Productivity(?) vs. Sleep: Day 6.5

So turns out today is day six on my change in sleeping regime. You think it would be pretty easy for me to have sorted that out in my last post considering even post has the day in it.. But I guess that's what happens when I'm in my zombie mode.

Please to say that today has been going great! My naps have all been perfect, falling asleep and waking up on time. My 1pm nap was spent on campus since I had classes all day, I just found a study booth to put my head-down and slept in a sitting position.

It's the first time that I truly believe this sleeping cycle may actually be possible! I'm trying not to get my hopes to high as it may just be today then a crash tomorrow. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Productivity(?) vs. Sleep: Day 5.5 or 6(?)

Days are starting to blend together. I now see things in quarters, like mini days with 30mins to rest and 5.5 hours to be have fun.

Please note, this is not a guranteed fact.

I spent most (read all) of todays 'trouble hours' on the computer. I have my first major assignment of this week due this morning, or next quarter if you're following the time like me. I have no idea how the paper actually sounds, I think it makes sense but we'll see what my Theory of Finance professor thinks tomorrow.

There are also bags under my eyes, I didn't notice them before so they must be new? I'm hoping they go away after my 7am nap.

Oh, and I've been photoshoping pictures to keep me entertained as well. I'm going to start counting how many meals I eat every day. It seems like a lot. Enjoy my photoshop art.

Productivity(?) vs. Sleep: Day 5

I will be making a small change in my nap times today since university starts back up tomorrow! My naps will be getting pushed back by an hour, so they will now be at 7am, 1pm, 7pm, and 1am (same awake-to-nap ratios, just different timing).

Struggle, Adapt, & Refocus

I had a major setback in my evening nap last night. I slept through my alarm and several phone calls. I had started just using my one alarm, my phone, since re-setting my backup alarm four times a day was a huge pain. Turns out having a backup alarm in this sleeping cycle isn't an option its a necessity. I feel overly rested today so I'm skipping all my naps till 1am, thereby maintaining my level of sleep deprivation to carry into the next week.

This upcoming week will be rather exciting as classes start again tomorrow. I have exams, midterms, and assignments due this week so I'm looking forward to seeing the effects of this sleeping pattern on my studying and retention abilities. I've never been overly dedicated to studying or working on assignments, to say the the least, so I will have to find a new way to sit down and focus this week. I find now that I have 22 hours everyday to do things my procrastination has been increasing, I now have more time to 'get it done later'.

I have a feeling that this week will be the hardest and most entertaining. I am back to using several alarms, and will be keeping to my set schedule. This paired with the fact that I will have actual responsibilities again should make for... a good story(?)

Please accept my apologies for future typo and grammar mistakes, they will be getting progressively worse. At least they still make sense in my head.

Productivity(?) vs. Sleep: Day 4

I`m quite surprised to have made it this far on the 2 hours of sleep per day without any major incidents.. yet. I`m sure at some point the complete lack of sleep and my body having not yet fully adjusted will make for some interesting stories as sleep deprecation can cause hallucinations and a drunk like behavior.

I feel like my eyes are really tired but my body wants to get up, run around, and dance.

Here is an interesting post I found on the stages of adapting to polyphasic sleep:
Taken from http://www.danceproof.com/dymaxion-sleep-intro/

Polyphasic sleepers usually go through five phases (the humor comes from realizing that they resemble the five stages of grief):

1. Pre-polyphasic phase (denial)- The soon to be polyphasic sleeper is extremely excited about final getting to master time and space, they “knew something like this HAD to exist”. Imagining all the things they will do with their new found extra time their blood pressure continues to rise.
2. Infected-pre-zombie phase (anger)- The polyphasic sleeper has began their nap schedules, was doing fine, but is now feeling the effects of sleep deprivation arriving.
3. Changing-into-zombie phase (bargaining)- the polyphasic sleeper now starts to desperately try everything to stay awake (picture someone chugging a whole case of red bull), even though they realize that things are slowly getting worse and worse.
4. Zombie phase (depression)- The polyphasic sleeper is now defeated. Now resembling a zombie (drooping arms/shoulders, slow paced, bloodshot/puffy eyes, murmured speech, etc.) they are drained of all energy and are only waking up from their naps by pure instinct.
5. Defeat phase (acceptance)- The polyphasic sleeper now believes that everything they read/heard was a lie, they “knew nobody could live on two hours of sleep per day”, and soon accept that they need sleep. They now proceed to take that 8-24 hour nap they’ve been desperately craving for.

…Wait, what? The outcome is a failure?

Well… the truth is that there is a 6th phase few reach. In this stage the polyphasic sleepers (the few left) who had decided to (against all possible reasonable explanations) continue with their polyphasic sleeping just a little more are now rewarded. The have now passed the hardest stages of polyphasic sleeping and from here on out they are Masters of Time! 

Productivity(?) vs. Sleep: Day 3

It seems the hardest time to stay awake is still the 1am-4am zone, where my body knows it should be sleeping.

My 12am nap gets the 'Hardest to Awake From' award. It's a constant fight to get up when it's the time most people would be going to sleep for the night. My proposed solution for todays 12am nap will be to take it somewhere slightly uncomfortable, such as the couch or floor.

Since I overslept on my earlier naps this morning I will be cutting out my 12pm nap to get back on schedule.

Today's Game Plan for my 12am nap:
'Sleep on the floor, kind of like a vagrant. Brings back memories of India..'

Productivity(?) vs. Sleep: Day 2.5

I slept in after my 6am nap by an hour. I slightly remember waking up and hitting my phone at which point it stopped making noise.. so I went back to sleep. Hopefully this will be a one time set back, I will be pushing myself to just jump out of bed from this point on and minimize the chance of over-napping again.

That said, I'm feeling pretty good so far! Lots of energy for most the day. It's usually around 30 minutes before my next scheduled nap that I start to get tired again. I've had a productive day, running around to get some errands done, a little shopping, and a meeting in the afternoon to discuss finances and event planning for the upcoming year.

Just woke up from my 6pm nap, which went perfectly. Don't have much planned for tonight to keep myself awake. I have a lot of coursework to get done for my university classes, will try and get that done this evening if it doesn't put me to sleep.

Productivity(?) vs. Sleep: Day 2

I laid down for my 30 minute nap at 12am.. Just laid there for 30 minutes, with my eyes closed, before my alarm went off. There was no sleeping.

I got out of bed and am going to continue on schedule with my next nap at 6am. I will be cranking up my alarm volumes to make-sure I wake up.

Note: I don't actually know how to Jazzercise... yet!

What have I been up to? I played Battlefield 2 for an hour, Facebooked it for a bit, random internet website, watched 1.5 movies with some Jazzercising and dancing worked in to keep myself awake.

Did you know it would take 40 minutes to hard-boil an ostrich egg? Because I do.

Productivity(?) vs. Sleep: Day 1

I spent a few hours yesterday researching the main three options for alternative sleeping (Uberman, Everyman, and the Dymaxion). The Everyman is without a doubt the easiest of the three. I think most students have used it at some point. Uberman, although it has an epic name, requires too much discipline and too many scheduled nap times. Therefore I decided to go with... the Dymaxion! There has only been one documented case of anyone successfully using this sleeping technique, the inventor Buckminster Fuller! (Who is said to have died at an early age for unknown reasons...But anyhow..)

Basically the plan for me is to sleep for 30 minutes every six hours. I have to keep the nap times constant so I picked the times to be: 12am, 6am, 12pm, 6pm.


I've started the sleeping pattern last-night and will continue with the help of two or three very loud alarms. I now have 22 hours per day to fill with.. things.. I don't actually know what I'm going to be doing but during the 'trouble hours' (aka 1am-5am, when I want to sleep the most) I will be doing something that can keep my attention. Sometime like picking up first person shooter video-games again and working out whenever I start to feel tired.

It's 10 mins till nap time so that's all for now.

- Simon Sywanyk (11:50pm, Feb 23rd)

Spring Break Experiment

I've been reading some articles on sleep patterns lately and have always been, in the past anyways, interested in maximizing my productivity while minimizing my downtime (aka sleeping). I am currently a full-time student on spring-break and for the first time am not working in addition to my studies.. This means I have free time for a Spring Break Experiment!

To help explain what my experiment will entail here is one of the better posts I've found on the subject. I'm still finalizing the details and shall post again soon, enjoy.

- Simon

Most people only think that there is one way to sleep: Go to sleep at night for 6-8 hours, wake up in the morning, stay awake for 16-18 hours and then repeat. Actually, that is called a monophasic sleep cycle, which is only 1 of 5 major sleep cycles that have been used successfully throughout history. The other 4 are considered polyphasic sleep cycles due to the multiple number of naps they require each day. How is this possible? How is this healthy? Well the most important of every sleep cycle is the Stage 5 REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, which has been shown to provide the benefits of sleep to the brain above all other stages of sleep. When changing over to a polyphasic cycle, the lack of sleep tricks the body into entering REM sleep immediately instead of 45 to 75 minutes into sleep like in the monophasic sleep. This way, you still get the benefits of 8 hours of sleep without wasting all of the time it takes to get to REM cycles, resulting in a much more efficient sleep cycle. Here are polyphasic cycles:


      Uberman Cycle:
20 to 30 minute naps every 4 hours, resulting in 6 naps each day. The uberman cycle is highly efficient, and usually results in feeling healthy,  feeling refreshed upon waking and extremely vivid dreams. Many uberman-users report increased ability to lucid dream as well. However, the rigid schedule makes it near impossible to miss naps without feeling horribly tired. Blogger Steve Pavlina tried the cycle for 5.5 months and had amazingly positive results.He only reverted to monophasic sleep so that he could be on the same cycle as his wife and children. 


      Everyman Cycle:
One longer “core” nap that is supplemented with several 20-30 minute naps. The most successful variations that I have read about are either one 3 hour nap and three 20-minute naps or one 1.5 hour nap with 4-5 20 minute naps, all of which have equal amounts of time in between each nap. This cycle is much easier to adjust to than the Uberman and allows for more flexibity in nap times and in skipping naps when necessary. It is also still extremely efficient compared to monophasic with only 3-4 hours of sleep per day. Many bloggers have tried out this cycle and reported no negative 


      Dymaxion Cycle:

Bucky Fuller invented the cycle based on his belief that we have two energy tanks, the first is easy to replenish whereas the second tank (second wind) is much harder to replenish. So Bucky began sleeping for 30 minutes every 6 hours. That’s 2 hours a day of sleep! He reported feeling, “the most vigorous and alert condition I have ever enjoyed.” Doctors examined him after several years of using the cycle and pronounced him perfectly healthy. This is by far the most extreme of the 4 alternate cycles, but also the most efficient.

      Biphasic Cycle:

Not even worthy of a diagram, the biphasic cycle is basically that of every college student in America. The biphasic cycle consists of sleeping for 4-4.5 hours at night, and then taking a 90 minute nap around noon. So not all that different, still more efficient than monophasic, but not by much.