This week has been interesting. I started off with the Everyman 3 schedule, but ever so gradually I've been oversleeping more and more. The problem I've been having is that for some reason I'm not having good quality naps during the day and I'm feeling really shitty. At times I haven't even been able to sleep. It's frustrating me to no end, and it's causing me to oversleep during the night. This week I've slept an average of 5.7hrs, which is pathetic. I may aswell be back on my original biphasic, I'd gain an extra half an hour on that, and it'd be twice as easy.
Today is the final straw. Last night I woke after 3hrs naturally, and then for some reason I stayed awake for about ten minutes and then decided to switch all my alarms off and go back to sleep. I think I figured I'd wake naturally after another couple of hours. Well, you could imagine my panic when I woke from a really nice dream, and saw light seeping in through my eye mask. I'd slept eight fucking hours, straight through, and I was still in the same position when I fell asleep.
I'm not impressed. Especially as I had reason to wake up early. It's not as if I'm out of things to do. Right now I half-way through watching Supernatural, True Blood, Misfits, and Queer as Folk, plus I wanted to start on Stargate Universe. On top of that I'm writing a Supernatural fanfic, and I plan it to have at least around 120,00 words. I have two months to write it before the new series comes out, meaning I have to write at least 3000 words per day. As I'm writing it on iPod that can take between three to four hours, although I've been splitting the writing itself up. But that's not the point. The point is, I got nothing done last night and it's really irritating me.
In order to make up for all the oversleeping I've been doing I've decided to pull an all-nighter, I have lots of writing to catch up on after all. Eight hours should pull me through easily, perhaps with a couple of short naps, although I sure as won't be taking them during the night for fear of not waking up again afterwards. I remember the last time I slept 6hrs accidentally. It pulled me through for twenty hours before I had to force myself to sleep. Of course though, this will create a sleep pressure to sleep more tomorrow night. I've decided to go with this. I once read an article about a guy who was on polyphasic sleep, but had to return to monophasic. However, he found that eight hours could sustain him for two days, and now he only sleeps every other night.
Using this, I've decided to fast for at least 16hrs to reset my body clock, and then start on this strange way of monophasic sleep. That way my body can be satisfied with a full night of sleep. Plus it should be easier to stay up in the night as initially I'll have lots of energy, and I won't have to worry about waking up properly from a nap and doing stupid things such as switching all my alarms off and falling back to sleep. This sleep schedule hasn't been tried very often, although those people who have tried it show varying success with it. Some people even do it naturally as they have a rare 48hr body clock. So I think it's worth a try. I want to see how it compares to regular monophasic. There would be many advantages to this over polyphasic such as:
-No need to take naps in the day if you're unable to take them
-No need to nap during the middle of a party. You'd be staying up all night and morning anyway.
-No need to stop in the middle of what you're doing to take a nap.
-No trouble with unnatural sleep inertia.
-No need to rearrange your life to fit in with everyone else. It's more natural.
-Possibly being able to have up to half a day to yourself for projects, excetera.
As can be seen, most these advantages are nap based. I want to experiment with it though, because it could really help those people who need extra time but can't afford to nap in the day. I'm going to start with about 8 to 9 hours every other night, which will give me a healthy mean of about 4.5hrs per night. I'll probably do that for about a month. I want my sleep cycles to rearrange themselves naturally first, if they will rearrange themselves as I'm not exactly going back to sleeping normally. At the moment I fall straight into REM and cycle through every 45 to 60 minutes, which I'm not sure is healthy. I think last night I had about ten cycles, which is twice the normal amount. But that's what compressing my sleep polyphasically has done to me. I don't regret it though, it seems like it would be much more efficient as I'm getting all the important sleep at the beginning instead of the end.
I think though, if that goes alright I might do one of two things. I might either gradually cut my sleep down to six hours every two days, or stay with the nine hours, but let it hold me out every three days, perhaps with a couple of short naps. I do believe though, that six hours every two days would be more practical because nine hours of sleep can't be gotten very night.
It's gonna be weird though. I've actually only ever done one all-nighter in my whole life, and I passed out after 27hrs, which I know isn't particularly impressive. I was always afraid of all-nighters. I'm not so much anymore thanks to all my experimenting with polyphasic sleep, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to hold out a lot longer this time, but I have to admit the thought of staying awake all night still gives me chills. I'm not sure why, it's just always been one of those things for me. I really hope though that I can contribute something to the polyphasic community by doing this. It's not a polyphasic schedule in and of itself, but it could certainly be a very good alternative.
Showing posts with label everyman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label everyman. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Back to Everyman 3
I think I've finally got fed up of constantly switching between schedules. It's starting to get very annoying. I had a good run on Everyman 1.5 for a week, with the intention of working my way down to Spamayl. I encountered one tiny problem though; boredom. Sure, there are plenty of things I could potentially fill my day with, every day, but as humans our attention span isn't that great and it becomes tiring mentally, even if you're not actually tired in the sense of the word. I found myself accidentally falling to sleep quite often due to boredom. At night I would finish whatever fun activities I was doing, reading a fanfic, watching an episode, chatting to acquaintances, and then I would just lay in bed mulling everything over, unsure what to do next. And because only sleeping three hours per day means falling asleep happens in under one minute when having a restful mind, I found I would either blackout and not wake up for a couple of hours, or I would end up micro-sleeping away a whole hour or two, just because I had nothing I actually felt I need to do. Also, my morning nap was confusing my body because it was so close after my core sleep, and so I would just think, "right, whatever, no point in waking up." I had no motive. And so whilst sleeping only 2 -3hrs a day is awesome, I found it a little impractical. And since I'm fed up of experimenting now, I've decided to just go with the schedule that's the easiest, the most efficient, and the most practical. I've decided to just try and stick with the Everyman 3 schedule.
I've fallen quite easily into the Everyman 3 schedule, albeit accidentally. I'll sleep between 3-4hrs per night between the hours of 3am and 7am. I'm not particularly a morning person, finding it easier to stay awake in the late night before a core sleep rather than after a core in the early-ish morning. And although I like being awake before anyone else, chances are I may end up falling into an Everyman 2 schedule on weekends or something, with a forfeit on the afternoon nap. But I should be averaging around about 4hrs sleep like this. Not too much, not too little. I've found it the perfect amount of time to sleep in the past. And of course if I ever do need to sleep less again I can always just postpone my core with another nap and then fall into the next Everyman schedule up like that. I've experimented enough now to be able to think that I can just switch between them as and when needed. No matter what though, I shan't be going back monophasic, or sleeping more than 6hrs ever again. If I do need to go back to monophasic then I'll just sleep 6hrs on it's own. This is my own personal Everyman guideline:
6hrs = no naps
5hrs = 1 nap (Evening)
4hrs = 2 naps (Evening, Night)
3hrs= 3 naps (Afternoon, Evening, Night)
2hrs = 4 naps (Late Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night)
1hr = 5 naps (Late Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night, Early Morning)
What's interesting is when I first started this experiment almost 3 months ago I started with the Everyman 2 schedule and found it unbelievably difficult and near impossible, giving up in favour for biphasic. Now look, I'm switching between all sorts of schedules with barely any hassle. I'm not saying it's consistent, but it's not difficult either. But now I favour consistency and am going to make Everyman 3 my lifestyle choice. I shall probably keep this briefly updated. I think if anything I'll just log the times I've slept and leave it at that.
I've fallen quite easily into the Everyman 3 schedule, albeit accidentally. I'll sleep between 3-4hrs per night between the hours of 3am and 7am. I'm not particularly a morning person, finding it easier to stay awake in the late night before a core sleep rather than after a core in the early-ish morning. And although I like being awake before anyone else, chances are I may end up falling into an Everyman 2 schedule on weekends or something, with a forfeit on the afternoon nap. But I should be averaging around about 4hrs sleep like this. Not too much, not too little. I've found it the perfect amount of time to sleep in the past. And of course if I ever do need to sleep less again I can always just postpone my core with another nap and then fall into the next Everyman schedule up like that. I've experimented enough now to be able to think that I can just switch between them as and when needed. No matter what though, I shan't be going back monophasic, or sleeping more than 6hrs ever again. If I do need to go back to monophasic then I'll just sleep 6hrs on it's own. This is my own personal Everyman guideline:
6hrs = no naps
5hrs = 1 nap (Evening)
4hrs = 2 naps (Evening, Night)
3hrs= 3 naps (Afternoon, Evening, Night)
2hrs = 4 naps (Late Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night)
1hr = 5 naps (Late Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night, Early Morning)
What's interesting is when I first started this experiment almost 3 months ago I started with the Everyman 2 schedule and found it unbelievably difficult and near impossible, giving up in favour for biphasic. Now look, I'm switching between all sorts of schedules with barely any hassle. I'm not saying it's consistent, but it's not difficult either. But now I favour consistency and am going to make Everyman 3 my lifestyle choice. I shall probably keep this briefly updated. I think if anything I'll just log the times I've slept and leave it at that.
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Everyman Spamayl Adaption - Days 9 to 10
Day 9 was good. My nap quality went back to normal, whatever that was on day 8. Felt a little tired half an hour leading up to the nap times themselves but no biggie.
Day 10 went well as well. Last night though went a little awry. I accidentally fell asleep thinking at about 12:30am and didn't wake till 3am. I felt good upon waking but decided I should go back to bed to keep the pattern as I usually go to bed at that time now. So I put my alarm on for 5am like usual. Except when I woke I couldn't be bothered to stay awake. So I fell back to sleep at 6am and woke up at 8am. One thing I've noticed is that the more I sleep the more I feel the need to sleep, which is where all my will power disappeared to. So altogether I slept about 6.5hrs but in parts.
It felt like an eternity. I don't feel particularly bad since it wasn't anything like sleeping 8hrs, except the fact my head feels extremely sensitive, almost migraine like, but after looking at my sleep graph it's obvious that the last two hours were completely pointless. I don't like the way everything seems though. It's like the world seems different on more sleep, like it's there but it's not really. It feels like a dream. Which doesn't really make sense but I don't like it. And of course my day feels much too short.
I doubt I'll be able to nap today. And considering 3hrs of sleep can make me go 22hrs awake, I wouldn't be surprised if I stay all the way up to 3am without a lick of tiredness today. It shouldn't be too difficult to get back into it though. A sleep-in never killed anyone.
So today is a bit of a failure, but mainly out of laziness than anything else. I haven't actually slept more than six hours in over about two months. It feels so wrong.
Day 10 went well as well. Last night though went a little awry. I accidentally fell asleep thinking at about 12:30am and didn't wake till 3am. I felt good upon waking but decided I should go back to bed to keep the pattern as I usually go to bed at that time now. So I put my alarm on for 5am like usual. Except when I woke I couldn't be bothered to stay awake. So I fell back to sleep at 6am and woke up at 8am. One thing I've noticed is that the more I sleep the more I feel the need to sleep, which is where all my will power disappeared to. So altogether I slept about 6.5hrs but in parts.
It felt like an eternity. I don't feel particularly bad since it wasn't anything like sleeping 8hrs, except the fact my head feels extremely sensitive, almost migraine like, but after looking at my sleep graph it's obvious that the last two hours were completely pointless. I don't like the way everything seems though. It's like the world seems different on more sleep, like it's there but it's not really. It feels like a dream. Which doesn't really make sense but I don't like it. And of course my day feels much too short.
I doubt I'll be able to nap today. And considering 3hrs of sleep can make me go 22hrs awake, I wouldn't be surprised if I stay all the way up to 3am without a lick of tiredness today. It shouldn't be too difficult to get back into it though. A sleep-in never killed anyone.
So today is a bit of a failure, but mainly out of laziness than anything else. I haven't actually slept more than six hours in over about two months. It feels so wrong.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Everyman Spamayl Adpation - Day 8
Last night I skipped my evening nap as I didn't feel tired thanks to that oversleep in the afternoon. The next nap I took after that was at 11pm, which went as normal. I was okay all night, no problems. I went to bed at 3am feeling a little hyper, as I'm still not used to going to bed so early. I got woken up by my smart alarm at 4:45am and was feeling a little tired but preocuppied myself with some more youtube fan vids until it was time for my next nap. For reference, I haven't had any hallucinations in the last 30hrs or so, which I really see as an improvement.
For some reason though this morning, I decided to take two naps back to back, which I think really ended up as three naps back to back and about half an hour after that of microsleeping due to laziness, but I'm not really sure as it was all a little blurry. I probably didn't actually sleep more than half an hour extra all together, I'm not sure. My need to stay in bed and think in the morning is my downfall. But I forgot that I'd had so many naps in the morning back to back, and so come my afternoon nap when I couldn't fall asleep even after 20 minutes I got really worried. I didn't feel tired, but I've fallen asleep to every afternoon nap for the last month now, so of course I was a little worried. But then I remembered all the back to back naps I had in the morning and it kind of astounded me. It really does work then with this SPAMAYL approach, that if I need to skip a nap later in the day, then I can take it back to back with the last nap and be fine.
Considering I may have had three back to back naps then I may not be able to sleep for my evening nap as well, but we'll see at the time. I shan't really be worried about it. If for some reason I have just instantaneously lost the ability to nap then I can just go full on SPAMAYL for a day or two and that should fix it, as I'll be so tired that I'll have to sleep during the naps. But that's a far away possibility at the moment. Otherwise, I've come to an average of four naps per day, this here is a pie chart I compiled of the times I'm roughly falling into sleeping:
I was initially worried about that large gap in the morning but two days into the schedule and it's caused me no further problems. I can go the whole morning with no tirednes, completely alert until the early afternoon when I just have to crash for 15mins. This is about 3hrs sleep altogether. I know that at the moment it's not exactly consistent (I'll make an excuse as it's the weekend), but the point is for the last four days or so I've been sleeping around 3 to 3.5hrs with no problems, except for hallucinations early on. I really love this schedule. It's the best I've been on as of yet. Also, it feels like the day almost never ends as the only credible amount of time I sleep for is the early-mid morning for a couple of hours. It's a very nice feeling. I have no plans to come off this schedule, or this amount of sleep. It agrees with me perfectly. Tomorrow I'll continue sticking to the schedule as I was before the weekend and we'll see what follows.
For some reason though this morning, I decided to take two naps back to back, which I think really ended up as three naps back to back and about half an hour after that of microsleeping due to laziness, but I'm not really sure as it was all a little blurry. I probably didn't actually sleep more than half an hour extra all together, I'm not sure. My need to stay in bed and think in the morning is my downfall. But I forgot that I'd had so many naps in the morning back to back, and so come my afternoon nap when I couldn't fall asleep even after 20 minutes I got really worried. I didn't feel tired, but I've fallen asleep to every afternoon nap for the last month now, so of course I was a little worried. But then I remembered all the back to back naps I had in the morning and it kind of astounded me. It really does work then with this SPAMAYL approach, that if I need to skip a nap later in the day, then I can take it back to back with the last nap and be fine.
Considering I may have had three back to back naps then I may not be able to sleep for my evening nap as well, but we'll see at the time. I shan't really be worried about it. If for some reason I have just instantaneously lost the ability to nap then I can just go full on SPAMAYL for a day or two and that should fix it, as I'll be so tired that I'll have to sleep during the naps. But that's a far away possibility at the moment. Otherwise, I've come to an average of four naps per day, this here is a pie chart I compiled of the times I'm roughly falling into sleeping:
Saturday, 28 July 2012
Everyman Spamayl Adaption - Day 7
Last night went without a hitch again using my new technique to stay awake. I had one hallucination upon waking this morning when I looked at the clock for the time, where I saw creepy red hands reaching out for me, but I shook it off, did some stretches, and carried on with my obsessive stalkish fan-girling behavior over Supernatural on youtube. I actually only had four naps yesterday which seemed to feel a lot better. I don't actually feel the need for five naps anymore.
My morning nap went alright as planned, but I had a little hiccup in my afternoon nap. I couldn't find my phone and I only had a short time period in which to nap, or so I thought, so I decided to use my iPod alarm to wake me up instead. Except it didn't wake me up. I don't know what happened, but I think having earplugs in prevented it from waking me up fully like it should have done, despite it being right next to my head. I ended up sleeping for an hour before my sister appeared and realized and woke me up. It is a little weird too because I didn't even feel tired this time when I went to take a nap. I took it just for the sake of keeping the equilibrium.
So today I think I'll just skip my evening nap as it'll be a miracle if I could sleep for it at all anyway, before carrying on as normal. It's only an oversleep of a grand total of half an hour anyway, not too much of a big deal. I realize this probably puts back my progress a little towards total adaption, which is a shame. Hopefully though I shouldn't have any trouble sliding back into my schedule. It seemed easy enough a few days ago, and it's not as if I overslept for a couple of hours or something. I remember dreaming a lot during the nap, but to be honest it felt like it was full of stage 2 sleep, not exactly productive. Not to mention that it killed most of my afternoon. I don't feel like I've had an afternoon at all today. It doesn't feel very nice. On the other hand it feels like I've just started a new day, like I've just woken up afresh in the morning. I guess that's down to sleeping so long. It feels a little odd.
Energy level wise though I don't actually feel any different compared to say if I'd only slept 15 minutes. It did feel quite pointless. I actually believe I prefer this Everyman 1.5 schedule to the standard triphasic I was praising so highly before. It's a god send, although apparently not as natural as triphasic, which is probably what I would've fallen back into without an alarm. Also, if I were to oversleep at all I'd prefer it to be in the day rather than in the night where it's harder to stay asleep for ridiculous periods of time. I don't really know how long I would've slept for though if I'd been left to sleep for how long. Thank goodness it didn't get to that.
So today has been a little disappointing but I am trying to look on the bright side. I've certainly learned from this. No earplugs if I plan to wake up to my iPod alarm. For reference I found my phone as soon as I woke up by accident...
My morning nap went alright as planned, but I had a little hiccup in my afternoon nap. I couldn't find my phone and I only had a short time period in which to nap, or so I thought, so I decided to use my iPod alarm to wake me up instead. Except it didn't wake me up. I don't know what happened, but I think having earplugs in prevented it from waking me up fully like it should have done, despite it being right next to my head. I ended up sleeping for an hour before my sister appeared and realized and woke me up. It is a little weird too because I didn't even feel tired this time when I went to take a nap. I took it just for the sake of keeping the equilibrium.
So today I think I'll just skip my evening nap as it'll be a miracle if I could sleep for it at all anyway, before carrying on as normal. It's only an oversleep of a grand total of half an hour anyway, not too much of a big deal. I realize this probably puts back my progress a little towards total adaption, which is a shame. Hopefully though I shouldn't have any trouble sliding back into my schedule. It seemed easy enough a few days ago, and it's not as if I overslept for a couple of hours or something. I remember dreaming a lot during the nap, but to be honest it felt like it was full of stage 2 sleep, not exactly productive. Not to mention that it killed most of my afternoon. I don't feel like I've had an afternoon at all today. It doesn't feel very nice. On the other hand it feels like I've just started a new day, like I've just woken up afresh in the morning. I guess that's down to sleeping so long. It feels a little odd.
Energy level wise though I don't actually feel any different compared to say if I'd only slept 15 minutes. It did feel quite pointless. I actually believe I prefer this Everyman 1.5 schedule to the standard triphasic I was praising so highly before. It's a god send, although apparently not as natural as triphasic, which is probably what I would've fallen back into without an alarm. Also, if I were to oversleep at all I'd prefer it to be in the day rather than in the night where it's harder to stay asleep for ridiculous periods of time. I don't really know how long I would've slept for though if I'd been left to sleep for how long. Thank goodness it didn't get to that.
So today has been a little disappointing but I am trying to look on the bright side. I've certainly learned from this. No earplugs if I plan to wake up to my iPod alarm. For reference I found my phone as soon as I woke up by accident...
Friday, 27 July 2012
Everyman Spamayl Adaption - Day 6
Progress!
Yesterday I found I only needed to take 5 naps. I took naps at 7am, 2pm, 7:30pm, 10pm, and 12:30am, along with my core at 3am. However I found myself extremely tired during the evening, around about 5pm, I was literally falling asleep on my feet. I could've done to have a nap there instead but I rarely can there. I know it'll get better though. After a week or so my body should improve the quality of my afternoon nap to help me ride out the whole afternoon and early evening without becoming ridiculously tired. Otherwise no blackouts or oversleeps! Well, not per se, as I'll write below, but generally the last 24hrs have been extremely good. It didn't hit me as hard as I thought it would. Usually in any adaption day 2 is always my hardest so now I know I'm out of the dark and actually have a chance at making this work. It should be plainer sailing from here on out.
I found myself taking micronaps during the early hours of the morning. I was having mild hallucinations too, although now I have experience with them I recognized it for what it was at the time and shook myself right out of it. I tried many things to keep me awake. I tried watching tv as if it's something I'm really interested in it'll wake me up, but I found that I couldn't let it stream without having a million micronaps, and I was having difficulty getting any links to actually work, probably as I was so tired. In the end I found going on youtube and fangirling over some Supernatural fan vids worked. It woke me instantly as obviously fangirling is a dangerous business. I joke, but I guess it's something to do with the onslaught of happy endorphines. It took me about 2hrs to figure out that this was the only thing that was going to keep me awake, but lo and behold 2hrs after this discovery and I was still just as awake. I hadn't experienced anymore microsleeps or hallucinations, or not even the urge to sleep. It was miraculous. I did this first thing in the morning too and I was awake instantly and stayed like that for the rest of the morning. I had no problems. It's definitely my new stay awake trick. Hehe. Me gusta.
I took my core at 3am. The night before I found that waking up after 1hr45mins felt a little premature, so I set my alarm for 2hrs instead with a half an hour gap for my smart alarm to wake me up in. I woke up just before 5am feeling like I'd woken on time. I guess I'm good to go with a 2hr core, with four or five 15 minute naps. So altogether I'm sleeping about 3hrs, which was my initial goal. I'm getting no light sleep now, perhaps 20 minutes at most, and that's a stretch. The first hour cycle of my core was all deep sleep, followed by 20 minutes of my second cycle in deep sleep before being followed up by about 40 minutes of REM sleep. 40 minutes of REM I think is sufficient for a person to live on, but I believe the reason my core is more deep sleep heavy is because although I can't be certain for sure, I think that around the first 5mins of each nap is REM sleep, which would make up for another 20 to 25 minutes. I can't be certain for sure because it's all at the beginning, I can't remember and I have no zeo, but today I decided to take a short timed 5 minute nap to help me through the large morning wake period and I awoke in the middle of a dream, which was the last in a series of separate dreams. So that's why I believe at least the first 5 minutes of my naps are REM, whilst my core is cushioning all my deep sleep.
One weird thing I found though is that I keep waking up with hiccups recently. I recently read someone else's Uberman adaption log who said they get this too, but that it went after a few days. I can't for the life of me figure out why this is but it is annoying for sure. The only other thing I have to report is about my idea of setting an alarm every half an hour during the night and morning hours just in case I blackout or oversleep. In the night I didn't need it as I managed to prevent myself from blacking out, but it came in extremely useful in the morning. I have a tendency to want to stay in bed and think for at least half an hour, and it's usually the cause of all my oversleeps. I think I went through about 2 or 3 backup alarms spaced five minutes after each other before finally realizing I needed to get up and move. I did a few stretches before going on youtube to try out my new stay awake trick and was okay until my morning nap. I don't know why exactly but my morning nap always feels so freaking long, like I've been sleeping for another 2hrs. I woke up and again stayed in bed in order to think, out of habit. Of course if it hadn't been for my alarm set every half an hour I would've overslept, as by the time the alarm went off, 10 minutes after initially waking, I was already in stage 1 sleep. So all these alarms were definitely a good idea, and now with my new stay awake trick, tonight should be a breeze!
Yesterday I found I only needed to take 5 naps. I took naps at 7am, 2pm, 7:30pm, 10pm, and 12:30am, along with my core at 3am. However I found myself extremely tired during the evening, around about 5pm, I was literally falling asleep on my feet. I could've done to have a nap there instead but I rarely can there. I know it'll get better though. After a week or so my body should improve the quality of my afternoon nap to help me ride out the whole afternoon and early evening without becoming ridiculously tired. Otherwise no blackouts or oversleeps! Well, not per se, as I'll write below, but generally the last 24hrs have been extremely good. It didn't hit me as hard as I thought it would. Usually in any adaption day 2 is always my hardest so now I know I'm out of the dark and actually have a chance at making this work. It should be plainer sailing from here on out.
I found myself taking micronaps during the early hours of the morning. I was having mild hallucinations too, although now I have experience with them I recognized it for what it was at the time and shook myself right out of it. I tried many things to keep me awake. I tried watching tv as if it's something I'm really interested in it'll wake me up, but I found that I couldn't let it stream without having a million micronaps, and I was having difficulty getting any links to actually work, probably as I was so tired. In the end I found going on youtube and fangirling over some Supernatural fan vids worked. It woke me instantly as obviously fangirling is a dangerous business. I joke, but I guess it's something to do with the onslaught of happy endorphines. It took me about 2hrs to figure out that this was the only thing that was going to keep me awake, but lo and behold 2hrs after this discovery and I was still just as awake. I hadn't experienced anymore microsleeps or hallucinations, or not even the urge to sleep. It was miraculous. I did this first thing in the morning too and I was awake instantly and stayed like that for the rest of the morning. I had no problems. It's definitely my new stay awake trick. Hehe. Me gusta.
I took my core at 3am. The night before I found that waking up after 1hr45mins felt a little premature, so I set my alarm for 2hrs instead with a half an hour gap for my smart alarm to wake me up in. I woke up just before 5am feeling like I'd woken on time. I guess I'm good to go with a 2hr core, with four or five 15 minute naps. So altogether I'm sleeping about 3hrs, which was my initial goal. I'm getting no light sleep now, perhaps 20 minutes at most, and that's a stretch. The first hour cycle of my core was all deep sleep, followed by 20 minutes of my second cycle in deep sleep before being followed up by about 40 minutes of REM sleep. 40 minutes of REM I think is sufficient for a person to live on, but I believe the reason my core is more deep sleep heavy is because although I can't be certain for sure, I think that around the first 5mins of each nap is REM sleep, which would make up for another 20 to 25 minutes. I can't be certain for sure because it's all at the beginning, I can't remember and I have no zeo, but today I decided to take a short timed 5 minute nap to help me through the large morning wake period and I awoke in the middle of a dream, which was the last in a series of separate dreams. So that's why I believe at least the first 5 minutes of my naps are REM, whilst my core is cushioning all my deep sleep.
One weird thing I found though is that I keep waking up with hiccups recently. I recently read someone else's Uberman adaption log who said they get this too, but that it went after a few days. I can't for the life of me figure out why this is but it is annoying for sure. The only other thing I have to report is about my idea of setting an alarm every half an hour during the night and morning hours just in case I blackout or oversleep. In the night I didn't need it as I managed to prevent myself from blacking out, but it came in extremely useful in the morning. I have a tendency to want to stay in bed and think for at least half an hour, and it's usually the cause of all my oversleeps. I think I went through about 2 or 3 backup alarms spaced five minutes after each other before finally realizing I needed to get up and move. I did a few stretches before going on youtube to try out my new stay awake trick and was okay until my morning nap. I don't know why exactly but my morning nap always feels so freaking long, like I've been sleeping for another 2hrs. I woke up and again stayed in bed in order to think, out of habit. Of course if it hadn't been for my alarm set every half an hour I would've overslept, as by the time the alarm went off, 10 minutes after initially waking, I was already in stage 1 sleep. So all these alarms were definitely a good idea, and now with my new stay awake trick, tonight should be a breeze!
Thursday, 26 July 2012
Everyman Spamayl Adaption - Day 5
Today went really well with my new core time. Last night I had only a nap at 11pm as along with the afternoon nap I'd slept 4.5hours the night before and so had basically reverted to an Everyman 4 schedule. I didn't see this too much as a problem though because I was expecting to feel quite tired by 3am, which I was, which coincided perfectly with my plans. I fell asleep instantly. I actually woke up 15 minutes later, which is interesting as it appears my body really is adjusting to my naps. I woke at 4:45am without any problems with falling back to sleep. It was really weird going to sleep at 3am and waking up at the time I would usually go to bed though, it felt like the mental lines I'd established between night and day had been usurped. Now I have to establish new boundaries between day and night in my head. I have to admit though it feels much more natural going to bed at 3am, it still feels like it's night. In fact after looking back at my graph it's obvious to see that the quality of sleep was twice as good than at the time I usually take it at. The whole first 50 minutes was comatized deep sleep, followed by a second 50 minute cycle of all REM sleep. Absolutely perfectly partitioned I think. I hope it stays like this.
However, that was the easy part. For some reason I can't fathom I was out of it for the first hour upon waking and I couldn't focus properly. The funny thing is that I didn't realize this until looking back later. Here's a tweet I woke right upon waking: "That hasn't woken the nap quality was life xaving. But don't lice is hp omf, white.o" If I hadn't've looked back at it I wouldn't have realized how out of it I really was. What that was meant to read as I have no idea, but at the time I remember thinking it made perfect sense. I do remember fighting for consciousness though, despite waking after REM and having virtually no sleep inertia. I went to fight it off by pacing up and down my room for about 45 minutes. I actually even fell asleep whilst pacing and almost crashed into my bed frame. It was only my autonomic system sensing my weightlessness as I swayed to the floor that woke me up. I guess that proves that you can't fall asleep standing up or walking without waking.
In the end though I decided to change tactics and decided to try watching some Misfits since I'm really quite into that now and figured something interesting enough might wake me up. Well whilst waiting for the video to load I blacked out a number of times. I was sat up on my bed though and everytime I blacked out my muscles went limp and my iPod fell out of my hands into my lap, which ended up waking me up. This happened about five times until Misfits loaded, it couldn't have taken more than a minute or two to stream. And then as by magic as soon as Misfits started playing I woke up. Just like that. It was so weird. At least I know what to try the first thing I wake up tomorrow morning. Otherwise I had my first nap at about 6:30am, which I awoke from after five minutes. I decided to reset my alarm for another ten minutes, which went fine.
I was a little tired for the first couple of hours after waking but ever since I feel like I've had twice the amount of energy than usual. I've only needed one afternoon nap at 2pm so far. Also, my nap quality is still increasing in quality. I seem to be waking from deep sleep in all of them now. That's not too much of a problem in the afternoon, but in the evening when it's the strongest it takes all my will power not to fall back to sleep. I keep thinking I'll probably pay tonight with more blackouts, but I won't be so quick to judge yet. Also, the day feels like it's going so slow. I often keep thinking it's later than it actually is. Part of me thinks "how much more longer till the end of the day?" end of the day being 3am now. Considering I've been up since 4:30am you could imagine how that would feel. So far I've actually only slept 2hrs. I'm hoping to get another half an hour in at least.
As for oversleeping I've invented a better way to preventing that or blacking out from happening. Basically, every half an hour, nap times excluded of course, I've set an alarm. The purpose of this is to A) wake me up after 30 minutes maximum if I do blackout, and B) to keep me awake as I have to get up and do some pacing or stretching for five minutes after the alarm goes off. Also I have multiple alarms set for my core time, four set five minutes apart, with an extra set 20 minutes after. They all have difficult maths questions and other brain games that have to be answered before the alarm went off. I had a practice run last night and it went very well. I'm hoping this system will work tonight and perhaps for the next few nights as I try to adjust to this schedule. So far so good though. Then again the first day is always the most misleading.
However, that was the easy part. For some reason I can't fathom I was out of it for the first hour upon waking and I couldn't focus properly. The funny thing is that I didn't realize this until looking back later. Here's a tweet I woke right upon waking: "That hasn't woken the nap quality was life xaving. But don't lice is hp omf, white.o" If I hadn't've looked back at it I wouldn't have realized how out of it I really was. What that was meant to read as I have no idea, but at the time I remember thinking it made perfect sense. I do remember fighting for consciousness though, despite waking after REM and having virtually no sleep inertia. I went to fight it off by pacing up and down my room for about 45 minutes. I actually even fell asleep whilst pacing and almost crashed into my bed frame. It was only my autonomic system sensing my weightlessness as I swayed to the floor that woke me up. I guess that proves that you can't fall asleep standing up or walking without waking.
In the end though I decided to change tactics and decided to try watching some Misfits since I'm really quite into that now and figured something interesting enough might wake me up. Well whilst waiting for the video to load I blacked out a number of times. I was sat up on my bed though and everytime I blacked out my muscles went limp and my iPod fell out of my hands into my lap, which ended up waking me up. This happened about five times until Misfits loaded, it couldn't have taken more than a minute or two to stream. And then as by magic as soon as Misfits started playing I woke up. Just like that. It was so weird. At least I know what to try the first thing I wake up tomorrow morning. Otherwise I had my first nap at about 6:30am, which I awoke from after five minutes. I decided to reset my alarm for another ten minutes, which went fine.
I was a little tired for the first couple of hours after waking but ever since I feel like I've had twice the amount of energy than usual. I've only needed one afternoon nap at 2pm so far. Also, my nap quality is still increasing in quality. I seem to be waking from deep sleep in all of them now. That's not too much of a problem in the afternoon, but in the evening when it's the strongest it takes all my will power not to fall back to sleep. I keep thinking I'll probably pay tonight with more blackouts, but I won't be so quick to judge yet. Also, the day feels like it's going so slow. I often keep thinking it's later than it actually is. Part of me thinks "how much more longer till the end of the day?" end of the day being 3am now. Considering I've been up since 4:30am you could imagine how that would feel. So far I've actually only slept 2hrs. I'm hoping to get another half an hour in at least.
As for oversleeping I've invented a better way to preventing that or blacking out from happening. Basically, every half an hour, nap times excluded of course, I've set an alarm. The purpose of this is to A) wake me up after 30 minutes maximum if I do blackout, and B) to keep me awake as I have to get up and do some pacing or stretching for five minutes after the alarm goes off. Also I have multiple alarms set for my core time, four set five minutes apart, with an extra set 20 minutes after. They all have difficult maths questions and other brain games that have to be answered before the alarm went off. I had a practice run last night and it went very well. I'm hoping this system will work tonight and perhaps for the next few nights as I try to adjust to this schedule. So far so good though. Then again the first day is always the most misleading.
Monday, 23 July 2012
Everyman Spamayl Adaption - Day 2
Last night went very well. I am so glad I'm back to staying up the whole night without any problems. In fact it feels like it's been so long without staying up all night that staying awake till 5am felt daunting for the first time in a long time. I had a nap yesterday at 2pm, 7:30pm, 11pm, and then again at 2am, before having a 3hr 15min core at 5am. The 11pm nap I left a little later than usual so I was a little overtired and it took me a good 15 minutes to fall asleep. The 2am one wasn't really needed, I just put it there so it was halfway between my night nap and my core sleep. It could have been done to be put forward to 3am though, I notice I get really tired around then. So that's what I'll do tonight. I'm not too sure how tonight will fare but I feel like it should be ok. No more sleep deprivation. I am having a problem with oversleeping for my core at the moment thanks to my body trying to catch up on lost sleep from my cold turkey spamayl attempt this weekend, but as long as I be rigid with my wake up times I should be fine. In fact if it wasn't for my sister waking up just after me this morning and chucking teddies at me on my past orders I probably would've overslept a good hour. Thankfully as it was she'd caught me just in time and I'd only overslept 5 minutes. So this is the one thing I'm dedicated to nailing before moving on to shortening my core and adding more naps. After all, if I can't wake up after my standard 3hr core, then how am I supposed to wake up after shortening it? No, better that I learn to wake up on time first. Hopefully being dedicated enough it should only take me five days at most. Then I can move on. So unless I have any more problems I probably won't update until that day arrives.
Sunday, 22 July 2012
Everyman Spamayl Adaption - Day 1
I'm sad to say that last night I failed once more. I managed to prevent myself from blacking out by pacing up and down my room, but I overslept twice. The first time I overslept it was by half an hour only, which isn't too much of a problem. Although for some reason for the first half an hour from waking I was experiencing some very vivid and freaky hallucinations. Which is a first for me in my life ever, and definitely not desirable again. The main problem came about though when I went for my core sleep; I didn't wake up for another four hours. I can now see that plunging into this is not the answer. I've decided yet again to go about this in a different way, as the end goal remains the same, to be a fully adapted Spamayl sleeper, perhaps with a short core, by lengthening the adaption period.
My body obviously can't override the urge to sleep for longer than at least a couple of hours in the morning, as I've been sleeping like that for a while now. So I've decided to go about this by following a basic Everyman 3 schedule for the first week, except with floating naps as in Spamayl, instead of having fixed nap times. Usually an Everyman 3 schedule consists of a 3 hour core with three 20 minute naps, yet as stated in an earlier post, I prefer 15 minute naps, so I shall be taking four of those instead of three. This shouldn't be too much of a stretch as I was sleeping a number of different ways for naps before, yet the 3 hour core was always constant. This will give me 4 hours sleep altogether, which should be enough for me to live on, as before I started this I was sleeping an average of 4.5 hours comfortably, whilst giving my body enough time to adapt to repartitioning my 15 minute naps.
After a week or so when I feel adapted enough, the idea is to cut 45 minutes off the end of my core and replace it with another 15 minute nap in the day. And after a week or so of that, repeat, and so on and so on until I'm at my goal of sleeping between 7 and 9 naps a day, perhaps with or without a core. This way it should take me at least a month to adapt, and probably two at most. It is longer this way, but it should be the most pain free. It also gives me a tangible goal to work towards. The idea is to cut my needed amount of sleep down to a minimum of 3 hours, although I'm sure that once I'm adapted to this schedule, 2 hours won't be much of a push from time to time.
Here is a series of pie charts I compiled to show how the ideal adaption process would take place. Remember that although the naps aren't fixed they would be around about these times as they're more ideal, and because I feel tired at these times.)
First week with a 3hr core and four 15 minute naps = a grand total of 4hrs sleep:
Second week with a 2.25hr core and five 15 minute naps = a grand total of 3.5hrs sleep:
Third week with a 1.5hr core and six 15 minute naps = a grand total of 3hrs sleep:
Fourth week with a 45min core and about seven 15 minute naps = a grand total of 2.5hrs sleep:
Note that I haven't put up the full Spamayl schedule without any cores. As much as this would save me an extra half an hour per day, I don't think it would be very efficient, as I would have to nap most of them in the late morning, and I can't really be bothered to nap-wake-nap-wake constantly, nor do I see the benefits in it. I think I would prefer a core anyway to help reset my circadian clock every morning by going to bed while it's still dark and waking up when it's light. Once properly adapted this can probably be shifted throughout the seasons without much problem. So this here is my end goal, and this is the way I shall be going about it. This shouldn't pose much of a problem and should be easy enough to adapt to. I really want to adapt to Spamayl because it seems like the perfect schedule, saves hours and yet isn't rigid. I have my whole heart dedicated into somehow perfecting and adapting to this schedule.
My body obviously can't override the urge to sleep for longer than at least a couple of hours in the morning, as I've been sleeping like that for a while now. So I've decided to go about this by following a basic Everyman 3 schedule for the first week, except with floating naps as in Spamayl, instead of having fixed nap times. Usually an Everyman 3 schedule consists of a 3 hour core with three 20 minute naps, yet as stated in an earlier post, I prefer 15 minute naps, so I shall be taking four of those instead of three. This shouldn't be too much of a stretch as I was sleeping a number of different ways for naps before, yet the 3 hour core was always constant. This will give me 4 hours sleep altogether, which should be enough for me to live on, as before I started this I was sleeping an average of 4.5 hours comfortably, whilst giving my body enough time to adapt to repartitioning my 15 minute naps.
After a week or so when I feel adapted enough, the idea is to cut 45 minutes off the end of my core and replace it with another 15 minute nap in the day. And after a week or so of that, repeat, and so on and so on until I'm at my goal of sleeping between 7 and 9 naps a day, perhaps with or without a core. This way it should take me at least a month to adapt, and probably two at most. It is longer this way, but it should be the most pain free. It also gives me a tangible goal to work towards. The idea is to cut my needed amount of sleep down to a minimum of 3 hours, although I'm sure that once I'm adapted to this schedule, 2 hours won't be much of a push from time to time.
Here is a series of pie charts I compiled to show how the ideal adaption process would take place. Remember that although the naps aren't fixed they would be around about these times as they're more ideal, and because I feel tired at these times.)
First week with a 3hr core and four 15 minute naps = a grand total of 4hrs sleep:
Second week with a 2.25hr core and five 15 minute naps = a grand total of 3.5hrs sleep:
Third week with a 1.5hr core and six 15 minute naps = a grand total of 3hrs sleep:
Fourth week with a 45min core and about seven 15 minute naps = a grand total of 2.5hrs sleep:
Note that I haven't put up the full Spamayl schedule without any cores. As much as this would save me an extra half an hour per day, I don't think it would be very efficient, as I would have to nap most of them in the late morning, and I can't really be bothered to nap-wake-nap-wake constantly, nor do I see the benefits in it. I think I would prefer a core anyway to help reset my circadian clock every morning by going to bed while it's still dark and waking up when it's light. Once properly adapted this can probably be shifted throughout the seasons without much problem. So this here is my end goal, and this is the way I shall be going about it. This shouldn't pose much of a problem and should be easy enough to adapt to. I really want to adapt to Spamayl because it seems like the perfect schedule, saves hours and yet isn't rigid. I have my whole heart dedicated into somehow perfecting and adapting to this schedule.
Monday, 16 July 2012
Back to Triphasic - Days 9 to 10
Yesterday I had my first undisturbed nap for the last few days, yet I couldn't fall into deep sleep. I would say it was frustrating but I've started taking 5htp which is an anti-depressant, and it sorta made me zoned out enough mentally to not care. It's also used for insomnia, so when I went to have my night nap I actually accidentally fell asleep early, which has never happened before. I overslept by 35minutes though to make up for not having an afternoon nap, which almost doubled my original intended time asleep. Today I haven't felt tired at all in order to take an afternoon nap. It could be down to the extra sleep at night or due to the anti-depressants, or down to both.
I'm getting fed up of this now. Trying to keep my afternoon naps consistent around my family is not just difficult but goddamn irritating. So, bare with me, I'm thinking about changing schedules again. I'm thinking about changing to an Everyman 1.5/Spamayl/Freeman hybrid schedule proposed by yours truly. This would essentially be a mixture of three different schedules. I would have a fixed 1.5hr nap at the same time every night like on the Everyman 1.5 schedule, with an indefinite amount of 20 minute floating naps, usually ranging between 3-6 like on Spamayl (Acronym for sleep polyphasically as much as you like). That means instead of having the same amount of naps at set times per day, I'll just sleep whenever I feel tired. This way I don't have to worry about missing naps or being sleep deprived, as long as I have at least 30minutes between each nap, the idea is that most of the naps can be taken at night, which is slightly more convenient too.
I know I'm not really a fan of taking only 20 minute naps, but I find they're lovely when I'm seriously tired. On top of that I propose that once to thrice a week, preferably on the weekends when there's less chance of me napping during the day, I have a full night's 6-8hrs monophasic sleep to make up for any sleep deprivation I may have, like on the Freeman schedule. (A schedule someone suggested on the trypolyphasic forum.) It may be hard for me to sleep monophasically again but I think I need to learn to go straight into it from time to time because normal sleeping is quite often inevitable. I think to aid the process I'll take some proper sleeping tablets before hand. Altogether the idea is to still average around 5hrs of sleep per night, but in a more adaptable way.
I'm not completely decided yet on whether to do it or not or how to go about it exactly but I'm sure thinking about it.
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)