Finding My Rhythm: Adjusting Sleep Patterns

Summary: I'm a committed polyphasic sleeper. I take several naps during the day and limited core blocks of sleep at night, striving to keep total hours of sleep under 5. Failing to completely execute the Uberman was discouraging/depressing. However, other schedules such as the Everyman are currently more feasible for me. Relying on naps to shorten total sleep hours as a general strategy seems to be working.

I'm still following a polyphasic sleep pattern, albeit modified from my original intention. I wanted to jump straight to the intense Uberman schedule, sleeping only 30 minutes every 4 hours (3 hours total sleep). I found that I could successfully pull this off for about 2 days, and the third day would physically crash at night. I was disappointed, mostly because I felt the majority of my naps were already generating REM sleep and that I should be able to make it through the night. Yet however I structured my day, diet, and exercise, it seemed that I was unable to reach a coherent state between 2-6 am on the third day.

More than anything I felt disappointed in myself. I would walk around our outdoor parking lot in the chilly night air to try and wake up, take showers, walk the hallway, and still could not focus on a single thing. I would fall asleep playing internet games. I either lacked the internal motivation I thought I had, or faced a somber truth that self sleep deprivation is difficult to enforce!

I really thought I could do it, and failing to consistently stick to the Uberman became semi-depressing. I never returned to a monophasic sleep schedule, but would end up sleeping in longer chunks of time at night than planned (between 2 and 5 hours). My wife can attest that the days after I hit this "wall" I was none too pleasant. I essentially thought I could force my body to do anything my mind set its will to do, and am still grappling with the realization that this might not be true. I don't ever anticipate forcing myself to not eat or drink water, which would just be stupid, but given a scientific explanation for why this sleep schedule should be feasible, I'm still a little discouraged that I didn't reach it.

Polyphasic sleep encompasses more than just the Uberman schedule, and when I consciously decided to allow myself several core hours of sleep at night (conceding the Uberman just not currently feasible for me) things have gone much better. Variations of this type are called the Everyman. My wife was concerned that adding large chunks of sleep would undo all the positive ground I made in the Uberman, and I admit I was also concerned about losing progress at reducing overall hours of sleep. Yet I find that I can still benefit from 20 minute naps and awake both refreshed and surprised by how little time has passed. I'm currently averaging 3-4 hours of sleep at night and 3 daytime naps, so my total sleep is about 5 hours, well under my previous 8-9 hours! And most important is several hours of uninterrupted work at night, which decidedly increases my daily productivity.

For two nights coinciding with a boy scout camping trip I did briefly return to the world of monophasic sleep. Sharing a tent with a fellow leader and having limited sources of heat and light make staying up most of the night rather ridiculous. And the adventures of the trip itself were so exhausting (physical activity and sun exposure) that I didn't even try to stay awake the next night. There was a little difficulty getting back to polyphasic sleep, and I wouldn't recommend switching back and forth between the two often, but I seem to have survived.

I'll do my best to more consistently record my successes and failures. I've been reluctant to share the failures, because I'm the type to guy that feels he never fails. That of course is not true, it's just the image I have of myself and like to portray to others. I think a policy of honesty however will make this blog much more useful to me and realistic to others.

Day 6

I feel like this is going to be a long night.

Monday I kept to my schedule, sleeping every 4 hours for 30 minutes. This resulted in two naps at school immediately before and after an MBA class. I've found a quiet bench in a study room where I can lie down and stretch out. I've found that I really don't need a "comfortable" spot, because 30 minutes isn't long enough to be uncomfortable! I slept on the floor last Saturday, and that seemed to work out just fine. I have a travel pillow that I use at school, but my winter coat also seems to work just fine. As you can see, I'm not a picky sleeper at all, I just don't get a lot of it!

Night sleep: 2 hours

Last night was one of my more successful (and productive) nights yet on this sleep schedule. I slept approx. 2 hours in four 30-minute intervals (10:30, 1, 5, 6:30) and just finished my first morning nap (9am). How do I feel? I wouldn't trust myself with any equipment (or knives) and I'm a bit reluctant to ride my bike to school, but I feel I have decent focus and only a slightly delayed response. I've got a decent amount of brain fog if I stop and think about it. I've got a 3 hour class this afternoon, but it's fairly interesting and so I hope that staying awake isn't too difficult. Then the bigger challenge will be to make it through a consecutive night without oversleeping.

Day 5

I had to adapt my sleep schedule a little tonight to accommodate a social activity from 7:30-11. Past experience has taught me that prolonging the period between naps can be quite painful later, so I received permission from my wife to take an early nap immediately prior to our activity and then again immediately after. So I ended up taking two naps close together (5 and 7), with only a regular interval between naps over the activity.

Seems to have done the trick, as I'm feeling pretty darn good right now! I also want to stick to my 1, 5, 9 schedule, so I took the 1am nap as scheduled, even though I felt I could have stayed awake a bit longer. Would rather not throw too many changes at my body!

I'm honestly a bit worried though about waking up from the 5am nap. This block of time has been the bane of my experiment thus far, and everything will go so much better when I can overcome this obstacle. My wife says I'm just prolonging the pain when I take a second nap or slightly oversleep (like I did this morning). I like to think that I have a lot of self-control, but forcefully sleep depriving yourself hasn't been a walk in the park. I'm determined to succeed though.

Sleep Log Day 3

I survived today. I had a few hours of uninterrupted work with a decent level of concentration in the morning, and then spent the afternoon spending money with my wife. She has been very supportive lately (would like me to finish school early I think), and even played with JJ in the backseat of our parked car while I took my 5 pm nap. For all of my naps today, I've fallen asleep rather quickly, but haven't felt totally refreshed after waking up. This was especially true at 1:30 am, and I washed the dishes and cleaned up until I felt I could manage some minor concentration (side note, washing knives when you're sleep deprived is not a good idea!).

We have a goal as a couple to cut all sweets out of our diet, and I imagine this will benefit my sleep adaptation. In some ways I feel like I'm not making much forward progress (and even slipping back) because the first night was so pleasant and productive. These last two nights have been much harder by comparison. I'm not planning on quitting any time soon though, and sincerely hope that my body adjusts sooner rather than later.

Sleep Log Day 2

I'll admit I started to get a little droopy and worried tonight, but thank goodness for mindless internet games! I feel like I've managed to push through the hardest part of the night, and hopefully I may even get some work done now (I feel rather alert, so I'll try to read a few academic articles). I've held true so far though, and kept to my 1, 5, 9 schedule. That means I got around 3 hours of sleep on Thursday, and am on target to do the same today.