Intro to Polyphasic Sleep | First attempt (lasted 30 days) | Second Attempt (lasted 7 days) | Third Attempt (ongoing)
I’m pretty much over the cold I’ve had for the last few days, with nothing more than a slightly-blocked nose now. I’m pretty impressed with that; 4 days is a fairly decent turnaround for a cold, especially when the really bad symptoms only lasted about 2 days of that.
However, I must admit I’ve had to rely on a lot more naps than I was having before. I didn’t really keep track but if I had to guess I’d say I probably had about 12+ naps a day. That works out to a minimum 4 hours of sleep a day. Even though that’s still only half of what most people get, it’s way more than I’m aiming for. I also haven’t been using my awake time effectively; at least not as effectively as I was before.
I’m starting to realise that the oversleeping on my ski trip and oversleeping the last few days due to sickness has affected me quite badly. I almost can’t get up now after 20 min naps, I NEVER feel refreshed and I’m not dreaming in them like I used to. There’s also no more of that awesome time dilation I was experiencing where a 20 minute nap felt like 3 hours, so my naps don’t feel as effective anymore.
To try and fix this, I’ve had to re-practise launching myself out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off because I keep resetting the alarm for another 20 minutes, telling myself “I’ll get up after just one more nap”. Of course I don’t get up after that nap either so I’ve been sleeping 2-3 hour periods with only 5-10 min breaks between naps, basically resetting my alarm and falling back asleep. That is most definitely NOT polyphasic sleep; it’s normal (monophasic) sleep with lots of annoying interruptions. Probably why I’ve been having such trouble getting up.
Mind you, I must say once I’m up, the lethargy/grogginess only lasts 10-20 minutes. While that’s a lot longer than I was experiencing a week or so ago (I had it down to as little as 30 seconds sometimes) it’s not impossible. I just have to get myself out of the damn bed after a nap and stop making excuses.
I’ve also set arbitrary times for my naps now. They’re only serving as a guideline; it’s the amount of naps during the day vs the night that matters to me, rather than being exactly on time for each nap. Because I work nights (usually midnight – about 10am) and can only take a nap every 4 hours, I’m slotting a couple extra naps into my days. The times I’ve chosen for my 20min naps are:
6am 9am 12pm 3pm 6pm 10pm 2am (repeat)
This will result in 7 naps a day, which is pretty darn reasonable when the hardcore Uberman rigid schedule only lets you have 6 naps. I’m going to allow myself the flexibility of adding in another nap or two if I’m absolutely positively desperate, and if I have the need I’ll move a nap around if I have something on. Other than that, I’m going to try to be more rigid with the naps. At least just until I’m back on track to where I was before.
Wish me luck!
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