Stage 3: Day 1/9: Evening

Well, I've screwed up my schedule for today. I slept from 12:30 to 3:30. Three hours is not a whole bunch of wasted time, but it made the 6 PM nap very unproductive.

I went to the gym about an hour and a half ago, and I feel really good. However, I'm not tired right now, so I'll be sleeping around 11 tonight. I still feel as though I'm in the true uberman schedule. I expect to have more and more energy per day on this schedule as my body adjusts.

Since I'm going to be hitting the gym at least 3x a week, and I have difficult classes (3 anyways), we'll see how well this uberman schedule handles both physical and mental drains.

I'll probably update either at night or the wee hours. Or both.

Stage 3: Day 1 (Day 9): Morning

Well, I'm well into day 1 of the actual Uberman schedule, with one exception: I miss one nap every day (except, perhaps, weekends). The 10 AM nap.

I'm glad though, I actually got two Pimsleur lessons and one JFBP lesson done last night. I had some significant drowsiness issues during both Computer Organization and History. More during CO though. I assume quite a bit of the drowsiness is because of the low sleep amount during naps thus far. Also, the fact that my body has to adjust.

When I am all the way alert, I feel slightly inhibited mentally. Also, my motor skills are terrible. Good thing I don't have to drive for a while. I hope that my motor skills go back to normal after a few days. And my mental acuity. That's important to me.

I'm actually going to take this coming nap a little early. Either right now (since my roommate's gone at class), or about 1:30. Odds are now, though.

Scheduled Sleep so far today: 40 minutes.
Actual Sleep so far today: about 20 minutes.

Stage 3: Day 1 (Day 9): Wee Hours

It's the wee hours, which means I'm officially in stage 2.

Something strange happened yesterday: I slept during all of my naps. The most unusual part is that I overslept, so I ended up sleeping something like 7.5 hours throughout the whole day.

When my alarm went off a minute ago, I woke up. This normally would come as no surprise to anyone, but I was using that little egg timer, and it doesn't always get me up if I'm tired. Also, I've switched to 20 minutes for my naps. I had noticed that I was waking up (all alert, etc) around ten minutes before my alarm went off, and if I tried to go back to sleep, I got up groggy. Don't get me wrong, I could go back to sleep right now, but it didn't feel bad to get up. That's my point.


I can't wait to use up my newfound 4 hours. I can't believe what I've accomplished already with my extra time. Here's a quick rundown:

• I'm done with my Differential Equations homework through next Wednesday. This includes 2 sections we've not touched on yet.
  
• I'm done with the Stats homework that's due Friday.
• I've done extra problems and reading in Computer Organization (Assembly Language).
• I've done extra reading for History.
• I've gotten all my other homework done.
• I've totally cleaned my room.
• I've actually restarted my Japanese training.

Now, for some of you all this may seem trivial, but I'm usually a "get it done right before it's due" kind of person. Also, in this time, I've watched about 7 hours of movies, and probably 15 hours of TV. Not that I'm proud of wasting that kind of time, but just showing how much you really can get done. For what it's worth, the movies and TV (other than about 3 hours) have all been during times when I felt especially groggy or mentally clouded. This only seems to happen within an hour of nap time now.

Anything else... Well, I'm going to work on Japanese after I'm done posting. Even if I do one or two Pimsleur lessons (or one twice), and an JFBP lesson, that leaves me about 2 hours. Hm, maybe I'll read or something.

Free time... it's so nice.

That reminds me, there is one more added side benefit I wouldn't have thought of. I've gotten way ahead in homework, I have a clean room (my side, anyways), I'm getting to do thing I want to do, even time-consuming things (Oh yeah, I logged about 4 hours in Alpha Centauri yesterday). This has all added up into what is quite possibly the best benefit I could have asked for: Low Stress. I'm prepared for class. Hell, I'm overprepared. I often know ALL of what the teacher is going to cover that day before they cover it (reading is so useful).

Also in all of this, I've found a few little secrets to happiness:

• Keeping stress levels low makes you happier in general.
• Make what you like to do, what you have to do. If you do this, you will enjoy your work, enjoy finishing it, and actually get to it in time, leading to the above point.

For now, there are my 2p.

Stage 2: Day 4 (Day 8): Morning

Last night I didn't get up at 2, I actually got up around 7. Moderate failure.

I'm giving it to the end of the week. If I don't manage to get onto the Uberman schedule by Saturday, I'm only hurting myself (and annoying the shit out of my roommate). Seriously here, I need to get on track. I'm going to take a nap in a few minutes, and I hope I can actually sleep.

Honestly, I think one of my main problems is caffeine. I feel like I need caffeine all the time, but then I can't sleep. This is problematic. The issue is that I want to have the mental clarity to do work (homework, language study, etc), but drink caffeine. I was thinking that a can of pop immediately after I got up would be okay, but now it's looking like that isn't the case.

Looks like I'll be switching to water.

Stage 2: Day 3 (Day 7): Night

First thing I thought I'd clarify: What I've named times.

Morning: 6 AM - 2 PM
Afternoon: 2 PM - 6 PM
Evening: 6 PM - 10 PM
Night: 10 PM - 2 AM
Wee Hours: 2 AM - 6 AM

Okay, now on to the regular post:

Well, it's been a week, and so far I've failed once, and had limited success otherwise. Today: Still in stage 2 for sure. I went to sleep for my 2 AM nap, and got up at 6. This was not planned, but not terrible. I set my alarm for 6, just to be safe, and it's a good thing that I did. Anywho, due to circumstances, I couldn't sleep at exactly 2 and 6 (I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyways), but I got a one hour nap in from 4 to 5. I also slept a little during my 10 PM nap.

I intend to not screw up today. That stakes are a little higher. If I manage to get back up after my 2 AM nap, I have to get up for my 5:30, otherwise I'll miss classes. That would be very bad.

Tomorrow I'll be in Stage 3 if I don't slip up anywhere. I can't wait to be a true polyphasic sleeper. Already the extra time during the wee hours is more than I could have imagined. This wee hours I intend to do some studying of Japanese (a couple of Pimsleur lessons and a JFBP lesson), as well as take a look over my Differential Equations homework.

I'll blog during the wee hours if I'm awake.

Stage 2: Day 2 (Day 6): Afternoon

I encountered my first failure today. In nearly everyone's blog about switching to polyphasic sleep, there comes a point where they sleep well past a half hour. Some of them give up at that point, and some keep going. This morning, I went to sleep at 5:30 for a half hour nap. I got up at noon.

Thoughts and feelings? Well, I feel bad because I slipped, but not terrible about it, since it was bound to happen at some point. The funny thing is that when I got up, I was ubergroggy. Moreso than I was when I slept for 3.5 hours. I also had a headache, and less motivation. Even right now I feel a little... spacy. I felt bad because I missed my favorite part of the day. I love the 6 - 12 portion of the day.

Well, here's how it's going to go: I'm skipping the 2 PM nap (technically, I already have), but I'm going to try to get back on schedule at 6 PM. My roommate is closing at his job tonight, which means I'll probably be alone for my 10 PM and 2 AM naps.

Today was going to be the first day of Stage 3, but I fell through. Stage 3 is going to be rough at first, and the only reason I decided to jump into it without first staying at Stage 2 for a week, was because I transitioned to Stage 2 well ahead of schedule. I wanted to get to Stage 3 on a weekend, in case something like this happened.

One thing: You really do have a lot of time at night. I know something like 2 or 3 hours doesn't seem like much, but when you don't normally have it, you end up wondering what to do. I've concluded that I'm going to get back on the language learning system I was on earlier. It worked, I just ran out of time during the day. Just in case anyone cares: I'm using Japanese for Busy People for the writing and reading study, and Pimsleur (expensive!) Japanese I for the listening, comprehension, and speech study. If I have the motivation and time, I'll move onto the second book, as well as the second Pimsleur Japanese Unit.

Anyways, I can't believe it's 2 PM already. What a wasted day. Hopefully, tomorrow I'm fairly awake and coherent when I'm driving to Eau Claire.

Sleep Yesterday: About 4 hours.
Sleep so far today: Almost 7 hours (2 naps and that slip up)

Stage 2: Day 1 (Day 5)

This is a quick post between classes, so it might be a little truncated.

Last night I ended up getting to sleep about 2:30. Let me tell you, it was HARD to get up out of bed this morning. Seriously, I didn't even notice the first time my alarm went off (let's hear it for the ability to turn off your alarm before you're awake). I did manage to get up after the second time though. It took me about ten minutes of sitting there, to get up the mental capacities to get out of bed (I'm not always quite the morning person. Well, I am, but only after I take my shower). After my shower I still wasn't quite all awake. You know how your eyes feel acidic when your body doesn't think you've slept long enough? Yeah.

Once I finally got working on some homework, I felt better. I'm not really tired right now. I'm alert and attentive, but if I laid down, I'd be out. This is the point I wanted to get to for now. Once I fall asleep every time I nap, I'll be that much closer to true polyphasic sleeping.

I have noticed that, although I'm fine in the analytical basis (Math, CS, etc), I'm starting to lack on the writing and conversational points. This blog isn't so bad, but text-based conversations are getting weird. I'm making all sorts of run on sentences, using far too many parenthesis, spelling things wrong, it's terrible. Granted, I still know what I'm talking about. If we were in a face to face conversation, I would be totally coherent, and they would know what I'm saying, but still.

Well, I have to get ready for class.

Sleep so far: 3.5 Hours.

P.S. Sleep yesterday: I got about 5 minutes of sleep during my 10 PM nap. So, sleep yesterday was still around 5 hours.

Stage 1: Day 4: Evening

Even with the low sleep, I still fail to nap for any significant percentage of the half hour. I get tired, and I lay down, but I just don't fall asleep. Maybe my body needs a little less sleep to adjust to naps. I have operated on 4-5 hours of sleep before, so the 5 hours I got last night was probably enough.

Tonight, I need to stay up until at least 2, possibly 3. If I can manage it, I'm going to take a nap at 10. My roommate is at a concert right now, and I don't know how long that will take. I tend to sleep better when he's not in the room. It's not like he's more distracting or noisy than the general noise around the dorms. I don't know why I sleep worse. I figure once I get into the habit of naps, and my body depends on them, I'll get to sleep no matter what. Hopefully.

The one thing I lack, that I would have liked, is some level of peer pressure. You know, a couple other guys as crazy as me, who want an extra 42 hours a week (out of 168, that's 25% of the week I'll have back). I am starting to notice a few more side effects I wasn't expecting:

• I have absolutely no idea what day it is. And to some extent, what time it is. It's weird, I got up at 2:30 today, and it felt like 6:30. Also, after I take the first nap after classes (the 2:00 one). It feels like a week since I've been to my MWF classes. Honestly, Wednesday morning feels like a long, long time ago.
  
• Alertness/Fatigue levels and patterns. How do I describe this one. I have the most energy about a half hour after a nap. At about hour 2, I hit a small low, kind of like how you normally feel around 4. On the monophasic schedule, at 4, I didn't want to do anything. I get some back, and that's part of the problem, I'm not all that tired when I'm supposed to be sleeping again. I expect this problem to level out.
• Mental Clarity. Right now, I feel at least as clear mentally as I was before. I expect it to dip over the next couple of days, since I'll be transitioning. I hope that after I'm adjusted, I'll have the mental clarity of before, if not more. This is one of those "seems too good to be true" things, where if it isn't, I don't mind. I'll be happy with my normal level of thinking and all that extra time.
• Mood I've been surprisingly calm. Most of you who know me know that I get kind of emotional, and I get depressed. I've been amazingly not depressed, and perhaps happier. Sometimes even giddy. Maybe it's just because of my recent addiction to the Gilmore Girls.
  

Eh, that's enough. If I'm up at two, I'll blog again. If not, oh well. Tomorrow I have a little more taxing day. Both more mentally challenging and over a larger time period. Here's hoping I'm not a zombie.

Stage 1: Day 4: Morning

Well, I got to bed last night at around midnight like I wanted, but due to thinking about things, I didn't get to sleep until 1 or so. So, last night I got 5 hours of sleep. I see this as a good thing. It was hard to get up initially, but, as always, once I got in the shower I felt fine. I'm fairly certain some level of my success comes from the light I use. I got it to help with Seasonal Affective Disorder, but it can help me with this too. Whenever I can, I have it on for 7 minutes or so after I get up every time, 20 in the mornings (right now).

Well, we'll see how mentally active I am this morning. I have Assembly class right away, and History after that. If I manage to pay good attention in both, I'm doing fine.

I plan on napping at 2 and 6 again tonight. I'm going to eventually take a nap at 10 PM too, but probably not tonight. My bed time tonight will hopefully be around 12:45. If I can make it that far. It was a real struggle staying up until midnight last night.

Oh yeah, when I was sleeping, I woke up at 2:30, 3:30, 4:30, 5:30, and when my alarm went off. I should have gotten up at 5:30, then there would be less fatigue. Getting up every hour isn't as bad as every half hour, and I'm not as tired when I do get up. Hopefully, this is a good thing,

Sleep so far today: 5 hours.

Stage 1: Day 3: Evening

Neither nap was productive today. I got nice and relaxed, yes, but I didn't sleep. I really thought I was going to sleep too, since I slept so poorly last night.

Tonight I'm starting the transition to Stage 2. I'm going to stay up about an hour later every night until I'm only sleeping 2-3 hours of "core sleep." This whole core sleep idea I have gotten from Andrew Nishigay. It's already 10:40, and I plan on stayung up until 12 or so tonight. I have to get up at 6, due to my class schedule. So, no chance at sleeping in.

By the way, if this post looks a bit... odd, I blame Blogger. It's acting strangely.

A side effect so far: I'm exceedingly happy. Nearly giddy. I can't believe it. I'm a depressed person, but I feel energetic and happy.

Another strange thing: I got really, really tired around 10-11 AM. Which is when my nap would be if I could have one then. Luckily, it's Stats, and I'm fairly good at teaching that to myself. I hope I don't fall asleep though, I really don't want to be that rude. So far, I've just been kinda zoned out during that time. It seems as though my body knows this schedule on it's own, and it just wants me to switch to it or not, but just decide! Thus, why I am moving to stage 2 a little earlier (only about 2 days, by the time I get there).

Enough for today.

Stage 1: Day 3: Morning

I slept terribly last night. It's my own fault though. As I said yesterday, I've cut significantly back on caffeine, and I intend to cut off caffeine all together. I probably cut back too much yesterday though. I had a headache this morning that is close to some of the worse headaches I've had.

I kept waking up last night like the night before. Pretty much at the same times too: 2:30 or so, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, and 5:30.

At 2:30, I noticed my head hurt, and fell back to sleep. Each time after that I had a harder time going to sleep. It felt like my brain wanted to come out through the left front of my skull (and eye). So when I finally got up around six, I moved slowly, and took two aleve. Of course, they didn't help much. After I took a shower, I started drinking a Pepsi. My headache isn't gone, but it's close. I'm going to head to class pretty soon, and bring a couple cans of pop with me. I really hate withdrawal headaches.

I think after my naps today, I'm going to spray myself with 7 minutes of light. I have this light to deal with Seasonal Affective disorder, and it helps you wake up, along with making your body think it's morning. If this has a negative affect, I'll quit immediately.

I'll update later today, either in the afternoon or evening.

Stage 1: Day 2: Evening

I decided not to do the 11 nap. With the schedule I have, I think it's the best idea if I flat out skip the late morning nap. I won't be able to have that one on MWF due to my classes, and on TR it would be late.

I slept pretty well at the 2 PM nap, better than I have on any of the naps before. I didn't sleep a bit at the 6PM nap. However, I consider today to be a complete success. The reason being that this week is for adjusting my body to having naps in the afternoon. I'm feeling good about this schedule, but I'm starting to worry that I won't have things to do with my time during the adjustment period. I'll need to have things to do that aren't too terribly thought intensive. I'll probably work on the graphics for my new layout for my website.

Well, since I'm not polyphasic yet, I'm going to have to crash in a couple of hours. If I keep getting rested during my naps, I might just start getting to bed later and later, working towards stage 2. Right now, it's 9 o'clock, and I feel like it's 7. I'll probably get to bed at eleven or twelve. I'm still going to get up at 5:50, but I have a little extra time if I slip. I plan on holding this schedule for the rest of the week, or possibly adjust further. I'm assuming that I'll be able to sleep during my naps. The other thing is that I'm probably going to have to cut off the caffeine. Today all I had was two cans of pop. As opposed to yesterday when I had a pot of coffee and a few cans of pop. Today I slept better, I bet those go together.

My schedule will be interesting though, especially since I have a weight training class this semester, and what I've read says that polyphasic sleep is more rejuvenating mentally than physically. We'll see how this goes. Any support (not money here people, words of encouragement) would be appreciated.

Stage 1: Day 2: Morning

Last night, I went to bed around 10:15, which is a little early for me. I know that as this experiment continues, I'll have to cut off all energy changing products, but for now I am indeed still addicted to caffeine. This causes me to have to take sleeping pills at night. I took one last night. Every time I take one, I sleep for almost exactly 8 hours, and get up. I never awaken without someone else waking me.

Not last night.

Last night I woke up at 2:30. Completely awake. Yes, that was about 4 hours of sleep. I attempted to go back to sleep, but continued to wake up every half hour. The strange thing was, I would remember a dream after every time I awoke. Is my body and mind already adjusting to the schedule? Or did I just have a strange night of sleep? I don't know, but this morning I'm full of energy.

Today, I intend to nap at 11, 2, and 6.

More updates on energy levels and sleep later today.

Stage 1: Day 1: Afternoon

Well, today I began the experiment. I am quickly finding out why people often go straight into the Uberman schedule. As most things are much easier the first day, I still intend to follow the schedule I laid out yesterday.

At 2 PM I attempted to take a nap. I'm not terribly quick to sleep, but I still have optimism for this experiment. I probably only slept for 5 minutes before the alarm went off, but I still feel amazingly better than I did before I slept.

I intend to attempt to sleep again at six. Perhaps I'll be able to that time. Who knows?

Other than that, there is very little to report right now.

Welcome, and an explanation.

This blog is to catalogue the daily events of mine as I progress through the transition to Polyphasic sleep. If the effects of this schedule are too traumatic, I will be dropping the experiment, and closing the blog.

Now that that's out of the way, here's what I have learned:

Of the Polyphasic schedules I've heard of, I've seen two that seemed to work for some people for any length of time (more than three months). The first is the standard "Uberman" sleep schedule, which I would prefer to adopt, but I'll understand if I can't handle the stress. The Uberman schedule is simply a 15-30 minute nap (depending on your sources) every 4 hours. Even at the .5 hour, it's only 3 hours of sleep a day. Lots of extra time. The other schedule is a modified one: a 2-3 hour "core" sleep sometime in the early morning, and 2-4 naps throughout the rest of the day. This lands the tally at more like 4 - 6 hours of sleep.

On a "normal" day last semester, I would get 6 hours of sleep. So, 2.5-3.0 hours of total sleep would afford me quite a bit more time. Especially when you count the fact that I spent quite a bit of time in bed "trying to go to sleep," which is basically me thinking too hard.

Here's my plan for this experiment:

• Stage 1: Adjust
• Instead of the normal "Switch it now!" schedule people normally do, I'm planning on starting the naps first. This does two things:
• I don't have the massive amounts of sleep deprivation at first
• My body gets used to sleeping for 20 minutes during the day
• Naps: 20 Minutes
• Do this for one week
• Stage 2: Sleep Deprivation 1
• Cut out all but 3 hours of sleep. Effectively switching to the non-Uberman method. This would be the Uberman method, except with the core sleep in place of a nap.
• Do this for 1-2 week(s) or until a few days after fully adjusted.
  
• Stage 3: Sleep Deprivation 2
• Now switch all the way to the uberman schedule. Basically, I'd take the core sleep and just nap instead.
• Do for at least 3 weeks.
  
• If it fails, go back to Stage 2, and try to continue there.
• If it succeeds, continue indefinitely, or until the summer.

Now that I'm done abusing bullet points, I'm going to add a caveat. If this experiment does too much non-temporary damage to my grades, I'm abandoning it. I don't care how far along I am. If there is some sort of project or something that interferes with the adjustment period, I'll start over when I can. If classes are too hard to allow for the required limited mental capacities, I'll drop it for the semester/permanently.

I'm going to start Stage 1 tomorrow. I will attempt to blog every day.