Hacking sleep
I'm seriously considering trying out the Everyman sleep schedule as an alternative to my current chronic insomnia and restless nights. This means that I'll start sleeping in the following pattern: three hours from around 1:30 to 4:30 (give or take half an hour or so), then 20 minutes around 9:30, then 20 minutes around 14:30, then 20 minutes around 20:00, and awake until ~1:30 again. This means I'll be sleeping a total of four hours every day, giving me 20 usable hours in the day rather than 16-- assuming it works.
"Seriously considering"? Hmm... perhaps the better word is "planning".
It will apparently be sleep dep hell for the first week or two... but let's be honest, I'm kinda suffering that already. So I intend to implement this starting immediately, as in tonight. Hopefully my body will realize that getting on any sort of regular schedule will be an improvement to the current situation. I'll be keeping a log of my progress, in part so that I can get used to updating again (I actually do like letting people know what's going on in my life) and in part because, after a month or so of this, once I've either settled in or given up, the log is going to be my belated Christmas present to my brother, who for many years now has had as an item on his wishlist: "More Time". Y'know, I didn't ever actually expect to be able to give it to him, but hey, maybe it'll work.
I seriously hope he doesn't read this LJ, cause if so I just spoiled the surprise. He does in fact know my net-name Cirne, but I can't actually imagine him reading LJ ever, so I don't think that's a problem.
I expect the most difficult part of this will be conditioning my body to actually wake up and get out of bed with the alarm once I've finished my 3-hour core sleep, and likewise not oversleep my 20:00 nap. I definitely won't take the nap in my bed, it's way too much of a temptation to actually sleep in. But I'm not good at waking up with my alarm even now with my nominally 8-hour sleep schedule, so I'm definitely going to have to train myself to wake up fully once my alarm goes off. We'll see how well that works.
This will have some interesting effects on my life, of course, assuming it works. Much of these come from the fact that polyphasic sleep is much less forgiving than monophasic-- the more sleep phases you have, the less you can shift them around. So I will always be napping at some point right around 8 PM every day, which means any dinner I have will have to either be around 6 PM to give me time to digest beforehand, or after I wake up around 8:30. Trying to nap on a full stomach is, I hear, Not A Good Idea. It also means I won't be able to do anything that takes more than five or six hours in one go, so I wouldn't be able to do my crazy road trips where I drive eight or nine (or more) hours in a shot. Not that that's really that big a loss, I don't mind stopping off for a nap in a rest area.
So! I'm working late tonight. I'll probably clock out at 20:00, take my nap in the office, then head home. I'll get some alarm clock practice in while it's still not too late to be making noise, and then do... something until 1:30. Depending on how alert I feel, I might do some grocery shopping, otherwise I'll do laundry and either bum around the Internets or play video games. Tomorrow morning: early routine will involve going from bed directly upstairs to kitchen and eating an apple. That should be enough to seriously wake me up, and that's what I'll practice tonight (minus the actual eating the apple, of course). After that? Not sure. Probably back downstairs to get dressed and brush teeth. Read webcomics, maybe. Possibly do some knitting. I'm going to need to seriously think about what to do with my time-- perhaps I'll make a list of all the things I like to do, rated for whether they need an actual alert mind or not. We'll see.
This post has gotten too long already. And I have work to do. Until tomorrow, then-- wish me luck!
"Seriously considering"? Hmm... perhaps the better word is "planning".
It will apparently be sleep dep hell for the first week or two... but let's be honest, I'm kinda suffering that already. So I intend to implement this starting immediately, as in tonight. Hopefully my body will realize that getting on any sort of regular schedule will be an improvement to the current situation. I'll be keeping a log of my progress, in part so that I can get used to updating again (I actually do like letting people know what's going on in my life) and in part because, after a month or so of this, once I've either settled in or given up, the log is going to be my belated Christmas present to my brother, who for many years now has had as an item on his wishlist: "More Time". Y'know, I didn't ever actually expect to be able to give it to him, but hey, maybe it'll work.
I seriously hope he doesn't read this LJ, cause if so I just spoiled the surprise. He does in fact know my net-name Cirne, but I can't actually imagine him reading LJ ever, so I don't think that's a problem.
I expect the most difficult part of this will be conditioning my body to actually wake up and get out of bed with the alarm once I've finished my 3-hour core sleep, and likewise not oversleep my 20:00 nap. I definitely won't take the nap in my bed, it's way too much of a temptation to actually sleep in. But I'm not good at waking up with my alarm even now with my nominally 8-hour sleep schedule, so I'm definitely going to have to train myself to wake up fully once my alarm goes off. We'll see how well that works.
This will have some interesting effects on my life, of course, assuming it works. Much of these come from the fact that polyphasic sleep is much less forgiving than monophasic-- the more sleep phases you have, the less you can shift them around. So I will always be napping at some point right around 8 PM every day, which means any dinner I have will have to either be around 6 PM to give me time to digest beforehand, or after I wake up around 8:30. Trying to nap on a full stomach is, I hear, Not A Good Idea. It also means I won't be able to do anything that takes more than five or six hours in one go, so I wouldn't be able to do my crazy road trips where I drive eight or nine (or more) hours in a shot. Not that that's really that big a loss, I don't mind stopping off for a nap in a rest area.
So! I'm working late tonight. I'll probably clock out at 20:00, take my nap in the office, then head home. I'll get some alarm clock practice in while it's still not too late to be making noise, and then do... something until 1:30. Depending on how alert I feel, I might do some grocery shopping, otherwise I'll do laundry and either bum around the Internets or play video games. Tomorrow morning: early routine will involve going from bed directly upstairs to kitchen and eating an apple. That should be enough to seriously wake me up, and that's what I'll practice tonight (minus the actual eating the apple, of course). After that? Not sure. Probably back downstairs to get dressed and brush teeth. Read webcomics, maybe. Possibly do some knitting. I'm going to need to seriously think about what to do with my time-- perhaps I'll make a list of all the things I like to do, rated for whether they need an actual alert mind or not. We'll see.
This post has gotten too long already. And I have work to do. Until tomorrow, then-- wish me luck!