Strange things that can happen when polyphasic sleep works

It's funny what happens when polyphasic sleep starts working how it's supposed to.

Take today for an example. I needed to meet with a professor at twelve thirty. So I was going to sleep for my normal 20 minutes before the meeting. That was all well and good, so I set my cell phone to go off. I fall asleep.

Then I woke up. It felt like I had slept for hours, and I didn't feel groggy at all. My first words were:
"Oh shit!"

I was sure that I had overslept. I grabbed my phone, and realized that there were two minutes left before it went off. It seriously felt like I'd been sleeping for hours.

Days like today I love doing this.

Day 6: Night

This time is totally different. In some ways it's harder, and in some ways it's easier.

I've found an easy way to stay up is to watch TV episodes, but that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Right now it's 1 AM and I really want to sleep. I haven't used my light much in the past 24 hours, and that's a mistake. Speaking of, I ordered that GoLite M2 that I wanted. Hopefully, that will make things easier. I'll just carry it with and use it in the buildings on campus if I have to.

My girlfriend is quite stressed right now. She has to make a program for a research project. She put it off too long, and now she has to stay up late to finish it. The problem is that she's a little... spacey at this time of night. She's not used to being up this late. She has another hour of work she has to do tonight, at least.

This is another problem with the sleeping pattern changes. The girlfriend wants to take the 20 minute naps with me, which seemed okay, but now I've realized just how sensitive I am to her moving around when I'm trying to sleep. It's not her fault or anything, it's normal movement, but I notice it more than usual. I'm losing cognitive abilities between 12 and 4 again. I had them for a few days, but now they're gone. I'm not quite sure what has changed, but it's becoming more difficult to think critically. For example, two days ago I could handle Modern Algebra (we're doing Ring theory) problems in this time period, but now I'm having trouble with Modern Geometry. Modern Geometry is surprisingly difficult for it's "level," but still, I should be a little more competent than I am.

To the good things:

I'm ahead in all my classes, and my grades on homework, quizzes, and exams are good. A little better than before polyphasic (except for Modern Geometry, that sits at the same level).

I have time to start working on projects I've been meaning to start, and continue on projects that I'd had to put aside.

I have more time to exercise.
Bad thing: I have more time to eat.

Well, I'm getting distracted, so I'm gonna go for now. I'll try to post later today or tomorrow.

Day 3: A new year, and a new experiment

Well, actually the experiment is essentially the same, but there are many different factors that are helping significantly.

• More conducive schedule
• It's sooo nice to be able to hit the sleeping times pretty accurately. Nothing is better than sleeping when your body is tired.
• More agreeable roommate
• Guess what? What I'm sleeping, he's quiet! Wow. Also, he's generally not in the room anyways.
• An SO
  
• Well, this is actually more of a problem than a good thing. She's pretty cool about everything, but this isn't the most SO friendly thing in the world. However, she does crash with me for my naps when I need them.
• Effective light use
• I love the people at Apollo Health. I have the GoLite P1, and it's been wonderful. Since I already have Seasonal Affective Disorder, and this time of year I'm the same with 4 hours or 10 hours of sleep, this is really useful. I'm planning on getting an M2 before the end of the year, but for now my P1 is good enough. I've been using it for 5-15 minutes after each nap, and it helped my body adjust more quickly.
• Lowering caffeine
• I love caffeine. I drink an average of 6 cups (liquid measure cups, actually 2 of my mugs full) of coffee and up to 6 cans of pop a day. To make the polyphasic sleep work better, I've lowered it to 3 cups of coffee (again, 1 mug) and 3 or so cans a day. I should lower it farther, but for now, I'll be happy with what I have. It's been helping me to sleep when I need to, and oddly enough, I'm more awake when I get up.
• More stuff to do
• I have more stuff that needs to get done. That helps. I have yet another research project, this one is going to be presented nationally at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in California. Weeee.

It's day three, and I've had my first REM cycle. Actually, I think I've had more, but this is the first one that I could feel. I slept at midnight, and couldn't tell if I had or not, so I reset my timer (STUPID), and laid there for a couple minutes and decided I needed to get up. Upon getting up, I felt like it was noon (it was after midnight). This is awesome. Three days, and I'm on it. I've learned that, in fact, once you've done it your body figures it out faster.

Tricks to readjusting:

• Find a schedule and stick to it.
• If you schedule doesn't support it, sorry. Better luck next year.
• Set the timer for 20 minutes. Get up when it goes off. Even if you haven't slept.
• If you do this faithfully (you'll be tired), your body figures out that when it can sleep, it should sleep. So, you sleep. Again, it never really felt like I slept. I'm not as sensitive to it as I was last year. However, I've been feeling more rested getting up than when I go back to sleep and get up. This is consistent with last year.
• Light is good.
• If you don't have an awesome SAD light from Apollo Health (I promise I make no commission and don't work there), just blast yourself with light for the first half hour (at least) after you get up. Once you've done this for a few days, your body gets the idea.
• Darkness is good.
• When you are going to sleep, have it be dark. This gives your body cues as to when it should be sleeping. Also, this is consistent with how you are supposed to sleep. Sleep when it's dark, awake when it's light.
• Keep it quiet
• As I said earlier, people give you weird looks and treat you differently. I haven't told anyone, and I don't expect the people who used to read this to think to look back to it. It's been a year since I posted, they don't remember. This is the opposite of my advice if you're starting. You need someone to help you stick to it when you're first starting, but when you're restarting after a long break, just keep it to yourself until you're on it successfully.

Otherwise, have fun!

Well, I spend way too much time blogging when I'm on this sleep, so I'm gonna head out. I'll update every couple of days as I think of it.