Polyphasic Sleep – Part Deux
It’s that time of the year again. The birds have flown south, nice cars are packed away in garages, and winter vacation is upon us (or more specifically me). I have 5 weeks off of school with some projects I want to start and TV / movies I want to watch. It’s time to polyphasic sleep again! I learned a lot the first time around so I’m trying to avoid making the same mistakes twice. I will not be taking any extra naps or extending them. Instead of slowly phasing it in with core sleeps and naps I’m jumping in head first. Last night I slept 6 hours and I took my first nap at 6pm. I got some light sleep but not much. I’ll be following the same nap schedule I started with last time on the 2, 6, 10 hours. Meals will be an hour or so prior to naps. This is so I can exercise and drink my post workout shake right afterwards.
This time I may play with some stimulants to see if they help me get through the tough 2AM stretch. Caffeine may help since it tends to last 3-4 hours. Ideally I could take a 200mg tablet before my 2AM nap. Since it takes 30-35 minutes for it to take effect the caffeine would help me wake up and carry on to the next nap. This isn’t something I’ll be doing at first, possibly towards the end of the first week if I think it is absolutely necessary. I don’t want to have as many oversleeps as I did last year.
In my final sleep post back in June I mentioned that my monophasic sleep had been reduced to 6-7 hours a night. That lasted for months, up to the beginning of November or so. It slowly increased until it hit 8 hours a night again. I’m hoping this month of polyphasic sleep will get that hour back when I reenter monophasic sleep.
Another plus to polyphasic sleep is that I will again have plenty of free time to write in my blog. I’m also starting a dream journal today. This will be a written log of any dreams I experience and remember. I’ll be doing it the moment I wake up. I hope that it could help prevent oversleeping and extended naps and possibly improve the likelihood of lucid dreaming.
I will be posting frequent updates on how it goes, at least one update a week. The rest of the week I will be posting about fitness, investing, and whatever else is on my mind.
