Saturday, 2 June 2012

Polyphasic Sleep Schedule - Day 12

Day 12:

Yesterday I found it incredibly easy to stay awake in the early hours of the morning before my core sleep. I think this is both down to the fact that I had mu first proper twenty minute nap earlier in the day and also the fact that despite the tiredness my body has actually got used to sleeping at 3:30am. I initially planned to go to sleep at 2:00am, but I was too energetic and it took me half an hour of conscious effort to help me become tired.

When I did eventually fall to sleep I remember it being incredibly restless, waking at least a couple of times during the night. All my core sleeps so far have been quality, yet this one wasn't. The only thing I can think of to put this down to is the fact that my body had already acclimatized to being awake until 3:30am. A couple of nights should fix the time difference though.

Here's a picture of my sleep cycles for the night:

According to the information not shown on the picture, I slept an average of 4 hours and 45 minutes. The reason for it being 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes is because I set the smart alarm to wake me up at my lightest stage of predicted sleep within half an hour either way of my designated alarm time. I woke up instantly, and so far this app has seriously impressed me.

According to the statistics, out of the 4.75 hours I was asleep, I spent about 2 hours of it in deep wave sleep and about 1.5 hours of it in REM, meaning the other 1.75 hours were spent on transitions stages. Personally I'm not completely sold on the idea of totally eliminating these supposedly less useful stages of sleep, the last thing I want is to die an early death due to thus far inconsequential data. The interesting this is though, when you look at my graph and consider the amount of REM I actually got.

According to this graph and the detailed statistics, I went through all five stages of sleep in 4.5 hours, as can be seen by the fact that apparently I slept the scientifically recommended amount of REM stage sleep in that short amount of time. Now I'm starting to see why I was finding it hard to nap during the day; for some inexplicable reason my sleep stages have actually repartitioned and compressed themselves during my core sleep. That's not normal. I've seen many sleep graphs posted on the internet of long experienced polyphasic sleepers and they still only go through about the average of two to three cycles with no more than 45 minutes of REM in that same period of 4.5 hours. Maybe I'm actually just naturally resilient to sleep deprivation or something and only now I've had the chance to find out. I'll be keeping an eye on this for sure, maybe last night was just a fluke.

As for my nap, that didn't go too great today. I got to about twenty minutes before I was, unknowingly to her, disturbed by my mum. I decided to try again twenty minutes later and managed to fall into a light dream for about five minutes before being disturbed yet again! I gave up after that, there was just too much going on and there was no way I was gonna get much more sleep done my laying down. It left me feeling irritated and grumpy though for about an hour afterwards.

Other than that, and the still horrendous black circles under my eyes, I've been feeling fine. I haven't been feeling sleepy or tired or anything. Apparently week two is supposed to be the hardest yet I seem to be breezing through it, and that's without barely any day time sleep. I have literally been living on 4.5 hours monophasic for the most part of the last two weeks, if you consider the fact I just can't nap during the day. I would be concerned about the REM rebound but that should've happened by now, and technically if my body is somehow actually squashing all five cycles together in such a short core sleep, then supposedly I wouldn't need the day time nap. I have to admit though, even if I don't sleep during the day it's nice just to switch my brain off for a while. It seems to have become more of a meditative exercise than anything, which is just as beneficial as actual sleep in its own ways.

I have 3.5 hours minimum before I can drift off to sleep for the night. My eyes are feeling somewhat dry tonight, but I think more than anything that's down to the lack of water I've had today. Over all I still feel quite alert. As for tomorrow morning, I think I've decided to skip the sleep-in for now and carry on with the schedule, I don't want to confuse my body and thereby my sleep cycle test results.

Also, I feel like this tweaked schedule is a lot better, due to it being more in sync with my body's natural inborn circadian rhythm. I've written down a list of things I've always wanted to do, but have never had the time nor the energy to do, and I've loosely arranged them around the extra waking hours in my life and the best optimal times for that specific activity. I say loosely because I've given myself a total of three hours to procrastinate through the day on the internet. So with that included, this is a brief outline of what I currently want to achieve during a period of 24 hours:

7:00am-8:00am ~ I'm going to take up martial arts for self defense, going along with a morning workout video thing. This is is to get my blood pumping and to fully wake me up to be awake and alert for the day to come.

8:00am-2:00pm/2:30pm ~ This is when I have to get ready and do some homeschooling. I have both breakfast and lunch in this time period.

2:00pm-2:30pm/2:30pm-3:00pm ~ Read a book. This is because it's the time right before my nap, and personally I don't find reading at all that much stimulating. I feel it's a good activity to wind down to sleep from.

3:30pm-4:30pm ~ Learn Russian for half an hour or so between this time period. My mind will be tired but ready to tackle new problems after my short term memory being wiped clean and given a new slate thanks to the nap.

4:30pm-7:30pm ~ Make dinner, eat, do house jobs, chat with family.

7:30pm-9:30pm - Write fiction/write music. This has always my most creative phase of any 24 hour day and I can do incredibly creative things during this time of day.

9:30-10:30~ Get sent to bed (yes I'm 18, yes I know), and use the time to write my blog, ect.

10:30pm-2:00am ~ Catch up on the tv shows I never watch. This is quite a relaxing period, and personally I can't stand doing anything too creative before sleep, it interferes with my ability to get to sleep.

The main thing I want to get out of this really is learning how to use all this extra time effectively. There's no point of me gaining all this extra time just to wile it away on double the amount of pointless procrastination. I think many people don't prepare for this hurdle of polyphasic sleeping when they start. They enjoy all the extra time, yet have no idea what to do with it because it's onslaught is so sudden, and they have no idea how to loosely schedule it around their body's own natural circadian clock. I have been a victim of this over the last couple of weeks and that's why I've finally ventured to do this scheduling my day thing.

Otherwise, I'm intrigued as to how tomorrow will go. Everything's going well so far but I'll probably return with another log anyway, albeit a much shorter one. Untill then.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

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