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

It’s been an interesting 2 days! Yesterday (day 2) I stacked up on heaps of sleep before embarking on an all-day (5am-9pm) outdoor rockclimbing adventure (click for pics). Stacking up on naps was clearly the way to go; I got through an entire day of extremely-intense exercise, in the hot sun, without a lot of food (and certainly no caffeine). It’s nice to know when I have no chance of a nap I can make a preemptive strike by nap-stacking.

However, around 9pm I started getting extremely tired. My girlfriend and I were in the city and I made the (silly) decision to take her out for dinner instead of going home to nap. By the time we got back home it was well after 11.30, and I was definitely feeling the need to crash. I lay down for a nap and… Surprisingly enough, woke up without much drama!

However, staying awake was the real problem. I was incredibly tired, and my body was screaming at me to go to sleep. I couldn’t keep my eyes open and kept “micro-sleeping” (nodding off for 1 or 2 seconds). I went and sat outside to wake myself up and after about 30 seconds I started feeling somewhat OK. At this point I had two choices: stay up for a couple of hours before having another nap, or go straight back to bed (I’d only been awake 45 minutes). A few days ago I promised myself I’d make sure I was 100% awake before going back for another nap, and I wish I’d done that. I ended up half-waking up from the next alarm and being half-asleep enough to fall straight back to bed 5 seconds after setting it. I ended up sleeping for a total of 7 hours.

Of course it’s frustrating, but I’m choosing to use it as a learning experience, a way to test the boundaries and iron out all the kinks, so to speak. Now I know that while it’s possible to nap-stack and go on an all-day, extreme-exercising adventure, I certainly can’t underestimate how tired I’ll be afterwards. I need to be more diligent next time and make sure I’m 100% awake between naps. It’s too easy to stay in bed when you’re half-awake.

In the hours since the oversleep I’ve stayed awake as much as possible and have only had 2 naps in a 17-hour period, in an attempt to get myself back to the sleep-deprivation stage. I’m feeling good right now, so I’ll keep this motivation going.

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