Polyphasic sleep cycle 2.0 - Day 0

Tonight is my first night back in my own dorm room since I first started sleeping polyphasically. But my previous attempt has already, simply put, failed. And before I even reached the planned end date as well. Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed.

So that's what brings me to my second attempt at trying to adapt to the Uberman sleep cycle. My rationale for wanting to do so, as well as details on what this polyphasic sleep thing is all about, refer to this article I wrote previously. In this post, I'll be outlining my strategy, adding and improving on my initial experimental setup, in the hopes that I will at the very least stick with the Uberman sleep cycle till the end of my designated experimental period. The rationale for my experimental design this time adds my own experience from my first attempt to the things I learned from reading about others' attempts.

Goal: to change from a monophasic 7 hour sleep cycle to a polyphasic sleep cycle sleeping for 30 minute sessions at regular four hour intervals, for a total of six times (i.e. three hours' sleep) per day.

Experimental timeframe: Ten days will be allowed for the sleep pattern transition period. After the initial ten day period, I will evaluate the viability of continuing the polyphasic sleep cycle based upon my state of mental and physical functionality in comparison to prior to starting the experiment.

Sleep schedule: I will be taking six lots of 35 minute naps each 24 hour period, evenly spaced out every four hours. These naps will begin at 12am, 4am, 7:50am*, 12pm, 4pm, and 8pm every day. I will be using a countdown timer, which I will set at 30 minutes before I lie down. I will strive to keep my actual start time within 10 minutes of the predetermined timings. My first sleep begins in five minutes.

During the initial transition period of ten days only, I will allow myself an additional nap time between the 12am and 4am, and between the 4am and 8am naps respectively where necessary, inspired by Steva Pavlina's attempt of the Uberman sleep cycle.

*Instead of 8am, I will be timing my sleep for 7:50am purely because of pragmatics. I have class every weekday beginning at 8:30, and it takes 5 minutes to walk to class from the dormitories, and I would rather not rock up late to class every day.

Diet: From this point on until at least the termination of my polyphasic sleep cycle regime, I will be on an almost vegetarian diet, though I can't promise I can stop eating meat altogether. This time, I will strive to maintain a more regulated diet so that my diet might have minimal impact on my quality of sleep. I've given an outline of what I plan on eating throughout the day by looking at each nap segment. I'm using my experience from my previous attempt as a reference point.

• 12am-4am: soon after waking up from my nap, eat half a cup of rice with soup, or the equivalent amount of calories. Consumption of fruit and vegetables (excluding starch heavy ones e.g. potatoes, corn) is unrestricted.
• 4am-8am: from past experience, I haven't needed to eat anything. But once semester begins, I will need to go to class immediately after waking up from my 8am nap, so I may consider moving some of the food I eat in the next segment into this one.
• 8am-12pm: one cup of rice with natto, and one cup of yoghurt with a proportionate amount of cereal. Eat fruit liberally.
• 12pm-4pm: one bowl of noodles/cup of rice with lots of vegetables, or the equivalent amount of food. A little bit of meat is okay, but if eating animal products, seafood is preferable.
• 4pm-8pm: one bowl of noodles/cup of rice, lots of vegetables, maybe a little bit of meat (seafood preferable).
• 8pm-12am: no significant food intake is planned. Snacking on fruit and vegetables is okay.

Overall, there will be a reduction in protein intake, but I hope to supplement that with soy products. I am especially fond of tofu and I can eat mountains of it. The diversity of tofu products helps. Also, I expect a sharp increase in vitamin intake, for the better. My caloric intake will probably decrease, considering how much I ate before, but there are long established studies demonstrating that underfed mice (and probably people too) live longer than overfed mice, and even those consuming a normal diet, so a reduced caloric intake is not of concern to me.

Predicted course of events: Shouldn't differ much from my first attempt. The first 24 hours, I will be slightly tired, but otherwise normal. The next 48-72 hours, I will be a walking zombie. The remaining time over the ten day experimental period, I will slowly transition from zombie-like status to regaining normal brain clarity.

Known significant events during the experimental period:

• Dec 30: experiment begin
• 31st Dec (night): news year's party at the dormitory
• 2-4th Jan: going shopping for post-NY heavy discounts
• 6th Jan-: winter semester begins

Detailed breakdown of experimental design:

     The Uberman sleep cycle is a method well known amongst the polyphasic sleepers community. I have chosen to try out this pattern of sleep for two main reasons, firstly because it appears to come with a truckload of advantages and only slight disadvantages, and secondly because it happens to fit into my weekly routine.

     If you want to read up on the advantages and disadvantages of the Uberman sleep cycle, just refer to my previous post or type the search term into Google, and you will get more than enough results so I won't bother adding to the vast amount of content already available. The deciding factor for me personally in choosing to undertake the Uberman cycle, is the distinct lack of 'core sleep'. From a theoretical perspective, I agree with the thinking that retaining a core block of sleep in your regime encourages oversleeping in the long run. From a practical perspective, it frees up more time to be awake doing stuff!

     A note on my modified sleep schedule. I've concluded that 25 minutes per nap is insufficient (at least for me) from my previous attempt, and have subsequently increasedthe amount of time allocated to each nap, as seen in my experimental setup. I've considered altering the timing of each sleep to try and get 30 minutes in an asleep state every nap, by predicting how long I will take to fall asleep, but I've decided that it is (1) too subjective and (2) too inaccurate, so I've opted for the more standardised fixed timing approach.

     As for compatibility with my usual daily routine, I worked it out like this. Until winter holidays end (Jan 5th), I will have a 100% flexible schedule (excluding one off events) which allows me freedom to make the sleep cycle transition. After winter semester begins, from Monday to Friday, I can sneak in a nap before class begins at 8:30, then during my 11:40-12:40 lunch break I can sneak in another nap, and after classes finish at 3:50, it's the next scheduled nap time. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Aikido training from 5:30-7:30pm, Wednesday there is a prayer meeting at Tama church from 6:00-7:00, none of which interfere with my 8pm nap. On Saturday, I'm at Aikido training from 10:30-12:00, so my noon nap time might be slightly delayed, but only by a bit. However, I do sacrifice having lunch together with the other Aikido members after practice, unless they are willing to wait half an hour, or unless I delay my sleep time. The morning service at Tama church is from 10:15-11:50 ish, which is compatible, but if I want to stay for lunch, I may need to sneak off somewhere for a quick 30 minute shut eye between end of the service and lunch time. There is also an afternoon service for younger people from 5:30-7pm, which fits into the schedule just fine. I'll just need to watch out for the occasional social event or Christian event and such, which may interfere with my 8pm sleep time. Though if I let people know in advance, disappearing from the gathering for half an hour if need be shouldn't be too big of a deal.

     Having already attempted this sleep cycle once, I still regard the biggest factor that will make or break this experiment to be self-discipline. Over the next ten days (and if I happen to succeed, then from that point onward) there will be various life events that will threaten to throw me off my planned routine. These can be planned events such as parties and outings, or it can be something more abstract such as getting tired of maintaining a healthy diet. Sometimes it will be plain insensible to stick uncompromisingly to my sleep regime. But other times, I need the discipline to not make excuses and to stick with it. Let's see how polyphasic sleep cycle experiment 2.0 works out.