Conclusion

I realize that I never gave the conclusion of this test. First I want to say that I believe it is possible to fully switch over and feel decent each day. But I choose not to go all the way. Here's why.

1.)  Staying up late and having too much free time on one's hands makes it easy to waste time. It was for me, and I realized that such a lifestyle was not making me a better person.

2.) I feel that living with such a lifestyle completely throws off your body's life cycle patterns. For instance, melatonin levels would seem to be completely out of sync and probably produced with a diminished level. (Melatonin is an important chemical which helps with sleep, fighting free radicals, and helping with immunity).

3.) Living with such a sleep cycle impairs your daily life, causing it to revolve around naps.

4.) Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I felt that living such a lifestyle was hurting my mind. I found it harder to memorize things.

So if you want more time each day, but are willing to impair your online judgement, messing with your body and mind, and having naps infringe on your other life activities - go for it. Try Polyphasic sleep.

For me it wasn't worth it.

Days 17-20, Exercising & Diet

For the last couple of days I was starting to assume sleeping 2 hours was not intended for my body, for my body really wanted to go to a Everman sleep cycle (one several hour core nap followed by several naps. Taking an extra nap during the night didn't really help me out, because the bed just felt too comfy when my alarm went off, and even though I probably could have shaken it off by getting up I didn't try. 

That all changed today. I've slept two hours five minutes total today and feel wonderful. What made the difference? I think it was the fact that I took a 10 minute nap during the day. In any case I'm happy about it.

This week I tried to exercise, and that went well. I think the reason I felt bad before when I tried to was because I was tired, whereas now I'm doing so much better.

And just as a heads up I dropped the eating solo fruit/vegetable diet and now just am vegan. I'm sure going eve more strict would have helped me more, but it is an expensive diet and cuts out the awesomeness of cooking.  

The List

I promised a list of things I do in my awake night time, and here it is. It is mostly in order.

1. Pull out stuff I need for next day (I live in an appartment with others so I pull out my clothing ahead of time so as not to disturb them in the morning)
2. Do random chores (cleaning, laudry, dishes, etc).
3. Cook & eat supper
4. Email & grade/lesson plan for teaching while listening to an audio sermon
5. Play piano
6. Maybe watch a movie (I am NOT a movie addict by any means, but simply watch something clean to pass the time of fatigue)
7. Update blog
8. Shower
9. Eat Bkfast
10. Have Devos (i.e. spend some much needed time with God)

That's been pretty much it so far, but I would like to do some other things like send out thank you letters to people, learn to juggle, learn Spanish, and learn more of how to play advanced guitar.

One thing is clear - no matter how much time a person has in their day there will always be more things that they could do.

Days 14, 15, 16

You might be wondering why I haven't posted anything in a while. Well, to be honest I usually post in the early morning, and for the last couple of days I've been 'hitting the snooze button' on my wake-up system.* Considering it goes off every 5 minutes, that is a lot of times in the 5 hour block of the early morning. Generally on the weekends I sleep longer anyway, so I guess my body wanted a change of pace.

Now it is time to start another week day, and I have a plan of approach that I believe will be unbeatable. I've been thinking about it - the time in which I have the most 'fatigue' is at night (although this type of tiredness feels different then regular fatigue and is easier to live with). Therefore, starting today I am going to insert one more nap into my night schedule. Yes, that will make me have 2.5 hours of sleep a day instead of my ideal of 2, but it would sure be better to help me over the hill.




*While my water alarm clock works in theory, I found an even simpler device - my computer. There's something called "Task Manager" that allows me to set up tasks for my computer to do, and I have conveniently created a task that opens a music file at a specific time on VLC media player full volume. What's nice about this is that it allows me to have earbuds from my laptop in my ears so I can seep in the presence of others and not disturb them.

Days 12-13 - The Reason

There is a reason I did not post yesterday, and it has to do solely with me. Things were going pretty good until the late night nap. Believe it or not, I heard the alarm, turned it off, rolled over, and promptly fell asleep.6 hours later I awoke 4 minutes before we had to head off to school, and all I could do was groan and throw on some clothes before heading out the door.

The after effects of sleeping so long were not good. I felt a real tiredness that pervaded all that I did, Thankfully it cleared up once I took the midday nap (which ended up being 50 minutes long), and the rest of that day went well.

Tomorrow I'll give a list of all the things I do with my added free time.

Day 11 - Research

"That sounds like something I would like to do someday," said Matt.
Even though I wanted to say 'Go for it! Try sleeping polyphasically like I am,' I didn't. Yes, sleeping 2.5 hours a day like I did today has its benefits, but could there be negative health effects?

I've been looking into it, and here is what I've found - there is no substantial evidence that it affects your body worse then sleeping 8 hours. There is only one problem with it: no extensive studies have been conducted on people who sleep polyphasically over 6 months. In other words, it is safe to sleep polyphasically for 6 months or less, but beyond that no one knows.

I haven't read any particular reasons on why it might be dangerous to pursue polyshasic sleep more then 6 months, save that we just don't know how it would effect us. So why did I not recommend it to Matt? One word: Melatonin.

I understand that Melatonin is inhibited by light, so now instead of having 8 hours of this hormone coursing through my veins, I only have 2.5 hours worth of it - or at least in theory anyway. I want to take a test to see if my melatonin levels are lower now, because melatonin is important. Research it if you don't know what it does (interestingly Alzheimers' patients have lower levels of it).

So here is my breakdown of it all. Sleep polyphasically but think about the risks. Check your health & buy melatonin tablets if need be. Don't kill me if you end up with Alzheimers. And most importantly be careful doing it over 6 months.

In the meantime try it short term - I still recommend that. :-)

Day 10 - Low key

Today's lessons - 1. Do NOT watch a boring movie/sports in a dark room, on a comfy couch , with the AC directly on you. The result is a battle of how long you can keep your eyes open.
2. Double check, triple check, quadruple check your set alarm clock time before taking the nap. I thought I had set my alarm for 12:30 am, only to find out at 4:20 am that I had set it for 7:30 am. Those are the naps that I feel stupid about.

Other then the extra sleep and the extreme tiredness watching a soccer game, the rest of the day was low key.