Commitment Week

My wife and baby are visiting family this week, which makes it an ideal lab to perfect my sleeping schedule. Tonight is a lot harder than most of the nights I remember from last week, which may be a direct cause of sleeping at night this last weekend. Hard to judge how quickly my body adapts to a new regimen and what switching that regimen can do to my work/focus/enjoyment. I am doing it though, which I think is good enough for me. I'm going to try to stay awake another hour before reliquenshing my body to the bed sheets.

Weekend Challenges

This last weekend was just too much and I failed to keep a polyphasic sleep schedule. We had family come visit from Utah and did lots of walking, talking, and eating. These long (and fun) days did not easily facilitate napping, and even with an occasional nap I was exhausted at night and only put forth a cursory effort to get any work done. That's two weekends in a row where I was unsuccessful at keeping this sleep schedule, but I'm determined to go at it again this week. Even if this turns into a strictly weekday system, that's still a net gain on productive hours and I'd be happy--not as happy with a complete polyphasic sleep schedule, but still happy.

Qualified Failure

I guess I wasn't fully adapted yet after all. I should be careful about making statements like that, because this experiment is completely unpredictable. I slept through both alarms and Barbie ended up waking me up this morning at 7:30 when our child started crying. I really can't think of anything about yesterday that was so different from the rest of the week, which makes me think that last night was about the cumulative effects of reduced sleep over the week. I had more exercise this week than typical, so maybe that played a factor as well.

So I had three great nights before I crashed hard. Even if this was the most my body could handle, which I don't think is true, I'd be happy to continue this pattern for the indefinite future. I felt great during the first 3 days and nights, and only during the 4th night did my body really complain. That was three nights of additional productive work I otherwise wouldn't have had, which arguably came at a very low cost. I'm going to try inserting core sleep every night though, and see if I can get more than just 3 great consecutive nights.

Tired

I'm tired. Much more tired than I think I should be given I took my scheduled naps today (10, 2, 7). I felt fine during the day, but then did fall asleep in bed while my wife was reading to me just before midnight. Managed to kick myself out of bed and do a bit of reading, but my eyelids feel quite heavy and I'm going to take a short nap. From past experience, I know I need to set a backup alarm and keep the alarm itself across the room so I have to get up. I don't want to be miserable, but I really want to restrict myself to never sleep longer than 3 hours max again for a while.

I wonder if this extra fatigue would be different if I'd gotten 2-3 hours of core sleep at some point last night rather than only 30 minute naps. Is 2 hours of sleep the critical difference? I think for the next while I'll make sure I always have some core sleep at night and see if I have extreme fatigue moments like this one again and with what frequency.

Amazing Spouse

I couldn't have survived today without a great, understanding wife. I did sleep from 4-7am and was able to get up (although definitely wanted to stay in bed). I managed a morning nap at 11, but then was kept busy at school and hadn't taken a second nap by the time I got home at 6. I was feeling "it", and it wasn't pleasant. Barbie got home from school about then, and was gracious enough to take over feeding JJ (even though she was tired too from a long day at school) and let me take a precious 30 minute nap. I'm still amazed at what 30 minutes does on this schedule, but I made it after that until 11!

I feel quite adapted to this schedule, and it's great. I woke at 11:45 pm as my wife returned from her book club group and spent an hour or so with her until she went to bed. I then worked on my current research paper (and cleaned the floors for company coming in town) until 3am, took a 30 minute nap, and was up fairly easy and working some more. I have to reiterate that none of this would be possible without an amazing, flexible, and supportive wife!

Update

It's almost 4am and I was able to compute several tables for my professor. It's been a productive morning, and while I might be able to survive off a 30 minute nap I think I'll jump in bed and get a solid 3 hours of sleep before my son wakes up. Crazy, but this is actually quite fun!

Controlling My Day

Yesterday went pretty well. These last two nights I've taken a nap when my wife is going to bed, which really seems to help end her day. I set my alarm for 30 minutes, and because it takes her a while to fall asleep, she's falling asleep as I wake up. This seems to work for her, and she actually enjoys the extra sprawl room in bed when I leave! She just barely wished me good luck tonight on my work as I slipped out of the bedroom.

I haven't had much problem waking up and getting going after these naps, and find these early hours in the morning quite productive (so far). Yesterday I worked from 1-3 am and then took a nap on the couch. I set my alarm for just 20 minutes but realistically expected I'd sleep until 7. However, when I awoke I felt good enough I decided to plow through and ended up only sleeping from 6-8! I was worried I'd be tired throughout the day, but naps at 11am, 4:30pm and 8pm kept me going just fine. I think that adds up to just under 5 hours of sleep heading into today (Thursday). I expect to be much more tired, and from past experience know the second day is much more challenging. I will force myself to sleep from 4-7 even if I'm not completely exhausted in hopes of keeping my life sane today.