Intro to Polyphasic Sleep | First attempt (lasted 30 days) | Second Attempt (lasted 7 days) | Third Attempt (ongoing)

Hi boys and girls! This post will be relatively short as I’m trying to make a dent in my massive to-do list. You may be wondering how I’m feeling after pushing myself very hard yesterday with this polyphasic sleep thingy. At the end of yesterday I was more than a little concerned that I might be ruined after 12 hours without a nap, and whilst I didn’t crash and burn, I certainly did sleep a lot. I basically slept for 20 minutes, stayed up for 20, slept for 20, stayed up for 20, etc. I lost count of how sleep I actually got but it took quite a bit before I felt normal again.

So whilst it’s good that I can stay up for 12 hours without a nap, I’m clearly going to need to catch up on sleep afterwards. From what I’ve seen from other polyphasic sleep experimenters, I should become more proficient at catching up on sleep the more I practice. Makes sense.

I had a fairly productive day from about 11am onwards, with some of yesterday’s euphoria still present (though not quite as manic!) I had planned to go rockclimbing tonight so I knew I’d have to go 7 or 8 hours without a nap. I stacked up on sleep throughout the day, taking a lot of 20 minute naps with an hour in between each one.

Rockclimbing was awesome (thanks for asking) and despite being very physical and me not having had a nap for a few hours, I had absolutely no problems with energy levels. The adrenaline probably helped keep me up, because within half an hour of finishing, I was starting to crash pretty hard. I would have snoozed on the train if I wasn’t quite so self-conscious! I got home and crawled straight into bed and slept a few back-to-back naps. It’s now 2am (the next day) and I feel pretty tired, almost to the point of being zombied again.

So I’ve learnt I can definitely push the time between naps as long as I’m physically or mentally active during that time. But I’ll pay for it by crashing afterwards, or at least being so tired I need to sleep 6 or more naps back-to-back.

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