growing during youth. 

Scientists believe that 90 minutes is the length of time it takes to go through one sleep transition. So, since it MAY be bad. (nothing is known for sure, so it could be totally fine) I will continue to attempt a polyphasic schedule starting Tuesday night May 22, but I will be adding 90 minutes to my core sleep. Eventually I will experiment with taking this 90 minutes away and other things.

[theeverymancycle-blog]

Here is a link to a web page describing the 5 main sleep cycles including the everyman sleep cycle which I will be attempting to use. The everyman cycle is essentially taking the common monophasic 6-8 hours of sleep every night and breaking it up into several different blocks.

In everyman, there is one main block of sleep consisting of 3 or 4.5 hours of sleep (this depends on the amount of naps one takes through the day). This main block is called the core sleep. To make up for the short time one spends sleeping during the core block, a person using this cycle must take short naps (20min) evenly spaced throughout the day.

If a person is on the everyman3 cycle (3 hour core) that person should take 3 naps during the day with a space of 5 hours between them. If a person is on the everyman2 cycle (4.5 hour core) that person should take 2 naps during the day. I will be attempting the everyman3 cycle.