On Monday I started with my polyphasic sleep experiment. In short: I take one 3 hour sleep between 2am and 5am and do 3 naps of 20 minutes divided over the day. It’s already Friday and I’m glad to report I’m still holding on.
First of all I prepared my Android G1 phone as an effective alarm clock by putting all sounds on quiet except the alarm. And instead of the normal irritating alarm sound I used the song Primavera by Ludovico Einaudi, the soundtrack from the movie the reader which brings a very nice feeling to me when I listen to it. With this I made sure that I removed the stress factor of quickly putting out the alarm clock because it’s such an irritating noise.
Day 1 – Monday
On Monday it was of course pretty easy. It was business as usual because I had my normal sleep the night before. I did 3 naps of 20 minutes during the day, evenly spread. Only in the afternoon I got the impression that I did a small sleep. The other 2 I just lied in bed and kept my eyes closed and body still until the alarm went off. The big test would come after the 3 hour core sleep on Tuesday morning from 2am to 5am and to see if I could get up and do something.
Day 2 – Tuesday
As the alarm went off on Tuesday morning 5am I heard the relaxed sounds of Primavera, took a big breath, stretched out my body, set straight in bed and put my feet on the ground and stood up. I try to do this every time so that it gets an automatic response to the sound I’m hearing.
Getting up was no problem, and the hours afterwards I was still very fresh. But that wasn’t a real surprise because I’m used of doing all-nighters once in a while. The real test would be the next core sleep.
On Tuesday the naps were already better. I had some dreams in the afternoon and evening nap, so that meant I went into REM phase during the 20 minute nap and wake up very refreshed. As if I had done a 2 hour sleep. My last nap on Tuesday was at 9pm and I had 4,5 hours left after that before taking my core sleep.
At around midnight I was starting to lose it. It was clear that I was suffering from a shortage of sleep. Nothing I did helped anymore. I couldn’t really focus on the computer and watching a movie also didn’t help. At around 1am I entered Zombieworld and while I was still awake it appeared as if everything was going slower and out of focus. Damn, this was going to be hard!
Day 3 – Wednesday
Wednesday morning 2am it was finally time for my core sleep. Somehow I managed to stay awake during these 2 zombie hours. I think I slept within 2 minutes. And then it happened: as if I just fell asleep, the alarm started playing the sounds of Primavera again. 5am already. This was not good. Why am I doing this? Just go back to sleep and enjoy your warm mattress and thick sheets.
I really had to push myself to get up, and somehow I managed too. I thought having an early breakfast would bring me some extra energy so that I could continue, but that didn’t really make a difference. The same thing as the last 2 hours before doing my core sleep: zombiemodus! I just couldn’t get out of it! I tried to write something but I missed every letter on the keyboard and if I managed to finish a sentence I already forget what I was writing about. Terrible
Finally I decided to take a shower at 7am and wake the children afterwards. It’s just impossible to feel tired when the kids are awake, so they would be my saviors. While I was still feeling zombie like, I managed to give the kids breakfast and put my son to school. After that I decided to take an early nap.
At 9:10 the alarm went again and it was clear I had slept big time. Big dream and feeling much better. But I had a big headache. Thanks to a busy day I didn’t really have time to pay attention to it and went to work immediately afterwards.
In the afternoon I did an early nap around 2:00pm because I had to go to the swimming pool with my son for lesson and afterwards some swimming together. The headache didn’t really go away, but as I was enough distracted it was manageable.
After the evening nap it was clear I dreamed again. So on day 3 my body and mind were so tired that all three my naps were in REM stage and dreaming. That’s a good thing, because that meant I’m adapting to the craziness! With some more confidence I entered midnight.
Instead of trying to work again behind my laptop I thought it would be better to watch a movie instead. Strangely enough I didn’t really get tired and could finish the whole movie. I even had 15 minutes left before my core sleep and managed to some interesting reading.
Day 4 – Thursday
After another 3 hours of sleep I woke up on Thursday morning 5am. Again zombie modus! I just couldn’t get out of it. After an hour of struggling and taking showers I decided to turn off the heater in the house and open my office window. Back from a comfy 20 degrees to around 8 degrees! That woke me up! No problem working like this for an hour afterwards.
Naps on Thursday were all dreaming naps again. I even woke up by myself on the second and third nap 2 and 3 minutes before the alarm went off! That felt very strange; because I really had the feeling I overslept and was worried I missed the alarm or something. So when I woke up and looked at my clock it was strange to see that it was just that my REM sleep was over and I woke up by myself.
Confidence is growing that I’m going to manage and get through the 7 day adoption phase! Well, around Thursday evening just before midnight I got a big bang. Everything what I did felt like going in slow-motion. I just couldn’t hold it. It is clear that if your body says it’s tired and if you’re on a sleep schedule like this, you can’t extend sleep as long as normally any more. I decided to take an extra 20 minute nap at midnight and woke up without a problem.
Because I wasn’t tired at 2am I decided to do my core sleep an hour later on Friday morning. And to make sure I wouldn’t go into zombie mode again in the morning, I put my running clothes and shoes ready for an early run. I set my alarm at 6am and went to sleep. Fun thing is that before this I was already falling asleep fast. Maybe 10 minutes and I’m sleeping when going to bed. But with this schedule it is just crazy. If I decide to go and sleep, and lay down, it takes a maximum of 2 minutes before I’m gone.
Day 5 – Friday
At 5:45 I wake up by myself without the alarm. Wow! Something is going on here! I decide to take it easy and read a book until the alarm. At 6am I stand up and do my morning ritual again. And around 6:15 I’m stepping into the cold outdoors in my running gear. Half hour and 5k later I’m back and feel like a million bucks! This is how it should be!
Because I came out of bed somewhat late I decided to take a late nap at around 11:30am. Again dreaming and wake-up one minute early of the alarm, great!
Future
The first 5 days are already a success, but I’m not there yet! Tonight I go out with my girlfriend and with weekend approaching I’m wondering if I can manage to continue like this. As it will be pretty early in the morning before we return I guess my core sleep will be from 4am-7am on Saturday morning. Hopefully this schedule is as flexible as I hope it to be!
Considerations
Now that I see that this is possible and I’m wondering how far I can take this. I’m now doing an Everymen3 schedule type of sleeping. Which mean 1 core sleep and 3 naps. There is also something called Everymen2 and Everymen4, where Everymen4 is drawing my attention, because it give you a core sleep of 1,5 hour and four 20 minute naps a day. If things go good in the coming days, who knows.
Planning
Thing is that the naps have to be planned. And while the whole thing is still pretty flexible, it doesn’t hurt that I’m an at-home-worker. Where I normally give myself 3 blocks of working time a day with my normal sleep cycle (9-12 / 13-17 / 22-24), I’ve now expanded my working hours somewhat.
I feel like the day is really split in four. And during these 4 blocks of around 5 hours each I plan to do some work for around 2 hours in each block. It feels like I’m doing less, but I’m much more productive with only 2 hours of work each time. No procrastination, just work!
Same for food. I know take one meal in every waking block. I just make sure I don’t eat 1,5 hours before going to sleep. I feel highly energized.
I’ll update my blog with a new post soon and get into more detail about some other interesting things that I notice that are happening.
It’s Tuesday already. For me it’s the actual first real day of the week. Yesterday was sick-day together with my daughter. I’m glad I managed to push out a small run in the evening. Still, I’m not feeling myself 100%, but enough to get back on track.
What a week! I must confess that due to the polyphasic sleep experiment things didn’t exactly went like planned. At times the extra burst of energy gave me a lot of productivity, while at other times, unforeseen energy drains like zombie hours took time away.
It’s been an interesting two days with regards to my sleep experiment. While I feel I’m pretty adapted already, I noticed a few things.
Several times I already blogged about my unusual sleeping behavior. Since using some NLP techniques during my student time I became a 4 hour sleeper. Which meant in practice I slept for around 4,5-6 hours every night.
The monophasic sleep cycle is what most people do when they sleep. They go to bed in the evening and sleep until the morning. 1 sleep cycle per 24 hours.
And here is the new planning overview for week 45 in 2009, or short 2009/w45. Let me see how I can tweak this in such a way that it becomes easier and easier to follow and log at the same time.
For the coming 2 months, or 8,5 weeks, it’s time for my second milestone. During the last 8 weeks it was all about logging and scheduling my tasks and actions and slowly expanding it, to see what was possible. Now that I learned a great deal of stuff about about my inner workings, it’s time to do some big experiments. I’m not sure how it will end, but I’m sure I want to try these things out.
Another week has passed, but this time my first 8 weeks are over. That’s one milestone done! Let’s take a look.
Today was time for my first running competition. Together with Marieke, girlfriend of Sanne, we appeared at the starting line. Sanne and my kids were there as supporters cheering for us.
I started with an easy pace, to make sure I could make it for the full 2 laps. My main objective was to keep running and not stop for some walking. Getting to the starting point was great. My kids were cheering like crazy and that gave a real boost to go on. At around 3,2 kilometers, with 1,2k to go I still felt pretty good and decided to turn on the pace somewhat.
