Bet Update

With only one more night to get through before the end of Bet #2, we’re both still in it. There have been a few scary times, but mostly we both feel like we’ve been doing better than ever. When we get back from our holidays, maybe we’ll start a new bet.

Steve Pavlina wrote about us in his latest blog entry because we bought him a flat panel monitor to thank him for inspiring us. If you read my old blog, then you probably saw that this is my third attempt to get on the sleep schedule. However, each time I gave up because I felt like it was impossible. Seeing Steve do it gave me the determination to press through the hard part, and now here I am on day 45+.

I’ll be going to my grandparents house for Christmas, which will pose a unique set of challenges. Mainly, the others in my family aren’t particularly supportive of this decision, so they certainly won’t help me wake up. My solution is to pay my little cousins to wake me up. I’ll post some updates from there to let you guys know how it goes. As it stands, it’s 11:30pm the night before I have a morning flight, and I haven’t even started packing. So much time to do everything I need to do… it’s fantastic.

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There are 9 Comments.

Placebo

Dec 23rd, 2005 @ 1:15 am

Wow, that was big of you guys. And I applaud you for doing something for Steve, he’s been an inspiration to most of us. And not just for polyphasic sleep.
Now, I need to use some of that intention-manifestation to get myself out of this financial hell-hole.. lol :P

saadat

Dec 23rd, 2005 @ 2:47 am

Salaam

hey i just wanted to ask u guys, ke is it possible for a uni going teen ( uni timings 8:30-4;30, plus 2 hrs for commuting) to be able to practise polyphasic sleep log; because the only thing stopping me from doing it is not a lack of enthusiasm, but rather a lack of knowledge of whether this is possible in my circumstances.

Plz do temme if it is possible.

Keeping my fingers crossed for a +ve response.

Saadat.

Tertsi

Dec 23rd, 2005 @ 10:52 am

Saadat,

While because of my situation I haven’t yet tried polyphasic sleeping, I can tell you what I’ve read about other students’ attempts. The conclusion is that unless you really can get your naps without interruptions at school, don’t even try it and instead wait till you’re not a student anymore. What i’ve combined from other polyphasic sleepers’ logs is that the key is having consistent nap lengths and times. That’s very hard when you’re at school.

dtj

Dec 23rd, 2005 @ 12:00 pm

A different solution, perhaps beyond your means, is to stay at a hotel/motel and then you can easily use an alarm without disturbing others.

Unless there is a whole lot of room to spare, we rarely stay at relatives homes. While we love them and all, being around them for 24×7 begins to grate on everyone. It the relative version of the “good fences make good neighbors” notion.

Sunnan

Dec 23rd, 2005 @ 4:25 pm

I’m thinking of trying this.

Here’s a couple of things I’m thinking that I’ll have to do:
* eat better – more fruits/vegetables – I’m already vegan, though. I’m not going to eat less, just add more fruits, salad and so on to what I’m eating.
* and I already don’t watch TV, but I’m a web addict which could be a problem
* never ever try to act tough and skip a nap
* extra naps are fine, sleeping too long isn’t (because the plan is to condition the body to enter REM sleep faster)
* my goal isn’t to save time. I already have time to waste. If I nap 20 min every second hour instead of every fourth hour, that will still be four hours a night. I sleep over 8 hours a night now and that’s fine. My schedule will be 25 min alarm clock, every fourth hour, with optional extra naps in the middle of the waking period (e.g. after roughly 107.5 minutes of being awake)
* my goal is, however, mental developement and increased concentration skills. it’s quite possible that this experiment won’t lead to that at all, if so I’ll terminate it. I’ll use chess or sudoku to measure my attention skills. I’ll allow for a set number of days as a transition period (not decided yet how many).
* once I’m on the schedule, sleeping for a full night every now and then might be fine.
* no punishments. no resets. only self-forgiveness.
* I’m very disorganized now and if I fail, I won’t try again until I can get more organized and get some routines in place. But maybe this could help with that.

I’ve never seriously tried any sleep schedules so for all I know, all of my ideas above might be worthless.

For the last few years, I’ve been falling asleep whenever I’m tired, waking up whenever I wake up (being woken by the phone, doorbell, noisy neigbours, or just having finished sleeping). This has lead to monophasic sleeping with a short biphasic period in late november.

I don’t have any problems with insomnia or problems sleeping, but I do have problems with being awake, I feel very tired sometimes. (This was even worse before I became vegetarian, btw.) One of the straws on the camels back that makes me interested in polyphasic sleep is that I’m so bad at chess. I know a lot of openings and I’m good at chess problems, but I’m terrible at staying focused and not doing blunders. I was interested in polyphasic sleep years ago (because of the Seinfeld episode, but I never tried it seriously myself) and a friend renewed my interest and I found Pavlinas blog, and yours.

Then again, if it turns out polyphasic sleep is not for me, then I’ll gladly go back to monophasic or biphasic sleep. That’s proven safe and I don’t feel my sleep time is wasted since I often work in my dreams (and just write the finished text down when I wake up), both computer programming, and writing.

Then again, my waking time is often wasted. Just sitting at the computer, doing nothing serious.

So it’s likely that I don’t stick with polyphasic sleep — then again, I’ve said that about other things that I “just wanted to try” — like GNU/Linux, which I installed and I then turned into a total free software zealot and have been for years, or my “weeks without meat, eggs and dairy” that turned into long-term veganism.

When/if I do try it (I’m thinking monday/tuesday next week, but I’m in no hurry) I’ll use the ideas sketchily outlined above: 25 min alarm, extra naps welcome, no acting tough.

Placebo

Dec 23rd, 2005 @ 4:33 pm

I think you have some great advice there Sunnan ;)
There’s even a few in there that I should be mindful of, and haven’t been.
(I’ve been polynapping since 23 Nov 05, with 3 separate continuous stretches)

Good luck :)
Placebo
http://www.placebo.serv.co.za

PS: You might not want to be too harsh about the level of concentration until at least a few weeks into the schedule. Give it a fair judgement :)

saadat

Dec 24th, 2005 @ 2:20 am

thanx!

Sunnan

Dec 24th, 2005 @ 3:56 am

I was thinking something like 21 days if I’m feeling the schedule works well (maybe more if the transition phase was rougher); if I don’t think clearer by then I’ll drop it. Is 21 days too little?

Administrator

Dec 26th, 2005 @ 9:26 am

21 Days would be enough you rarely / didn’t oversleep

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