Dymaxion Sleep Schedule

So in my last post I said I was going to give this sleep schedule another week to try and get it done, but I'm deciding tonight that I think I'm going to cut it short. I'll definitely be giving this another try sometime in the future, but I'm going to make sure that when I do I don't have stuff to do while adjusting(attend classes, do homework, etc) I decided to end it early for a couple of reasons, but mostly because of all the classes I've missed and because I think I'm getting sick. I wasn't feeling well last night, so decided to just sleep all night. Woke up around 5:30 and I'm not feeling very good.

I'll be trying this again sometime in the future, and I'll probably use this blog again when I do. Thanks to everyone for the comments and advice and all the support from everyone.

G'night.

Dymaxion Sleep Schedule - Day 12

Well I overslept again today. A lot. Went to sleep around 4am and didn't get up until almost 9:30am. I would've been up earlier but I slept through my alarms and my roommate forgot to set his. We both missed our morning classes. oops. Then at 11am, I started to get up after 30 mins of sleep, but rolled over and slept for another 45 mins or so. 5pm and 11pm naps went fine though.

So I've realized I need to either fix this oversleeping problem or go back to a regular sleep schedule. I've missed my morning chem class four times now. Next week, we have a weird 2 day break before the weekend, so Sunday of that weekend I'll make my final decision on if I'll stay on with this or not. 9 more days to try and fix oversleeping in the morning. I'm thinking that during Thanksgiving Break I could give this another shot if it doesn't work out now. I'll have about a week then to do it, and we're not doing any travelling so it wouldn't be too difficult to do I think.

I hate making such short entries, but I can never remember to write what I wanted to write. Short entry tonight I suppose.

Dymaxion Sleep Schedule - Day 10+11

I forgot to post yesterday oops. I'm not so good at this bloggity thing.

So Day 10 was pretty normal. Overslept at 5am and missed my morning chemistry class again. The rest of the day was the same as the previous several days. Then between Day 10's 11pm nap and Day 11's 5am nap, my roommate and I decided to go get some Steak 'n' Shake at about 1:30 in the morning. I have now gone there twice this year, both times between midnight and 5am. There's something about their food that just makes it tastier in the middle of the night.

I had been torn most of yesterday, deciding how I was going to sleep that night. I had a Calculus test Thursday morning at 6:45am and wasn't sure if I should get a good nights sleep or hope I don't oversleep. I decided to just set all my alarms and hope I woke up in time. I set my alarms for 6am, woke up at 6, got out of bed and sat in a chair, and fell back asleep for another 20 minutes. I made it to the test on time and did fine on that. Since I only got 2 hours of sleep then(compared to most oversleeping days of getting closer to 4 or 5 hours at least) I've been very tired all day. After the test, I had my chemistry lab at 9am and it went until 11:15am. So I was a bit late for my nap, but I still was able to get in 30 minutes before my Theology class. In the afternoon, I was started to get tired around 3:30, and by 4:30 I was considering taking my 5pm nap a bit early. I got up and walked around my dorm a bit instead, and just napped at 5 as usual. Almost the exact same thing happened with my 11pm nap, feeling very tired about 30 minutes prior. Now it's just about midnight of Day 11 and I feel mostly awake after my nap.

When I was researching this sort of sleep schedule, everyone that tried it said that they would eat more because the body uses more energy to be awake 22 hours a day. I can say that this is definitely true. I've pretty much gotten into the habit of waking up and eating a meal, even after my 11pm nap. Although usually for late night, I have to pick something up during the day and keep it in the fridge. Also I've found that I'm craving fresh fruit since doing this. I had some strawberries a few nights ago. I haven't had strawberries since I was single digit years old. So tasty.

Thanks to all the people that gave me advice on waking up. I was able to use some of it, and I think it helped me get up for the calc test.

~5 hours until the next nap(and hopefully no oversleeping)

Dymaxion Sleep Schedule - Days 6 through 9

Been forgetting to update this a bit. Sorry sorry etc. Although not much has changed really. Been following the schedule pretty well, except that I keep oversleeping at 5am. I've decided that I'm going to try changing the schedule a bit. Normal naps at 11am, 5pm, and 11pm. But then instead of a 30 minute nap at 5am, I was thinking of sleeping from 4am to 7am. If I can get easily adjusted to this, then I'll slowly shorten the 3 hour sleep period and get it down to just 30 minutes from 5-5:30.

I've thought about taking a break from trying to change my sleep schedule for a bit to re-adjust to what I was doing before(sleeping from 10 or 11pm until 6am). If I re-train my body to automatically wake up at 6am, that could possibly help with the oversleeping problem I'm having. What I think is happening now is that my body isn't sure when to wake up in the morning(the alarms I have just aren't waking me up. Sadface.) so I just end up waking up whenever. This morning, that whenever was 10am. Any other day of the week, and I would have been missing class.

If anyone has any ideas about what to do to wake up on time, please share your ideas with me. Right now I have my phone on vibrate in my pocket(this can usually wake me up, but for some reason it just doesn't work at the 5am nap time), and I have two audio alarms(one alarm clock and one on my ipod). I've heard that telling yourself how long you want to sleep before you go to sleep works(so saying "I will wake up in 30 minutes" before I nap). I tried it a few times, and I have no idea if it works or not.

As a side note, Blogger gives me a bunch of random stats. I just have to say, how dare 4% of readers use Internet Explorer. Get a real web browser, 4%.

Dymaxion Sleep Schedule - Day 5

So I ran into a major setback last night. I was a little late for my 11pm nap(got back at 11:20 so was going to go from 11:30-12:00.) and when I woke up, it was 7:20am. I know I set an alarm I think. I'm going to keep trying to adjust and will continue with normally scheduled naps today. I think my problem yesterday was, was that in my naps I wasn't able to get to sleep at 11am or 5pm. I really hope to get this schedule fully adjusted to soon. Lately I've generally felt pretty tired in the mornings and have missed class a few times due to oversleeping. Once I'm adjusted, I should be fine though.

I found an interesting book on Polyphasic sleep. It's "Why We Nap: Evolution, Chronobiology, and functions of polyphasic and ultrashort sleep." I've only read a bit of it so far, but it's got some pretty interesting stuff. Thomas Edison is quoted as saying that a normal monophasic sleep schedule is "a deplorable regression to the primitive state of the caveman." Also, some types of dolphins never fully go to sleep. Half their brain sleeps for an hour, then the other half sleeps for an hour, then they're fully awake for a hour. They repeat that 3 hour cycle during the night instead of stopping to sleep. So far the book has only really talked about reasons that might be why humans are almost exclusively monophasic. Overall pretty interesting.

Dymaxion Sleep Schedule - Day 4

So after oversleeping(a lot) for the 5am nap and skipping the 11am nap, I took normal naps at 5pm and 11pm. 5pm nap was no problem, but I had slept so much in the morning I couldn't get to sleep for the 11pm nap. I set three alarms for my 5am-5:30 nap,but still overslept until about 7:30. I'm thinking that I might adjust this Dymaxion schedule to be more like an Everyman schedule. Everyman is where you get a few hours of 'core sleep' at night and then take 3 naps throughout the day. I'm going to try some more stuff to see if I can get on this Dymaxion schedule. 5am oversleeping is really my only obstacle right now.

Today I'm definately feeling some effects of sleep deprivation. My eyes are very tired and have a bit of trouble focusing on something for too long, I feel rather irritable, and I'm just generally tired. I tried reading something on Wikipedia just now and my brain didn't like that so it stopped paying attention. Even in typing this, I'm having a hard time focusing on this post. I just switched to a different window and got distracted by the internets. If this is anything like how I was earlier in the week, I should be mostly fine after the 11am nap.

Dymaxion Sleep Schedule - Day 3

(The first part of this was typed last night, the second part was done today. )

Overslept my 5am nap again. This time woke up nearly 3 hours late and missed my morning Chemistry class(oops). Tonight I'm going to try sleeping in a comfy chair we have to see if that helps me not sleep so long. At 11 got a bit of sleep, but not the full half hour, most likely because I slept in so late.

We have too much comfy furniture in our room. Between the 11pm and 5am naps there isn't much to do in the dorm or around town so I'm usually just at my computer. Thankfully, the chair I usually sit in is uncomfortable(no unexpected naps!). Although sometimes it's tempting to sit on my bed or on our futon or on our comfy chair. Although I know that if I do I'll probably fall asleep. Almost happened around 3am last night. Sat in our comfy chair and closed my eyes for a few minutes, but got up before going to sleep.


That part I said about no unexpected naps in this chair? I lied. Last night I fell asleep at my computer around 2am and woke up around 4am. I was so dead tired I set my alarm for 5:30 and just laid down in bed. Slept through the alarm and woke up at 8 and went to my Chemistry lab. Then Chem lab took longer than expected(45 extra mins) and so I didn't get back to my room until almost noon. I wasn't sure if I should take a later nap or not. I decided not to, since I slept for something like 6 hours this morning. Normal naps will resume at 5pm and 11pm.

I've been thinking about switching off a Dymaxion schedule and to another type of Polyphasic sleep. The other two I'm aware of are the Uberman(six 20 minute naps, 4 hours apart each) and the Everyman(a few hours of 'core sleep' in the early morning, plus three naps throughout the day). I'm not sure I could do Uberman simply because of my class schedule this semester. If I go a few more days and keep oversleeping at the 5am nap time, I might switch it to Everyman schedule. I'll give Dymaxion a few more days though.

Dymaxion Sleep Schedule - Day 2

After the last blog post, I was able to stay up until 5am(although just barely). Getting to sleep was no problem at all. Getting up however was problematic. See, I usually have an alarm set on my phone, set my phone to vibrate and put it in my pocket. At some point during the nap, my phone slipped out of my pocket and didn't wake me up when I was supposed to. I eventually woke up at 7:20, almost 2 hours past when I was supposed to. After that, I was feeling pretty dead this morning. The morning just dragged on until 11am when I laid down for another nap. Fell asleep almost instantly(after the tornado sirens stop. Apparently they get tested on the first Tuesday of the month at 11. And are quite loud.) Woke up at exactly 11:30 and felt quite good. Not tired at all, felt very alert. Napped at 5 o'clock and got up on time at 5:30. Slept the full 30 minutes. Felt pretty good afterwards. Day rolled by 'til 11pm and had another good nap. A little over an hour now until 5am. Hopefully I won't oversleep this time.

Short post today I guess.

Dymaxion Sleep Schedule - Day 1

I feel like today was only semi-successful. I went to take naps at all the scheduled times, but I hardly actually got to sleep during any of them. First nap at 11am, got to sleep in the last 5-10 minutes of it. 5pm nap, got about 10 more minutes of sleep. 11pm nap, didn't sleep at all. I was really hoping to get as much sleep as I could with these naps to make staying up until 5am as easy as possible.

Tomorrow is going to be when it starts getting tough. The sleep deprivation is going to start hitting me. But on the plus side, that should make it easier to get to sleep for my naps(theoretically). My biggest problem right now is that I'm rather hungry but there aren't any places nearby that are open. Tomorrow I'll have to go buy stuff to keep in my room for when I get hungry at night.

In my last post I said that I was going to try this for "a while." I decided that I'm going to put some time windows on it to check my progress and see if I could really do this. After one week(next Monday) I'll see how I'm doing. I'm hoping to be through the sleep deprivation(depending on who you ask, that'll either be enough time or not enough time). Mostly because I have a Calculus test next Thursday and I'd like to not be sleep deprived for that. After two weeks I want to be feeling like normal and be on my Dymaxion cycle.

Also, one of my friends pointed out that one side effect of sleep deprivation can be hallucination. That seems to be a sympton that happens late into sleep deprivation(meaning you have to be deprived for a few days before it'd start.) So I've put a rule in place: If I start hallucinating, then I get to bed and sleep for a bit ASAP, and possibly stop trying to get on the Dymaxion cycle. Although I'd like to do this, I don't want to end up hurting myself in any way. Sleep deprivation is a scary thing and can have scary side effects. If it gets too intense, then I'll quit. Hopefully though, it won't get to that point and I can make it through fine.

3 hours until nap time.

Dymaxion Sleep Schedule - Day 0

So I've researched it and have decided to start on a Dymaxion Sleep schedule. This should be interesting.

For those uninformed on the topic, a Dymaxion Sleep schedule is a type of polyphasic sleep. Polyphasic sleep basically means that instead of getting all your necessary sleep in one chunk(known as monophasic sleep) you get your sleep through several smaller chunks of sleep. Dymaxion in particular is sleep for 30 minutes at a time, with 6 hours of time between naps. There are some other types of polyphasic sleep, most notably the Uberman schedule and the Everyman schedule. The basis of the Dymaxion sleep schedule is that in a normal 8 hour night of sleep, the body only goes into REM(Rapid Eye Movement) sleep for about 1.5-2 hours. Since REM sleep is when your body really 'recharges' and makes you rested, it was theorized that if you force your brain to skip nREM(non-Rapid Eye Movement) phases of sleep and go straight into REM sleep, you can take a quick REM nap and recharge for another 6 hours worth of awake time.

So my schedule will be like this. Tonight I'm going to sleep regularly(crash sometime probably between 10 and 11pm and then wake up between 6am and 7am). Then at 11am I'll take a 30 minute nap and then nap again at 5pm and 11pm. The schedule I'm aiming for is naps from 5am-5:30am, 11am-11:30am, 5pm-5:30pm, and 11pm-11:30pm. The hardest naps to take are going to be the 11pm and 5am ones(at first at least, once adjusted I should be fine) since that is when I'd normally be asleep the entire time.

The hardest part of switching from a monophasic sleep schedule to a polyphasic one, is the first few days to weeks. In a 30 minute nap, the body goes into nREM sleep, but doesn't get to REM sleep. Since REM sleep is what really makes you rested, not getting any REM sleep for a few days will just make me sleep deprived. Eventually, your brain goes "hey wait a minute, we're doing a regular sleep schedule but not spending a lot of time asleep" and will figure out that when you go to sleep, to skip all the nREM sleep and go straight into REM.

So all that means that I'll be sleep deprived until my brain figures out what's going on. Here's to hoping that my brain catches on quick. In my research, I realized that sleep deprivation can be a little scary, so I'd like to spend as little time in that state as possible. Straight from Wikipedia, physiological effects can be as follows: "aching muscles, dizziness and nausea, dry mouth, hallucinations, hand tremors, headaches, increased blood pressure, increased risk of diabetes, increased risk of fibromyalgia, irritability, memory lapses or loss, nystagmus, obesity, slowed word recall, yawning."

Another major side effect is going to be my memory. According to some theories, REM sleep consolidates some memories and nREM consolidates others. REM sleep supposedly is responsible for procedural and spatial memory(Procedural memory is the memory of how to do things like fly a plane or drive a car. Spatial memory is the memory of ones environment and its spacial orientation). nREM sleep is supposedly responsible for Declarative memory(one of two types of long term memory, and referes specifically to memories which can be consciously recalled like facts and events). So in getting rid of all nREM sleep, it could effect some of my memory. There's been very little research into polyphasic vs monophasic sleep, so I can't quite know what might or might not happen. I figure at worst I might have a hard time recalling facts and events later on.

Since I am a college student, I of course have a roommate. I've already talked to him about and luckily, he's as excited about it as I am. He's down with it and will put up with me while I'm sleep deprived.

I don't have any particular reason why I'd want to do this, but I figure it'll be fun to try it. And having 22 hours a day to get things done? That's not too bad. I've found that people who tried this have said that it's important to never miss a nap or oversleep, to eat healthy, and have lots of things to do during the adjustment period. I've been making a list of things I want to at least start on, if not accomplish during this adjustment time.

So what I plan to do is try this for a while. If after too long I feel like I can't get adjusted I might give up and go back to the usual monophasic sleep. So tomorrow morning, Monday October 4th, 2010, I will take my first nap of the new schedule at 11am. I'm going to try to keep this blog updated daily with my progress(most likely updated at night).