Thursday, May 12, 2011

Sleep Status

Dear World,

Yep, I'm still here. Been busy, but I haven't forgotten about you. Time marches on, deadlines grow ever closer, and thankfully spring has finally come to Chicago. My child turns one this week, my wife has two finals, I have intramural soccer and Frisbee tournament games, have to present my curriculum paper in 12 days, etc. So with all this going on, am I still on this crazy sleep schedule? You better believe it.

I have to admit that I have backed off from the initial intensity. I no longer try to go on only 3 hours of sleep (the Uberman). I just crashed too often and felt like I was punishing myself. I "let" myself get 3-4 hours of core sleep at night and then take 2-4 naps during the day. So my average sleep time is about 5 hours. Not bad.

Another disclaimer: I have slept longer than that! On occasion I've overslept, but it's crazy how oftentimes I'll wake up on my own around 4am (if say I went down around midnight and intended to only sleep for 30 minutes) and be ready to get up and work. That would never have happened before.

I also had to deal with an inflexible conference last weekend. Knowing there was no chance of getting a nap, I went ahead and slept 7-8 hours the night before. The conference was great, I felt alert and survived from 7am - 10 pm, at which point I completely crashed. I think my wife wanted to talk to me when I got home that night (I was gone all day), but I really don't remember much of that conversation.

So my "professional" judgment is that this is working for me. Why then don't more people do this? I was posed this question by a very educated behavioral economist. If this is so optimal, why don't we see more people doing it, particularly A-type personalities? I didn't have a good answer then, and I still don't have a good answer. One friend suggested alcohol and coffee consumption, which would make this schedule very difficult. Part of it is just living in a monophasic world, where co-workers, subordinates, companies, suppliers, staff all work during the day. But why more academics don't do this, I'm not sure. It seems fairly optimal from my current vantage point, and will hopefully get me a lot closer to graduating at a reasonable cost.

Please, world, let me know if I'm crazy, or what I'm missing from this analysis.

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