The way I’ve been feeling lately can best be summed up by the photo I shot above. I normally drink a minimum of 6 coffees a day (often more) and even when I get 6-8 hours sleep a night I just can’t seem to function until at least 2 coffees and 2-3 hours time since waking. Half the time I walk around in a “mind fog”. Every afternoon I get the “afternoon blues”; I lose energy and sometimes I even need a nap. Nighttime rolls around and my energy is still fairly low, until I crash into bed, only to be woken by that horrible alarm. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I know I’m not alone in feeling like this.

Well, 3 days ago I cut out caffeine completely and after an initial day of hell (headaches, tiredness, “mind fog”, apathy towards everything, etc) I feel pretty good. My energy is a bit more consistent and I’m actually eating instead of replacing meals with a cup of joe. I have a bit more energy in the evenings and sleep actually seems to be a bit more productive (I’m not waking up feeling as if I haven’t slept at all).

But I can do better. By chance I stumbled upon a series of articles on Polyphasic Sleep a few days ago and was extremely intrigued. I’ve done a fair bit of research in the last few days and I think I’m ready to give it a go.

What the heck is Polyphasic Sleep?

Polyphasic Sleep is either the craziest or the smartest idea ever (I’ll let you know which one after I’ve given it a go!) The idea is to only sleep 6 x 20 minute naps spaced 4 hours apart (spread across the day), for a total of 2hrs sleep a day. Sounds like a form of self-torture, but here’s where it gets interesting: the body is brilliant at adapting and people who’ve tried this have reported that after a week of hell, their body adapts to make maximum use of every single one of those 120 minutes of sleep. Within seconds of laying down and closing their eyes, polyphasic sleepers enter REM sleep and by the time they awake 20 minutes later they feel more refreshed than monophasic sleepers (people who get their sleep in one block. You know, “normal people). People have reported sleeping for what feels like hours (and what later turns out to be a matter of minutes). Some have had entire dream sequences in a matter of seconds. Pretty cool.

The hardest part seems to be getting through the first week. The body is used to a solid block of sleep usually around 8 hours in length, and it will fight damn hard to not give that up. Most people who attempt this fail, either by sleeping through alarms or just giving up and going back to bed, deciding that it’s too hard. But those who push through report amazing (and strange) benefits such as increased mental clarity, more energy (and more stable energy levels), a general sense of peace/serenity almost all of the time, more free time, the feeling that time passes more slowly (and thus increased reflexes) and perhaps most interestingly the feeling that they’re watching other people go about their days, almost like a God.

Why do I want to do something this crazy?

The question is why wouldn’t I want to do something like this? It’s a challenge. It’s crazy. It seems like it could be the strangest (and most awesome) thing I ever do. Because others have failed and pride is telling me I can succeed where they messed up. Because I would love some free time (who wouldn’t?) Because it would look good on a resume! I couldn’t see this working for anybody who doesn’t work from home and right now that’s me, so now’s the perfect time.

There are some negatives though. In a world where everybody sleeps at night, is it going to be that convenient to be up all night and all day? It’s not like there are any shops or anything else open during the night, and it’s not exactly safe to be wandering the streets by yourself. You’re stuck at home. It’s also not that convenient to need a nap every 4 hours – I’m not sure if I’ll be able to delay or skip naps on this schedule. And others have reported growing to feel distant from the rest of society – people are bound to think you’re a little bit weird (though I welcome that).

So I’m going to try my best to write at least a few paragraphs each day stating how I feel, what I’m doing and anything out of the ordinary (as if the whole thing isn’t already a bit out of the ordinary already…) If I ever fail/oversleep, I’ll write that day off and keep trying until this is something that becomes second nature. Please forgive me if this post and the upcoming week or so’s posts are poorly written; I may turn into a zombie :p

The Schedule

I’ll be taking 20-minute naps at 4.30am, 8.30am, 12.30am, 4.30pm, 8.30pm and 12.30am. This type of polyphasic sleep (6 x 20-minute naps) is called the Uberman Schedule. To wake myself up I’ve got a loud alarm on my phone that also flashes a strobe light and doesn’t turn off unless you answer a maths problem (e.g. 1+4=?), making it that much harder to accidentally hit snooze. Actually, I’ve disabled snooze as well! I’m setting the alarm for 25 minutes to allow 5 minutes to fall asleep. Food-wise I’ve cut out all caffeine, I don’t eat much in the way of carbs other than fruit and vegies and I’ll be trying to eat as “raw” as possible (fruit, vegies and meat mostly, with some milk too – God I love milk.) Other polyphasic sleepers have reported an increased appetite; makes sense when you consider how much longer you’re awake for. I won’t be exercising until I feel comfortable with this sleep routine; I have a feeling I’ll be a zombie for a week or two.

Others who’ve done this have said the thing that gets you through the first week is having a project to work on, or at least a long to-do list. I’ve got my to-do list ready to go and it’s probably about a month’s worth of work (though I could knock it off sooner with all this free time!)

So, good luck to me! If anyone has any questions or if I haven’t explained something in enough detail, feel free to give me a shout in the comments below, or shoot an email to andy (at) handyandypandy {dot} com.

Note: Technically I’ve already started practicing for this; today I started trialling the 20-minute naps, but I’m giving myself as much of them as I feel I need in a day, with the condition that I stay awake for at least 2 hours between each nap. So I’m probably getting about 4 hours of sleep a day at the moment. So far so good: it hurts to get up but once I’m up, everything seems OK. Obvious drowsiness and a bit of mental fog, but I’m sitting here writing this article and my brain seems to be working OK. I do have the urge to sleep but it’s not that bad when you know it’s only an hour or two until your next nap. It’s almost like the day is conveniently broken up into nice little chunks for you.

UPDATE:
After the problems I encounted with the first attempt at polyphasic sleep, I had a 7-day break and then started another attempt. You can read either the first set of logs or the second set:
First attempt (Lasted 30 days) – 23 entries
Second attempt (Lasted 7 days) – 5 entires
Third attempt (Ongoing)