Jorg's Brain Log

Last Sunday I noticed my energy levels were declining and my breathing was going a little bit more difficult than normal. For me the first signs that something was not in order under the hood. My daughter was also getting sick, so I probably had catched the famous influenza virus. So how would this conflict with my daily work and sleep schedule?

There is one simple rule when you’re sick; you need to rest and give your body time to recover. So with that in mind I decided to take it easy for the week, or as long as I felt that I wasn’t 100%.

Instead of taking 3 hour core sleep, I added a 1,5 rem sleep to it, bringing it up to 4,5 hours and even that I didn’t feel really the need to take my 3 naps, I still took them anyway.

Sometimes I woke up after 1,5 hour of coresleep in the night. But forced myself to stay down until the 4,5 hours were over. This way I noticed that my body was really rested in the morning. I even managed to do my sport schedule, altough on a little less intense level then normally is the case.

Worst day was Friday. In the morning my head was about to explode. Again decided to stay down in bed and do some reading and sleeping. And it helped. So it’s Saturday now, the worst part is over and I’m ready to go back into full action again.

Lessons learned while being sick:

• Take it easy
• Don’t feel guilty that you can’t finish everything
• Focus on the primary goals only
• Sleep, Sleep, Sleep
• Read, Read, Read
• Eat well
• Don’t feel sorry for yourself
• Be positive

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.

The first real challenge in the experiment, besides starting with it, was the fact that we went to a party on Friday evening. So it would be very early in the morning before I would get home. This was not in line with my 2 to 5am core sleep I did.

My last nap on Friday evening was at 21:50 and I slept for 18 minutes before waking up by myself before the alarm went off. Now I was ready to go and have some fun.

To keep the experiment running and not to mess too much with too many variables at the same time I decided to not take any alcohol, just some sugar drinks like cola.

Day 6 – Saturday

At around 2:30am I started to notice a first sign of decreased attention span and some tiredness. That was in line what was expected because I normally have this all time after around 4,5 hours after napping I find myself getting tired again. And of course the fact that I normally would have my core sleep around this time made me expect it even more.

At 3:00 am it was enough for me. I went downhill very fast from here on. Couldn’t follow conversations anymore and was going into zombie modus fast. Time to go back home. I already noticed a difference while driving our car back, less concentration.

At 3:30 am I was ready to get my core sleep. I put my alarm on 6:30 and I fell a sleep. It felt like I slept immediately after putting down my phone. I was still pretty tired when the alarm went off at 6:30, but got out of bed anyway. Clearly I was in zombie modus and very deep. Getting my core sleep this late was not good.

I decided to take another 1,5 hour sleep cycle at set the alarm clock to 8am. The first time I was going off the schedule, but at least it was voluntarily. Fun thing was that I felt a sleep again, but this time I woke up by myself at around 7:45, 15 minutes before my alarm went off.

This time no zombie modus but very active! Did a lot of writing in the morning. At 11:05 it was nap time again. This time I again woke up by myself after 17 minutes. Now every time I take a nap I dream and come into my REM sleep.

Nap time at 16:40 brought the same thing. Waking up after 18 minutes. Wow, amazing to experience that you can feel so refreshed after such a short nap. Normally I take 30 minutes for naps. I set the alarm 30 minutes ahead before I get into bed and I start reading. After 10 minutes of reading I put the book away and close my eyes. Normally it takes me around 2 to 5 minutes to fall asleep. And now I’m waking up 2-3 minutes before my alarm goes off. That means my actual nap times are between 12 to 14 minutes.

In the evening another nap that goes as the previous naps. Feeling good!

Day 7 – Sunday

While I don’t have too much trouble staying up until 2am before going to bed, my head is almost exploding. I’ve got a big headache, maybe because of the cold I have.

It’s time for my core sleep. Pretty confident about the 3 hours that come I go to sleep. Doesn’t take much time again. I even don’t read a book or watch a film.

5am, it’s time to get up. My head hurts like crazy. This doesn’t feel right. While I don’t have a problem standing up, the headache is just too much. After 10 minutes of walking around, it’s getting worse and worse. I decide that I don’t feel right and go back to bed, without setting the alarm.

In the end I get out of bed at 11am. That’s 6 hours later. Yes, I did some sleeping during these hours. But here it comes: The interesting part is that I woke up everytime after a sleep cycle was over. That’s after every 70 to 90 minutes. I’m then wide awake. Read for about 5-10 minutes and then close my eyes again and so repeat the cycle.

It’s very strange to be so consious about my sleeping and the different stages. It’s also strange to experience so many different dreams and fall asleep within a few minutes after closing my eyes.

Conclusion after a week

For sure this sleep cycle gives a lot of free time. So much free time even I am not on a hurry anymore with my time. For myself I’m going to continue with this cycle in the coming week, but the thing I really want to improve is the fact that I don’t want zombie moments anymore. Where I first experienced these moments during the late hours, this now more or less have shifted to the morning.

Maybe this is because of the fact I don’t have a real planning for my new type of day anymore. I’m not in a hurry anymore in the morning. I know what to do more or less, but I didn’t set deadlines to finish stuff before 9am or something like that.

For tomorrow I’m going to change a few things. First of all, I’m going to write down my to-do list for the day to come before my core sleep. This so that I know what I’m going to in the 4 different moments of the day.

Second of all I think I’m going to put my sporting moment in the morning. I think that will kick-start my day even more. So let’s see how it goes.

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.

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.

Still the problem existed that I couldn’t make use of the two most productive moments of the day for me. I’m very productive at work between 22:00 until 2:00 in the morning. But that meant I had to become an evening person, which I successfully was for the last 5 years or so.

But then again, the 5 years before that I was an early riser and got out of bed around5 am to start running or swimming and do some early work and get a head-start to the rest of the normal workers.

Some years back I already heard about polyphasic sleeping, where you sleep several times a day for a shorter period of time. There are all kind of different schedules to bring back the total hours of sleep per day and  still be fresh and energized.

As I’m working from home in the month November and after discussing this with my girlfriend, I decided to do some sleep experiments on my own to see what I could do.

First an overview of some different sleep cycles, so that you get an idea of  what I’m talking about.

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.

Biphasic sleep is the sleep where the night sleep is somewhat shorter then normal and you do a ‘siesta’ in the afternoon, or start of the evening. For example 4,5 hours at night and 1,5 hours in the afternoon.

The Everyman cycle is were the real hacking starts. You do 1 core sleep in the night for 3 hours and fill this up with 3 times a 20 minute nap during the day. As 1 REM cycle takes 90 minutes to complete and your first 2 REM cycles at night are the deepest and take you through 80% of your needed rest, you should be able to fill that up with the 3 naps. The trick of the 20 minute nap is that you learn to make full use of its time and skip all the unnessary sleep phases and go straight into one heavy REM sleep. All in all you’re on a 4 hour sleep cycle.

The Uberman schedule consists of doing doing 6 naps of 20 minutes a day, so that’s 2 hours of sleep. Sleeping 6 times per day is very demanding and will mess with your personal schedule pretty bad. But the time you have in return is big.

The Dymaxion version is probably the most extreme known variant. Buckminster Fuller was reportedly using this one for over 2 years. It consists of doing 4 naps of 30 minutes, for a total of 2 hours. Imagine the time you have left each day!

Jorg’s Personal Sleep Cycle

After reading many personal stories, medical reports and other scientific studies I’ve decided to go for the Everyman cycle. After some planning with the naps and seeing what works best with my current schedule I came up with the following:

1. Core sleep: 2:00-5:00
2. Nap: 9:00-9:20
3. Nap: 15:00-15:20
4. Nap: 21:00-21:20

The great thing about the Everyman schedule is that it appears to be somewhat flexible. The different sleeps can be moved an hour earlier or later and that makes a whole lot of difference with the other sleep cycles like the Uberman and the Dymaxion. And to be honest, those last two seem just a bit to extreme for at the moment.

I’m now at day 3 of the experiment and just finished my second 3 hour core sleep. Didn’t have any problem until now. I already had some small dreams during my 20 minute naps which is a good sign and after my core sleep this morning I could get out of bed pretty easily.

The biggest problem at the moment is the fact that I miss lying in bed and feeling lazy! But then again, I’ve committed myself to try this out for at least 7 days and see how I will feel after that. It apperantly takes 7 to 14 days to get used to the new schedule, so I’m curious to how I will do.

I will update the blog when necessary and keep it very open so that other may find it useful for their own experiments with polyphasic sleeping. Until now it’s very strange that I suddenly have so much time at hand.