Shutdown -R Now

Ah-ha!  SCIENCE strikes again!

"Most people know it from experience: After so many hours of being awake, your brain feels unable to absorb any more—and several hours of sleep will refresh it."

(Well, not necessarily several hours…)

What it turns out is happening is that neural connections are strengthened during waking time, and loosen while you’re sleeping. 

So essentially nature "cuts you some slack" while you’re snoring.  ;) 

There’s now good reason to believe that adjusting to a polyphasic schedule is teaching your brain to let those connections loosen more quickly.  Maybe, eventually, science will prove that polyphasers are more flexible in their thinking…literally…!

This could also explain why every long-term polyphaser seems to need occasional periods of minimal stimulus while they’re awake…most of us come to like meditating (or like it more); some just stare at a wall for half an hour or read books they’ve read a billion times…well, if we need more time for the brain to loosen connections and prepare for more new data, then this would make sense. 

(Note:  I don’t need that downtime if my schedule runs perfectly; but if I miss naps or don’t sleep well for a different reason, then I typically do.  Yesterday, actually, after work made me miss my afternoon nap…later at night, I found myself cranky and overloaded and not really wanting to move from the spot I was in.  So I stared at the wall for about 20 minutes, thinking idly about unimportant things, and when I felt "done", I got up and realized I felt tons better!)

…I wonder if this also means I’m training myself not to be able to hold a grudge very well?

;)