Posted by Chris on August 31, 2009
This morning is weird. My body feels good and not tired. But my eyes will not stop attempting to shut and go to sleep. I drifted into a split second of sleep a few times. And have to be careful now.
I'm so tired, I'm tempted to ad an extra nap. I have to say this morning was the hardest to stay awake. My eyes would not stop trying to go back to sleep. I must have drank a gallon of ice water and done 50 pull-ups over these past few hours to stay awake. But I've almost made it to the 7 am nap. Which will fix everything hopefully (don't want to be a zombie at work).
Made it to work: So after all this work to stay awake till 7am, I then overslept my 7am nap. I woke up at 7:25 and turned off my phone alarm but I was so drowsy I somehow fell right back asleep. I then woke up at 7:50 with my phone in my hand. I must have jinxed myself yesterday. An extra 25 minutes isn't the end of the world but I'm pretty mad about that.
I also have a theory on why I'm so tired today. Yesterday we where on the go a lot. So I took my Girlfriend out to Mexican food. Well I pigged out and had tons of chips and salsa and then a massively huge burrito.
It was delicious but it gave me heartburn and was entirely too much food. I felt very sluggish after eating it and I had to take some anti-acids before I went to sleep at 11. My theory is that over eating screwed up my core sleep a bit and I woke up very sleep deprived. I feel okay now and I figure I should be fine for the rest of the day. I will make sure to eat extra clean today to see if the results change tomorrow.
Posted by Chris on August 30, 2009
Its getting better!!
My eyes don't hurt and I'm half as tired as yesterday. I feel really good. I'm not perfectly awake but its definitely an improvement. A comment on day 4 asked me about Dreams so I will go a bit more into detail today.
After about Day 3 on the experiment I started dreaming during my naps. At first it was very little. But on day 4, every time I laid down to take a nap, within minutes I would be in this half dreaming half awake blended reality state. I would start to dream about something and then kind of wake-up but fall right back into a different dream. Sometimes I would wake up during a dream and realize it and fall back asleep in the Dream itself. Its really interesting.
Another thing I should mention is: I have not messed up once in my schedule. Reading other sleep blogs I believe missing even 1 nap or oversleeping is the #1 cause of failure or prolonged adaption phases. You need the sleep deprivation to force your body into REM sleep during the naps. If you over sleep in the adaption phase you just kind of reset your self back to almost day 1.
As it is only 3 am right now I will leave it at that and update later as the day progresses. I want to see if the evening hours (9pm - 11pm)will improve in the same way as the morning did.
End of day update: I think I over ate so I got a bit more tired for the rest of the day. Ironically the 9 - 11pm wasn't all that bad.
Posted by Chris on August 29, 2009
Red Eyes and trying to stay awake 2x per second. I just love the first hour after getting up. I will say my eyes don't hurt like yesterday. But I feel more tired. Its harder to focus yet again. So far I give today a Neutral rating compared to day 3. Now I just have to wait for the day when things start getting better!
6pm: Overall, today was Like the other days. I feel more tired and exhausted though.
Also I'm starting to have doubts as to the adaption. I'm wondering if my body will adapt to less sleep and be normal and productive, or if I will adapt to sleep deprivation and not know the difference.
Posted by Chris on August 28, 2009
Ahhh. Day 3. Dare I say it ? Yes, its worse then day 2 and 1 added together. My eyes hurt and I'm very tired. The first hour awake I had trouble focusing my eyes. Now I'm kind of in the zombie mode. I'm awake but not really. My body feels heavy and tired. It feels like I have to drag it around with sheer will power. Not sure what I'm going to do. Even physical activities sound like a lot of work with this tired body of mine. And my eyes still hurt.
Once again the 7am Nap saved the day! The 7am Nap together with my vitamins and a shower pretty much turns me from zombie to a normal awake business person. The rest of the day was similar to day 1 and 2. I feel normal until about 9pm at which time I then get very tired and have to fight till 11pm.
So I figure once it starts getting better I will incorporate regular heavy weight workouts and my regular supplements back in (check Diet for more info). I want to test how well my muscle recovery will work in this new sleep environment.
Posted by Chris on August 27, 2009
2:30 am here. I feel quite a bit more tired than yesterday at the same time. This must be the rough phase that everyone talks about. I'm having a hard time staying awake even typing this.
8 am: The 7 am nap is the best thing since sliced bread. Every time I take it, I wake up kind of groggy but after I take a shower I feel like I have slept all night pretty much. So far the only time I feel bad is from 2:30am - 3:30am and 5:30am - 7am any time out of those ranges I feel pretty normal to be honest.
Since I was more tired this morning I did mostly cleaning and reorganizing. I spent about 2 hours in front of the PC where I was able to focus okay and not fall asleep.
The rest of the day was very similar to day 1. After I take the naps I feel kind of drowsy for a few minutes but it goes away pretty quickly.
Overall, day 2 was like a tougher day 1 and it was harder to stay awake.
Posted by Chris on August 26, 2009
Well its 2:30 am. I'm a bit out of it but I can stay on the PC without falling asleep. So far so good. I'm really looking forward to that 7 am nap though. Even though its only the first day, I have to say, reading about it and getting ready for it is totally different than actually doing it.
It is now 4 am. I still feel okay. Not too tired. But I'm starting to get hungry. I really don't want to eat breakfast till about 6. I may have to find some Healthy snacks for future days.
The 7 am Nap went really well. I was a bit drowsy after I woke up but mostly I felt like I had slept most of the night. The time between 6 am and 7 am was the toughest. I had to get up and do some pull-ups(i have a Iron Gym
it works really well if you have narrow doors) and push-ups and switch to more physical activities because I started to dose off in front of the PC.
So its 5pm, I'm about to take my final nap until 11 when core sleep comes around again. So far it has been a good day. I got a bit drowsy before nap times but after I usually felt pretty refreshed.
My diet has been low calorie as I am on a cut. I didn't exercise much besides a few pull-ups and push-ups here and there. So I cant comment on muscle recovery yet.
Posted by Chris on August 25, 2009
So today I've decided to give polyphasic sleep a try. After reading up on it for about a week at various sites and blogs it sounded like something i should try.
I've tried the siesta a bit which is basically 6 hours at night and a 20 min nap sometime during the day. It worked pretty well for the few days that it lasted. If this experiment fails that is pretty much my fallback plan.
As of right now I plan to do the 3 hour core and 3x 20min Everyman Sleep. I would like to try the Uberman for the weirdness factor but with my 8-5 job that isn't an option at the moment.
I have laid out my sleeping schedule for the coming days and will adjust it how i see fit.
Currently it its: Core nap from 11pm to 2am then a nap at 7am, noon and 5pm.
Ive seen lots of questions about muscle recovery and diet during polyphasic sleep. So I'm going to include Diet and exercise and anything related to it.