Alarmists (get it?)
You know, I’m amazed that I’ve managed to hold on to my schedule this week, but I did, actually without too much trouble and almost no tiredness, and it should get easier from here. Everyman’s flexibility is really impressive — for instance, I had a meeting yesterday that made me too nervous to sleep well mid-afternoon and then miss my evening nap, but I slept from 10p - 2a and was fine. Getting up after a 4:30 a.m. nap was hard (I probably should have waited longer, but I leave for work at 6:15 and I’m used to sleeping at 4), but a ten-minute snozz in the parking lot at seven perked me right up. (Actually probably a five-minute nap; I set my alarm for ten minutes when I take those.)
So let’s talk a little about alarms, because people ask about them all the time. Will I be able to go without an alarm?? they gasp. I’m not sure why that’s such a holy grail — you’d think not being tired would be more impressive than not needing an alarm, but hey, alarms can be aggravating, so I guess it makes some sense.
I was able to go without an alarm most of the time while I was on the Uberman (6 x 20) schedule, after I was fully adjusted, and when my daily schedule was very regular (I was in school and working at the school, so I could pretty much plot my days a week ahead of time and know what I’d be doing). If anything changed, though, I needed an alarm, so I always kept one on me. I got used to sleeping for 20 minutes to the extent that I almost always woke up automatically after that long. Even after I went back to monophase I had a few days of trouble with waking up after 20 minutes!
With Everyman, what you’re gaining is flexibility, and what you’re losing is automation. I couldn’t live polyphasically today if I had to sleep exactly every x hours, with my current life differing greatly from the clockwork of full-time college. But because of that, I can’t go without an alarm, either. I do often open my eyes right ahead of the alarm during 20-minute naps, and I don’t need much of an alarm to wake me up (I can even use my watch alarm). During my core and, if I take an early core and thus an early-morning nap, the morning nap too, I need a heavier-duty alarm and don’t usually wake up without it. As long as I got all my naps, I’m not tired when I get up, but left to my own devices I would definitely sleep in (for 5-6 hours; as you know, sometimes I do this on a weekend day as a luxury).
Again, this underscores the ways in which Everyman feels kind of like monophase. On an 8-hour nightly schedule, I also need an alarm to wake up, and I’m usually rested when I do. (One notable difference is that if I sleep 8 hours at night, I get tired in the afternoon; on this schedule, I get naps instead!). Without an alarm I would sleep 9+ hours on my own (I’m just a long sleeper by nature…well, I used to be, heh.). But on an 8-hour monophasic schedule, I also went to bed at different times depending on the day and how I felt…just like I do on Everyman. So I suppose on a rigid enough biphasic or monophasic schedule, you probably wouldn’t need an alarm either.
In other words, if you don’t want to have to use an alarm, go for a rigid, predictable schedule, be it Uberman or something else. If you need flexibility, then expect to have to dance with the devil with the green glowing hands. ;)
-PD
3 comments
Have you had much trouble sleeping through alarms in the adaptation phase? I personally had an oversleep this week in which I slept through a full CD at fairly decent volume. I awoke several hours later to a phone call while wondering where my alarm music had gone. (expecting it after 25 minutes)
Oh yes, that’s very common. All my skillz at writing can’t seem to express to the people I talk to how unbelievably hard adaptation is, especially to an Uberman/Dymaxion schedule. I say “have quintuple backups! Hire thugs to beat you awake!” and people think I’m joking. ;)
(I actually highly recommend “hiring” someone to physically wake you up during days 2-7; it makes a world of difference.)
The only answers are A) preparation and B) guts. If you don’t oversleep, that “holy crap I slept through WHAT?” phase only lasts 1-3 days. If you do oversleep, though, it never ends. So do whatever you have to do to get through it. Seven alarms? Rigged up to water-hoses? Four different people entrusted with calling you? Sleeping in a really uncomfortable public place where the cops are bound to shake you awake in no more than 30 minutes? All those have been done, and more. It’s an extreme schedule; extreme measures to adjust to it are the rule, not the exception.
Now, another thing that I never manage to say clearly enough is TWENTY MINUTES. When you’re chopping your cycle down that far, every minute counts. Sleeping for 25, or 24 or 23 even, can make it LOADS harder to wake up. Sleeping a few minutes *less* than 20 is way preferable, especially right in the beginning, to sleeping more than 20. So set that timer for 20, 21 at the outside, and stick to it. If, after you’re adjusted, you decide (like Steve Pavlina) that you really feel your best with 23 minutes, fine. But *not while adjusting*.
I hope that helps some! Thanks for reading! ;)
-PD
I’m not convinced that a 20-minute nap length is the holy grail.
I went through the adjustment with 30-minute naps. That was back in June. I don’t think I experimented with shorter naps (20-27 minutes) until August or September. I had a couple days where I woke up 10-15 minutes early from some of my day naps, so I decided to try 20-minute naps. After a day and a half, I could hardly stay awake, even though it was mid-afternoon, so I switched back to 30-minutes. This week I’m setting my alarm for 27 minutes, and that seems to work great. If I’m short on time, I can take a shorter nap and feel fine; I just can’t string too many of them in a row.
My husband went through his adjustment on 30-minute naps also, though he eventually shortened them to 20-25 minutes.
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