Category — polyphasic sleep

Hmm.  Hmm, I say.

Seems that the Everyman schedule is a TON more flexible than Uberman — well, not flexible, in the sense that you can tweak it hard with no consequences; but in the sense that if you DO tweak it, you can recover and readjust surprisingly quickly.

To recap, I semi-deliberately overslept a little on Saturday, but after getting all my naps in normally on Sunday, figured I was in the clear and didn’t set a backup alarm for Sunday morning — dumb, da dumb dumb!  I slept almost 6 hours on Sunday, putting me almost back to a monophasic schedule–yikes.

However, with a little thought, this was the perfect opportunity to see how hard it is to readjust to Everyman if you screw it up.  I–and many others–already know quite well how hard it is with Uberman — it’s rather like ripping off your thumb, sewing it back on, and then having to rip it off again.  ;)

I suppose I can’t jump all the way to conclusions yet (maybe the Humbug can help me out…and mad bonus points to you if you got that reference), but as of 1:30 today (Monday, day 8), it honestly hasn’t been worse than recovering from screwing up a monophasic schedule.  I had a bit of trouble napping yesterday, but I did nap.  Staying up until 2 wasn’t bad, and believe it or not, getting up at 5 was no worse than getting up on any normal morning when you haven’t slept quite enough.  I was groggy waking up from my 9 a.m. nap, but that went away quickly and I’ve been doing fine since then — not top-notch, not filled with bursty little sparkles of energy or anything, but not “impaired” either.

The real trick to this experiment still lies ahead of me, though.  I need to know what Everyman’s like on a long-term basis, once one is good and fully adjusted (meaning at least a month of adherence).  If it gives even half the extra energy and clarity that Uberman does, I’m going to become its Priestess.  Sleeping four hours a day is pretty kickass.  I get to be a morning person and a night person.  Rock.

Anyway, I should be working more on a) the interface for this site, b) the articles I have to write this week for work, and c) the papers and exams I have to write this week for school.  So I’m Audi.

-PD

In retrospect, I feel like *such* an idiot.

After having a good day yesterday, I wasn’t prepared to crash out during my core last night, and I slept right through my alarm (didn’t set a backup). Slept for six hours — yikes. Ruined any chance of getting my 9 a.m. nap, either; I didn’t even bother trying.

I know what’s in store for me now — almost a full readjustment, probably at least 3-4 days of being tired again, and just as I was really starting to get the hang of it, too. I just so expected the result of my oversleeping a bit to manifest itself during the next couple naps (as it does with Uberman, generally), that when they went by without incident, I thought I was in the clear. D’OH.

Aggravating to lose that time, when this is Hell Week with school and I don’t have it to lose; and aggravating to have to go backwards when I was right on the brink of seeing what really adapting to Everyman was like. However, no silverliningless cloud and whatnot, it is true that I would have had to oversleep at some point, in order to be able to report the results in the book. And at least I know that readjusting, while not fun, won’t ruin me this week; I expect it to be less uncomfortable, but maybe take longer, than an Uberman readjust (which takes 24-48 hours for a fully-adapted person, IIRC).

Some notes on the book – Obviously I haven’t made any real progress on it, but I hadn’t planned to until this godsawful semester was over. However, I had thought I’d be limiting my study to Uberman alone, and obviously that has changed. I had thought I would title it Uberman:ZZZ (it was gonna look really neat in the layout, a big silver “Uberman” with three chunky black Z’s behind it) — but that doesn’t seem appropriate now. I’m leaning towards “Polyphasic Revolution”, since, yes, the more I learn about this, the more I lean towards the evangelical (much as the word makes me shudder–talk about negative connotations). But ideas are welcome, if anybody likes that sort of thing. (If nobody does, no biggie, since *I* like it. ;)

Well, I’m sure I won’t be tired today, so I’d better use it to the best of my ability and bash out good chunks of these papers, since I bet I’m *wasted* tomorrow. Le sigh. Live and learn, I guess.

Ta,
PD

Well, oversleeping this morning didn’t throw me off the schedule, or kick me into crash-mode. I slept fine all day, even at 9:00 and in spite of some scheduling weirdness during the afternoon.

I’ve been tired, but mostly just tired like I would be on a monophasic schedule if I missed some sleep, say only got 5 or 6 hours. I’m more tired than that now, but it’s 1:13, and I usually get sleepy between 1-2. It’s not actually too difficult to deal with though; I wind down for my core by reading or watching tv for half an hour, which is pleasant and I fall asleep lightning fast.

Everyman does give you one thing I really wanted out of Uberman this time, too: The ability to “stay up late” and “get up early”, both. I like nights *and* mornings, and I always hate missing one to hang out in the other!

Good luck tonight to all the people I’ve talked to today who are starting new, or bullying through one of the dreaded Rough Patches. Hang in there, ya’ll. Who’s in charge, you or your meat? You can do it!

-PD

So, time to find out how easy/hard it is to recover from an oversleep on Everyman. This will be my first one.

I didn’t *have* to oversleep. But I was upset over family crap and couldn’t sleep for my 10:00, and it’s Saturday, so I talked myself into going to bed at 1 and sleeping until 7 (though I could have gotten up at 5, actually; I just felt like being lazy).

So now we get to learn what the payment on such practices is. I’m a bit groggy now, but nothing terrible; I’m stying away from coffee or showers so that I can get my 9:00 in, hopefully. Will report on the rest.

It is pretty funny to sleep until 7 on a Saturday and subsequently beat yourself up for being so lazy. ;)

-PD

…And that lesson is: Thou Shalt Not eat too soon before a nap.

I’d been waking up on my own for a few naps, a couple minutes ahead of the timer, and feeling good, even at 5 a.m. today. Then my lunch appointment got started late, and I ended up eating at about 1:15, finishing about 1:45, and getting my nap at 2:15. I slept, but I woke up crazy groggy. I had to drink a cup of “real coffee” to wake up, and this from someone who’s down to 1-2 cups of half-caff in the morning and that’s it. (It’s rather funny, since I quit I can “feel” real coffee again. I haven’t gotten a buzz from coffee since I was like, 13!)

There was another time I though I could trace the grogginess to having eaten, but this is much more conclusive.

All of this is hilarious on a very strange level…Now I’m on the “Eat, Activity, Sleep” cycle that’s how I was advised to raise babies, and which advice probably saved my butt because my daughter was an *awful* sleeper. As soon as the baby wakes, you see if it’s hungry and feed it if it is. Then you set up something for it to play with or do (at least once a day, by itself–but supervised, of course). When it starts to fuss, you know it isn’t hungry again yet, so if the butt’s good and it’s been a few hours, you put the little bundle back to bed, and–even if it’s a lovely bundle like mine that wakes every 2-3 hours around the clock for seven months–it will sleep. It was called the “EASY” schedule, the “Y” being “your time”, a much-needed reminder to new mothers to chill while the baby naps.

And now I’m the one on it. Freaky.

By the way, if you ever wonder why some parents seem to develop a psychological problem where they relate almost everything to the experiences their children have provided for them, I’ll tell you: It’s a trauma, from the extreme sleep-deprivation some of us go through. I was nearly hospitalized for hallucinations. So I have an excuse. ;)

Alrighty, naptime.

-PD

Technically this is still “Day 4″, since I’ve been counting them from 6 p.m., which is when I started Uberman on July 7. To keep things clear, however, I fell off Uberman with a 5 hour nap on last Saturday the 15th, muddled through Sunday with a core sleep, and decided to officially implement a 3-hour core and give Everyman a shot beginning on Monday. Starting tomorrow morning I’ll refer to it as “day 5″.

One possible advantage to Everyman for some people (or disadvantage for others) is that it doesn’t mess with your senses of time nearly as badly. You have long days, but they’re still days, broken up by a period of sleep, however short. On Uberman, after a few weeks, you start to feel very strongly that everything is one long speeding freight train of a day. I kind of miss that feeling, but I can also completely understand now that it wouldn’t be at all compatible with my lifestyle. But hey, lifestyles change, so I’ll just keep my ears open. You never know. ;)

I woke up this morning feeling *far* more human, and didn’t have any trouble driving in to work. Was this related to the fact that I hit the snooze button again, this time for half an hour? I don’t *think* so–one doesn’t actually get that much more sleep by snoozing–but we’ll see; I’m moving the alarm clock tonight so I can’t do that anymore. (I’ve found that I have to move them periodically; otherwise I’ll eventually get used to the sensation of getting up and turning it off.) I don’t feel like I messed up the schedule, though.

To counter the dismality (yay, new word!) of last night, let me say that though I’m guarded about the feasibility of Everyman, I am really geeked about it and extremely hopeful that it proves workable in the long run (i.e. that I stop being tired). It’s got a lot going for it, enabling one to sleep only about 4 hours daily (something I *never* could have pulled off before) and breaking up the day nicely (I like having to take breaks periodically; it keeps me fresh and focused — it’s something I’ve missed about smoking since I quit 2 years ago)…BUT it doesn’t seem to zombify you nearly as badly or for as long as Uberman, and you get to keep the nice “snuggle in and sleep” part of nightly snoozing that many of us really dig on and/or rely on for reboot & relaxation. If it turns out that energy levels are as high, or close to as high, on Everyman as I and others have experienced on Uberman, it’ll actually turn out to be a nice tradeoff. I can’t tell yet, though…it being Day 4 of *this* schedule, I might simply be tired from adjusting; but since I’ve been polyphasic for 13 days now, I might also simply be experiencing the best that one get on this schedule, which I would find disappointing. So for now it’s a coin-toss.

If I sound frustrated, by the way, most of that has nothing to do with sleeping per se; it’s mostly that, because of this month being the Hell Month From Hades, I haven’t been able to use *any* of my extra time for fun things, really, which is peeving me off. I’m either working, napping, or too tired to do anything but the stay-awake basics, like showering and walking and watching movies. It’ll be so incredibly nice when that’s over…but before it’s *officially* over I have another challenge: I’m going to go on a week’s vacation, and I’m determined not to let it ruin all this hard work I’ve done. Oo boy.

FYI, though I’ve been gathering tons of good info from all the lovely people I’ve run into lately who are also interested in this, I still don’t have hardly anything on the longer-term use of Everyman. So feel free to throw it at me, if you find it laying around. ;)

-PD

P.S. Just noticed I was tired, and thought, “Maaaaaan…” BUT, I see it’s actually half an hour till naptime. Well, isn’t that nice!

Here, I’ll post during my most tired time — the hour before my core — and let you all tell me if I’m acting dangerously wonky or somesuch. Um…no lying, please.

So this is Day 4. I was tired waking from every nap; I slept for all of them, though not always soundly, and work made me 1/2 hour late for my afternoon (2:00) nap. Had a minor but significant bout of blurry/unfocused vision on the drive to work.

I’ll be honest; I’m plagued with worries about how to tell if this isn’t going to work before I screw up some major obgliation due to sleep-dep…keep in mind, this is Everyman Day 4, but I’ve been sleep-deprived for, um, twelve days now. Thirteen? No, twelve I think. It gets old. Savvy?

And if it doesn’t work, what then? Give up? Try Uberman again? I have no idea. But I also try not to think about it (I fail more when I’m tired), yet. I’m pulling for Everyman; I have loads of blind faith, of pure unsubstantiated knowledge, that it’ll work.

And with that, it’s time to wind down and get ready for Day 5.

-PD

During my 3-hour core last night (and I do love the cores; they feel wonderful, though it remains to be seen how they actually work out), I had a dream. I only remember that I was organizing a controversial event called “Brokeback Moselm” and it was very stressful. When my alarm went off at five, I sat up, said something about this being Palestinian time, and reset it. Which could have been a disaster, but then I opened my eyes fifteen minutes later, feeling more awake than I have in the morning yet.

w0rd. And weird. Actually, for me that’s not a particularly weird dream — I have Boss Weird dreams. Seriously.

Anyway, it’s almost time for my 9:00, which I’m glad I moved up — I’m going to second Steve Pavlina (again) and say that moving naps so that they’re a bit closer together when you’re tired, and wider apart when you’re awake (instead of 2-5, 10, 2, I do 2-5, 9, 2 and feel much better). Of course, consistency counts, especially in the first month. The percentage of people I talk to who fail for lack of consistency is HUGE, and getting bigger all the time.

If this Everyman thing works out, I’ll revamp my sagely advice (mm, smells like pasta) to read, “If you can’t stay consistent on the schedule you picked, change it to one you CAN be consistent with”. Because if you’re not being consistent about your sleeping times and durations, you’re not going to adapt and form the habits you need to stop feeling sleepy. Everyman may mean 3-4 hours of sleep daily versus Uberman’s 2, but if you can’t stick to Uberman, you’re only going to end up back at the drawing board anyway…and suchness and so forth.

I just got this CRAZY urge to see the Muppets rendition of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Wow. It must be naptime.

-PD

Well, staying up at night is easier now — I didn’t get sleepy until 1 a.m. yesterday — but I’m still very tired in the morning and on and off throughout the day.

Must remember not to be too impatient, as I’ve only been on *this* schedule 2 days, but I can’t help but be dubious still about Everyman’s effectiveness. I’ve been chatting with some folks in the new Polyphaser’s IRC channel (irc.oftc.net #ubersleep) and have garnered lots of info, BUT I still haven’t found anyone who successfully (i.e. without tiredness) did Everyman. Uberman may sound less likely to work, being harder to implement, but there is evidence that it does work, historical as well as anecdotal. I haven’t heard of any famous people who did a “core sleep” polyphasic schedule yet, but Uberman has quite a roster. Hmm.

One weakness to Everyman that I learned today is that you now have a long nap in there that it’s just as critical that you get as Uberman’s short naps are. Being undisturbed for 20 minutes is one thing; sleeping undisturbed for 3 hours is harder, as I learned last night. The disruption caused me to be holy-crap-tired this morning, and I took an extra 20 minute nap before work to try and alleviate it (I could tell I was past the “shouldn’t drive” level). The extra nap let me drive, but I didn’t really feel much better until I’d been awake a full hour. Then I couldn’t really sleep for my 9 a.m., but whether that’s because of the extra nap or the fact that my car is in the shop and I had to camp out on my office floor, I can’t say. I got a nice rest, though, and sometimes that’s almost as good. That is, I feel much better now, half an hour after “waking”.

An upside is that one is definitely less afraid of missing a 20-minute nap on Everyman, because you know you have that core to help you catch up some; whereas in Uberman, you just have to crawl your way back by keeping your naps up, and after 2-4 of them, you feel better. (Which, actually, when you think about it, is about the same recovery-rate, time-wise. But I would bet the “crash” is faster and harder on Uberman.)

So, so far so good I suppose; I’m still functional and not miserable. But also still very tired. I imagine I probably feel exactly what I’d feel like if I was sleeping 4 hours monophasically for a few days. And if that’s all I’ve been doing, then we’ll know soon, because in a few more days that sleep debt should rear up and kick my attractive butt. If it doesn’t, then hey, we might be on to something.

And I’m just not going to count the 9-day attempt at Uberman towards or against Everyman’s adjustment period. I don’t have any evidence that having been sleep-deprived when you started (and sadly I was sleep-deprived, having not adjusted well to Uberman by that point) is a help *or* a hinderance, so I’m ignoring it for now, even though I didn’t go back to monophasic in-between, so it’s probably significant somehow. So I’m calling this Day 2, and the verdict is: Functional but Tired.

-PD

P.S. I notice a lot of people out there are transitioning from Everyman to Uberman. The first one to make it work, please let me know how long it took and if you think it was “just as hard” as the newbie-to-Ubermen people’s transitions!

Hey, I thought of a name for modified / core-sleeping schedules! We can call them “Everyman” Sleep Schedules. ;)

Seriously, I put a lot of thought into this last night (in between bashing out a truly Ubermanly amount of homework!). It completely makes sense (at least in retrospect) that the Uberman schedule would be quite dependent on factors in one’s life that may not be in one’s control. Uberman is not something you can in any way “fit your existing life into”; it’s something you have to tear your life down and rebuild around. (I know this last week has completely fux0red everything about my usual schedule / routines / habits etc., and I didn’t even get through The Razing that Uberman actually requires.) Sure, Da Vinci could do it; he had a 24/7 workshop and a huge quantity of art and tinkering to work on. Ditto Edison, Einstein, Bucky Fuller, etc. Something tells me that if I didn’t have a 9-5 job and was possessed with a full-on workshop and no family to raise, I could snap my fingers and do it!

The upshot is, after much thought, the critical difference between Me Then & Steve Pavlina versus Me Now and quite a few other failed attempters seems as simple as lifestyle. Nothing else seems to bear out: For example, Me Then ate far worse than Me Now and was in many ways *less* disciplined. I know I gave this a thoroughly good shot; I planned it as well as humanly possible, was brutally strict with myself, enlisted help — everything I did last time and then some. What I couldn’t do was change my living situation to be more compatible with being up at night — once I got too sleep-deprived to drive, I was literally stuck in one corner of a basement, and unable to do anything noisy — nor could I change my work/school schedule to accomodate two or howevermany weeks of sleep-dep it was going to take to adjust in my circumstances. (Maybe that’s it: The worse your circumstances, the longer your adjustment period?) So yes. Lifestyle seems to be a MUCH bigger factor than previously credited.

But polyphasic sleeping did something really positive for me last time, when I was lucky enough to have an Uberman-compatible lifestyle. And ever since then, I’ve wanted to see everyone have the shot at being less tired and having more time. If there really is an Everyman schedule (or several) that can really work, that’s FANTASTIC news in my book! I guess I just had to get smacked down by Uberman in order to even entertain the idea, heh. But I never claimed to be smart. ;)

Today has gone well so far, info behind the cut. -PD

It’s rather funny, because if I didn’t have a reason to stay up until 2:00, I would have anyway — I had that much homework. I started after my 10:00 nap (keep in mind I also wrote a paper yesterday morning), and finished at precisely quarter to two. Now I’m only a *little* behind, heh. But I didn’t actually find the staying up that hard; I was yawning and drowsy–about Stanford 3–but it was doable and I could concentrate on what I was doing. Getting up at 5:00 wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t terrible either. (I got up right on time with one alarm, took a shower, ate, read, exercised, and took my time getting ready for work — having the extra hour before work is *nice*, since I was getting up at 6 and now it’s 5.) I was groggy, but I’d slept well and felt generally rested, i.e. not sick. Similarly, I had some drowsy episodes in the car on the way to work, but nothing so dangerous as Thurs. and Fri. last week; I didn’t have to pull over or anything.

So, things are looking good for day ten/one. The clincher for this is going to be, Do I actually adjust to it? Do I eventually stop being groggy? If it’s only this bad on the Everyman version, I can probably handle a longer adjustment period; it’s a little unfun but it’s not tearing up my life or endangering myself and others. And being that I’m still only getting just over 4 hours of sleep daily, the time gain will be totally worthwhile. (And perhaps this schedule could also address Ubermen who don’t like having *quite* so much time; I’ve heard that a couple times.)