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.

Day 9 - The world does not revolve around me

From all the recounts I've heard, after slipping up and sleeping for a long period of time most people give up and return to sleeping monophasically. Not me. Not only did I jump right back into the sleep cycle, I also officially pulled my first 2 hours in a day goal. That was exciting, and so far I feel great. 

Today was the only time so far that I've had conflicts between my sleep cycle and day to day life. It was a nice day for a hike, and several of my friends and I headed to a waterfall. The trip took way longer then expected, and by the time we got back it was 6:30 pm at a noisy house. My scheduled nap for that day was supposed to be at 6, so I had to postpone it for half an hour, and even then the nap I did eventually take was curling up on a couch in the corner of the room for 20 minutes. Needless to say, it was not the most refreshing nap I've had, but it worked enough to tide me over till the next one. Yes, the world does not revolve around me and my biological needs.

Starting tonight I'm going to create and stick to an official night time schedule. So far I've been writing down a list of what I would like to do in the evening, but in the morning I find that I have spent too much time wasting time and too little time doing productive tasks. I hope to switch the tables on that by consciously choosing beneficial tasks to me.

Day 8 - Sleeping 6 hours

Last night I splurged on my sleep. I still set my alarm for every 30 minutes but ended up sleeping a total of 6 hours. And believe it or not, my mind feels less clear then when I got 3 or 4 hours of sleep!
Be forewarned - I do not plan to go back to a monophasic sleep cycle after this 'slip up' (if that is what you call it, although it was on purpose). Even if I have to try to re-adapt to where I was before last night, I choose to, simply because of the awesomeness of what I experienced so far sleeping polyphasically.

It was nice, though, to eat some fatty foods (like links) and not worry about that messing up my alertness or sleepability. I hope tonight goes well as I try to officially get 2 hours of sleep and stick to that.

I lied.

In my last post I said that if I am doing any active task I usually don't feel tired. This is true save for exercise. If I start running or climb a set of stairs, suddenly I feel tired. And when I stop running/stair climbing I feel back to normal. I haven't done either long distance yet, so I'm curious how that would make me feel.

What is weird is that I've been gone sea paddling, and doing that didn't make me feel tired at all. I wonder if it is mainly due to a sudden increase in heart rate, and that feeling would diminish once my body adjusts to the activity (like the long distance paddling). It is like my body screamed at me when I ran a short distance : Stop! Slow down - you need to conserve energy.

In my mind there are only two options that could be the cause of this: either it is just my body reacting to tiredness and conserving energy (which means that adapting more will resolve the issues) or my body is lacking the sleep cycles that helps the body restore and replenish it and doesn't have the energy to go all out in exercise. That's an interesting alternative, but it could be the case.

In either case this next week I will know for sure. Not only will I be paddling, swimming, running, and playing soccer (my usual after school activities) but I also might try to hit up the gym early morning.

Oh, the funness of experimenting on your body... I'm grateful for its flexibility but realize that going too far brings consequences to it. But have I gone too far? I don't know yet.

Day 7 - Counting the Cost

I was able to cut back to 3 hours of sleep this last day and spend way more time playing the piano then I have recently :D. But perhaps I should mention something lest you think that I have completely adapted - my tiredness level. For the majority of the time I don't notice it. Then there are those moments like when I was reading a Book today - I just can't read another line; my head does the involuntary jerks of nodding off to sleep. Essentially if I'm doing a task that involves any sort of movement (ex. piano, typing, walking, speaking, grading, cooking, etc.) I don't notice any tiredness or if so very little. But if I'm doing a mentally taking sedimentary task I'm in trouble.

There are only a couple of periods, maybe 1/2 an hour to an hour during three our of my four awake periods where I actually think - Wow, I'm tired. It would be nice to take a nap right now. The rest of the time is no issue and the thoughts don't even cross my mind.

Thinking about this caused me to wonder something - What if I never do adapt all the way where I won't feel this tiredness between periods? What if I do oversleep my alarm occasionally? Would I want to go back to sleeping 8 hours if things never improved more?

The simple answer is this: the benefits of sleeping like this out way the costs. Wait, isn't there some medical concern about these sleep cycles long term? I'm not denying it, but even if there was I still say the benefits win.

For me, the benefits really boil down to one point: time. Not just any time, but time to do things that can enhance my life. Like learning piano, Spanish, and Juggling, as well as spending more time in prayer and in the study of the Word. I have enough mental clarity using this sleep cycle to do each one to the best of my ability, and having time in the evening just feel like I doubled my practical day.

Even if I feel tired every once in a while I'm loving what I'm experiencing.

And this is only the completion of the first week!

Day 6

Yesterday I finished creating an alarm clock that will dump a glass of water on me if I don't turn it off. Today I tried it, but unfortunately  (or fortunately) I heard my alarm and stopped it before I got wet. The one nap that I didn't use it I told a friend to wake me up, and while that works in theory when he tried to wake me up I appearently grunted and turned back over, oversleeping a little. Doing that, though, brought up an interesting point.

It was the early evening nap, and instead of it being half an hour it turned to 2 and 1/2 hours. When I woke up from this long nap I felt really tired, which is something I usually don't experience after taking a 1/2 hour nap. So I went to bed for one more half hour and then woke up feeling normal. Apparently my body is not liking long periods of sleep.

Taking short naps is so refreshing - when I wake I feel just as I would feel if I woke up from an 8 hour sleep feeling rejuvenated- only in this scenario that feeling lasts for hours. Even when I get tired that same refreshing mindset remains, which is kind of weird that my body can mix the two feelings. In any case it is such a wonderful and relaxing and invigorating feelings - I love it! (It is most similar to waking up at 5 pm suddenly to go the airport - at first you aren't tired and driving in the dark makes you feel awesome).

One thing I'm considering is changing the times I take my naps. So far all naps have been approximately 5 and 1/2  hours apart, and during the day I feel good, but at night sometimes I get sleepy. I wonder if I took less naps during the daylight hours and more naps after dusk if that would help. At the same time, if this is just my body adapting I don't know if spreading the naps so far apart during the day will be beneficial long term. I'll think about it more.

Diet, Zombie Land, & Stomach Aches

One of the things that really surprised me about starting this new sleep cycle was how easy it was. Yes, I've been so tired I've overslept my alarm, but comparing my experience to others' I seem to have had a lot easier time.

Some people who try to adapt to a new sleep cycle feel like a zombie. Others get so tired that at times all they can do is stare at a blank wall. Still others have a hard time communicating with people during the initial days of their adaptation. In most cases changing a sleep cycle is almost impossible, and many people give up due to their body pressure to sleep.

I thought my experience would be similar for the first week of this, but I haven't found it to be the case at all. I thought it would be like a "Living Hell," but I'm just finding it to be an awesome experience. Why was my experience different?

One thing that I haven't mentioned so far is my diet while switching over. They say that fatty foods make adaptation harder, so I cut out all fat and have just been eating fruits and vegetables. Additionally, I've been drinking lots of lots of water. The result is this: body cleansing & a clearer mind. Both of those aspects are helping me in this quest.

I also wonder if my taking a longer nap occasionally is helping me adapt smoother. Maybe it has been better to gradually ease into this instead of doing a cold turkey.

The one weird thing that I sometimes experience is mild stomach aches. I don't know the cause of this or if it is just a body response while trying to conserve energy due to lack of sleep. In any case, it is just a little weird but not painful. 

Day 5 - Battle Plan

First let me start off by saying that today was the best mentally so far. Here I am right after my usual troublesome late night nap having had no issues with it and feeling wide awake. Maybe it was because of the 4 hour nap that I had yesterday/early this morning or maybe just because my body is adapting.

I've been thinking about my alarm issue after oversleeping for two hours in an earlier nap. Ideally it would be best to have somebody else wake me up or try this experiment with me, but for the most part I'm on my own in this. I even half considered having my parents ship me my alarm clock I have at home, an 130 decibel bed vibrating alarm created for deaf people - I've never overslept that one! Unfortunately though, I'm in Palau and items take over a week to be shipped, save the fact that I don't want to waste money on it.  

Time for plan B. Tomorrow I'm going to create a mechanism using my current alarm clock and a mouse trap that will pour water on me to wake me up. Granted, it won't be too pleasant but it should do the trick. 22 hour days, here I come! :D

Day 4 - Oops

After finishing my first day of teaching I can say this: If my body fully adapts to this sleep cycle there should be no problem working in any job setting with it. Because of work I had to go 6.5 hours between naps, whearin I usually get 5.5 hours between naps. Was there a difference? Not really; I was too active to notice. I could have easily stayed up for another hour. 

What I did notice was this: even though I felt close to normal I was a little uptight with my students - more harsh and less loving. I think this has to do with me not fully adapted and therefore my mind is trying to figure out what to do and is making me just that tad bit mentally off.

Later that afternoon I started getting tired again, but then went paddling on the ocean and that took care of my sleepiness - I felt such peace and just thoroughly enjoyed it. My main issue is what happened that night for my late night nap - I heard my alarm, got up, decided to take another 30 minute nap, went back to bed, and promptly overslept my alarm for at least 4 hours. So so stupid! Not only because it might push back the adaptation period a little longer, but also because of an interesting phenomena that I beginning to notice - ill respective of how long the nap is, I have the same mental clarity during that period of awakeness. If the nap is 30 minutes or 1 hour I still feel the same after it, so taking longer naps is not helping me out at all. In fact, after a longer nap I think I don't feel as good as with a shorter nap. 

I know the adaptation period takes time, and me being a heavy sleeper doesn't help it. Still, in the back of my mind is the information I learned about sleep cycles from a military experiment - they found that the body usually tries to  consalodate sleep into one major block. Naps can support that block and the block can be just 3 hours. 

Admittedly, even if I do have to have a sleep cycle that involves a major block and two or three naps to support it, it is still way better then having to sleep 8 hours. Even with the four hours of sleep that I got today it was just so awesome to get back in the evening and have time to read, play the guitar, check email, and so many other things. It was like a whole nother day to plan and do stuff, and no one is around to distract you. It is relaxing and I feel so accomplished by doing so much. 

Still, I want to go all out with this. Therefore tomorrow I'll reveal my battle plan.

Day 3

Last night was a blast! It is amazing how perfectly my schedule is helping me try this new sleep schedule, because last night was a sleep over at one of my student's house. In the past when such an event would occur I'd often be the first one in bed. Not so last night - I expressly told my students to wake me up if I overslept my alarm for my two naps. The night flew by with all the action of camp fires, stories, early morning walk, and truth-or-dare and Uno games. My second nap happened to be 40 minutes long (can't trust my watch alarm to wake me up), but once I woke up this morning nap I felt energized almost like I hadn't just spent the whole night awake. I couldn't believe it! The only weird thing was my stomach - it felt a little upset, but soon that feeling passed away.

The next perfectly planned event was a boat outing to an island. The morning dragged on a little bit as I was trying to not focus on the increasing fatigue that comes several hours after I wake up from my nap, yet snorkelling around an island made me not even focus on it at all.

The trip brought up another interesting point for me. I don't get seasick, but if I told my mind on the rocking boat that I felt seasick I would immediately feel nauseas. I think it is the same thing with my energy levels in this experiment. If I say I feel tired, immediately I my eyes start closing and I just want to take a nap. Believing that I am not tired, on the other hand, makes me feel normal. And so far I am - on average I would say I am a 8 on a scale of  a usual 10 in mental cognition. Which considering that I've gotten under 4 hours of sleep the last two days is impressive!

The middle of the day nap proved my downfall. I had brought a loud alarm clock, but as you should know I am a deep sleeper. I oversleep making my nap 2 hours long. I really don't know how to solve this problem, and I know that if I don't hear my alarm for the late night nap I will be in trouble. Tonight is going to be interesting.

Let me rephrase that - this week in general will be interesting. Tomorrow (Monday) will be a work day, and as I go back to teaching a 6.5 hour block of awakness will be forced upon me (usually I aim for 5.5 hours between naps). The good news is that, except for the late night nap, all other naps will rotate around a fixed schedule and people can wake me up. I just hope my alarm wakes me up for the late night one. I think cuddling it will help me wake up to it.

Update@5:30 am - The last two naps of the day went well, but again on the last nap I overslept my alarm. It is a miracle that I woke up at all in only 1 hr 25 minutes considering it was still night. I still feel pretty good and having a schedule for my awake time is very helpful.

Day 2

[7:30 am] As the sun peaks over the valley, I sit here slightly tired and wondering what happened. Yes, the 45 minute nap I took last night was on purpose, but the last nap turned into an accident - my alarm didn't wake me up. 1.5 hours later I woke up with the sound of Baxter (our dog) being let out of his room by a roomate. I'm not going to kill myself over this longer nap, but I am wondering why my alarm clock didn't go off.

Reflecting on my first night, I realize it was not the best. Yes, the alarm issue didn't help matters any, but besides that my eyes didn't want to stay open. It was a struggle even watching the "Cosmic Conflict" movie, and even playing piano worked better with my eyes closed and relaxed then them open trying to read the music. Other then that part of tiredness, I made it through pretty well. 

[4:16 pm] Today I went to church, and although I was tired it went by quickly. Being a deacon made me do some running around helping, and that helped my mind get off how tired I was. When I was seated and started to feel a little drowsy I doodled to get my mind off it, and that helped immensely.  About halfway through the church service, I went to the music room in the church basement and took a nap. Since then I've been doing pretty well, but still am coveting more sleep. It strikes me how long time seems to be when you are looking forward to something, even if you are trying to fill the extra time with stuff to do.

Birth Pains - Day 1

Perhaps it was my daredevil mind that caused me to want to push towards complete insanity. At the time it looked like a logical idea, but now the future is cast in horrendous reality.

To succeed would be enviable, but in order to do that a hellish experience awaits.

I don't remember what promoted it, but last week found me staring at the computer screen with a growing anticipation to try out a rediscovered concept - the concept that our body can function on only two hours of sleep a day. How is that possible, or even healthy?

Apparently our brains goes through several cycles of sleep when our heads hit the bed. Of all those cycles, REM sleep is the most important; by conditioning the brain just to use REM sleep, two hours of sleep is very doable to live off of. For me that means 4-5 naps that are 30 minutes long throughout the day (Dyxamion style of polyphasic sleep). But to get to the point where the body is forced to make a nap solely a REM cycle requires some major sleep deprivation, and that is where I am heading.

There are two remaining questions: why do I want to try this and when should I start? To be honest, at first my reasons for doing this where very time centred  Hypothetically, I could get in more then 50 hours of piano practice a week! This mindset changed the more I thought about it and read up on polyphasic sleep - if I try it for the benefits odds are I will fail when the going gets tough, but if I try this as an experiment I might just succeed.

Right now I'm just a tad bit tired to really think it through, other then say I am really curious as to the outcome of this next week. The events have lined up perfectly for me to start this new sleep system today, Friday night. I've already had two naps, and while my fatigue has gotten slightly worse and worse, I'm still awake. It is a weird feeling because I've only pulled one all-nighter in my lifetime and even that was hard to do. I know I'm just feeling the birth pains of the beginning of a tiredness I've never known. Bring it on.