Massive Improvements

Perhaps due to my new commitment to not oversleeping, the past 2-3 days have really been great. I had a couple light sleeps in my chair (<1 hour), but the overall quality of both my naps and my awake time continues to increase.

Today, for example, I haven’t been tired for the past 24 hours. My minor oversleep of 30 minutes was because I was bored and just spacing out at my computer.

Each nap I’ve had in the past 24 hours was accompanied by an awesome dream, and naturally ended before my alarm clock. Usually when that happens I get another quick nap in before the alarm goes off, but when I woke up early on my most recent nap, I just got out of bed. The funny thing is that I was SURE that I overslept – I felt great and it seemed like I was in bed for hours.

It’s amazing that 15 minutes is now a significant amount of sleep to me. When I was a hibernator, adding 15 minutes to my night would do nothing – now it can keep me alert for four hours. It just makes me wonder what else I’m missing out on. Can I do work this efficiently? How about exercise?

Before I take each nap, I say out loud, “I’m going to enjoy a really restful, deep sleep for the next twenty or twenty five minutes. I’ll have an exciting dream that will make it an adventure, and when I wake up I will be totally alert and awake”. Doing that seems to keep my subconcious in check and prevents oversleeping. I can’t remember the last time I overslept in my bed – now I just close my eyes in my chair.

To combat those oversleeping incidents, I have a loud alarm that goes off every 30 minutes on my computer, as well as an alarm that goes off after not typing for two minutes. These alarms are automatically disabled when I’m on an “official” nap. I’ve also been playing relatively loud music 24 hours a day. Doing this seems to engage my brain a bit, making it harder to just drift off.

Oh, and check out this awesome pillow I ordered for mobile naps : Cocoon Travel Pillow, Small