Intro to Polyphasic Sleep | First attempt (lasted 30 days) | Second Attempt (lasted 7 days) | Third Attempt (ongoing)
Today’s been an “interesting” day. And by interesting, I mean “hell on Earth”.
Clearly if you’re going to have a crack at polyphasic sleep and only sleep approx 3 hours a day, you’ve got to stick to it and not go back to 8hrs a night. I’ve had all the symptoms of sleep deprivation I was suffering during the first few days of starting this experiment and today’s been the worst I’ve felt in quite a few weeks. It’s taken so much effort and willpower to get out of bed each after each nap, even during the day. I almost gave up a few times; thank God I have the “responsibility” of this blog to keep me honest and motivated.
But by far the worst time today has been the evening. As I sit here it’s 3am (the next day) and I’ve suffered through hell to get to this point. I woke up from my most recent nap just after midnight, ready to start work at 1am (I work from home but the company I work for requires me to work to a roster). By about 1.15am I was feeling extremely sleep-deprived, and it’s been the biggest battle of my life to fight it. My eyes kept closing and refusing to open, my head kept falling down as I type and I was worried I was going to fall asleep in my chair and crack my head on the table. I had the worst headache, my eyes were burning like they were on fire and everything felt wrong. HELL.
But I’m extremely over-the-moon-happy to report that now, at 3am, I feel fully wide-awake! How the hell did that happen? It took a bucketload of different methods and all the willpower I could muster. Here’s what I did:
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- Sitting outside in the cold for a few minutes at a time. This has done wonders to wake me up and usually only takes about 20 seconds to kick in
- Splashing cold water on my face. A no-brainer; it’s one of the most effective ways to wake yourself up and refresh tired eyes
- Freezing cold showers – take it one step further and immerse your entire body in ice-cold water. It’s HELL, and you’ll almost hyperventilate, but it’s a very effective way of waking yourself up. The effects can last up to half an hour!
- Eating (healthy) food – especially fresh fruit like apples
- Drinking water – I’ve always noticed I’ll wake up a lot quicker when I drink a few cups of water as soon as I wake up and then continually sip water through the day/night
- Slapping my face. I’m not kidding, slapping my face (hard) works rather well (but wakes the neighbours…)
- Using f.lux on my PC and turning the monitor brightness right down to combat eye-strain
- Working on the computer using candlelight and ambient light from lights on the other side of the room – this drastically reduces the strain on my eyes and helps fight the urge to close them. It’s also rather relaxing working by candlelight – try it!
- Not using the heater – even though it’s quite cold, warm air just makes my eyes want to close and sends me to sleep quicker than a bottle of wine
- Eating (hot) mustard. A weird one, I found this out completely by accident. A teaspoon of really hot mustard is like getting punched in the sinuses, and it’s guaranteed to wake you up in about 0.8 seconds
- Exercising (intense). This has been by far the most effective way to wake myself up, and I’ve had to use it literally every 10 minutes over the last few hours, for about 30 seconds at a time. I jump on the rowing machine, pump the heart rate up and I’m good to go for another 5/10 minutes.
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(You’ll notice I haven’t included coffee or other stimulants in the list. Yes, they’re one of the most effective ways to wake yourself up, but the problem is like any drug you learn to rely on caffeine all the time and have to keep taking more and more to wake up. It also plays havoc with your sleep and isn’t an option for a polyphasic sleeper like myself.)
I’ve really surprised myself by getting through the last few hours of hell; I honestly thought I was going to fall asleep at my keyboard. It’s the biggest struggle I’ve had with sleep deprivation in my entire life and the fact I got through it (and feel wide-awake now) has strengthened my resolve to get back to where I was re: polyphasic sleep. I’ll be damned if I’m going to give up!
so, what do you think? Have you tried any of the above methods to wake yourself up? Maybe you have a better way that trumps any of my ideas – I’d love to hear it!
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