A diversion

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Flirting with Polyphasic Sleep - Part 1

I decided I finally had something to write about here, that is, an experiment in polyphasic (meaning broken up into different naps through the day, as opposed to monophasic) sleep. I am the guinea pig here.

After a major disturbance in my regular 8-hour sleep schedule two nights ago, I took two naps, exactly two hours long, but 4 hours apart (and I’ve kept this up for the past two days), since it reminded me entirely of the original Uberman’s sleep schedule, which I aim to adopt. According to the author of this article, she was able to get through the day on just 20 minutes of sleep for every 4 hours of being awake, taking a total of six naps spread out through the day.

I’m not really going to discuss the benefits, the research, and the drawbacks here, because the links above elaborate more on that. Rather, I will be documenting how it affects me. [more]

As I’ve said, I have been doing this for almost 2 days now, and as of this writing, I am in the middle of the second day.
I began on day 1 because I was unable to get a full night of sleep. I got exactly two hours between 9 AM and 11 AM, then another two hours between 3 PM and 5 PM. After the first nap, I felt pretty damn tired still. But after my second one, I awoke, feeling as well-rested and aware as ever.

Following this, I looked up the original Uberman’s sleep schedule. I had heard of this before, but never tried it because high school is one long 8-hour chunk, and the teachers never took too kindly to anyone sleeping in class, for any reason, because of a perceived illusion of being “unproductive”.

Another four hours soon passed, and I went to sleep at 9 PM, waking up at 11 PM on the dot. I was very hungry, so I ate ramen because I am a fucking weeaboo. As I have noticed, eating smaller meals frequently suits this type of schedule more. I also had some coffee, but that was a bad idea, because I was only able to get an hour in for my next nap. It was difficult for me to fall asleep, and I was extremely tired when I missed that one. Then when I woke, it was nearly time for my next nap! So I took this one, woke up, and still felt tired. The effects of missing a nap or cutting it too short are dramatic.

I came home from my class, and crashed for another two hours, and here I am now, feeling well-rested and recovered from my recent sleeping mishap.

The current question is: should I maintain a 2-hour nap schedule, or 20-minute nap schedule? I will find out soon enough.