Polyphasic sleep cycle - Day 6

Progress at-a-glance

End of day 6*

• Mental alertness: 8
• Physical energy level: 9
• Quality of sleep: 7

*On this scale, 10 represents my original state prior to beginning this experiment.

Detailed comments

Sixth day into the experiment, and first day into my altered sleeping regime. In my previous blog post, I suggested increasing my intended duration of time spent asleep from 20 minutes to 30 minutes, to maintain a polyphasic sleep cycle but to mitigate sleep deprivation which I suspect was cumulatively taking place during the first four and a half days of this experiment. So instead of setting my countdown timer at 25 minutes when I lay down and aiming for 20 minutes spent in a sleeping state, I adjusted the time accordingly to aim for 30 minutes in a sleeping state.

From what I learned about how I sleep over the past five days, I set my countdown timer for my first attempt at 37 minutes. I think it was quite a good attempt at giving myself close to exactly 30 minutes in a sleeping state. What's more, I experienced a reasonably lengthy dream, so I think I spent a good amount of time in REM sleep. However, after waking up from my first ever 30 minute midnight nap, I still felt drowsy. Whilst doing some reading, I nodded off numerous times. I spent the rest of the time watching TV. Though that's not a very productive use of time, in a state like this, my main objective right now is to stay awake until my next nap.

My second 30 minute nap produced much better results. Again, I set my countdown timer for 37 minutes, and I think it was an accurate prediction. It took some time getting back to my senses immediately after getting up, but I was stably mentally alert till my 8am bedtime. My mental and physical operation were also virtually back to normal. But when I tried to do some reading, I had trouble staying awake.

After my third 37 minute nap at 8am, though, I didn't feel significantly different to any other 25 minute nap I had. Shortly after waking up and having breakfast, we set off for a day road trip. Today, we travelled to Enoshima in Kanagawa Prefecture for the illuminations there. We happened to still be on the way there by the time my 12pm nap came around, so I slept in the car. Again, it was a mediocre quality nap.

For my 4pm and 8pm naps, I don't think I was able to properly sleep at all. After lunch we headed to the hot springs so at 4pm, I took my nap in the relaxation room facility there. 8pm we were on the way back, so I slept in the car like I did yesterday. I set my alarm for 42 minutes each time, but judging on how much of my surrounding noise I was consciously aware of, I'm pretty sure I wasn't able to get to sleep for longer than 10 minutes at most in both cases. Having said that, I don't feel anywhere as sleepy at the moment as I should be, with the lack of sleep I'm getting. Very curious.

As for my eating plan today, I had one inari sushi when I woke up from my midnight nap. That sustained me till after my 8am nap when I had rice, natto, soya milk and a red bean bun. My next meal after that was lunch at Sukiya after my 12pm nap. It was so cheap there, that I ate more than I should have. I'm pretty sure I was still digesting that meal by the time my 4pm nap was due, and my guess is that that was the reason why I couldn't get to sleep - it was either because of the amount of meat I ate (I had beef with rice or 牛丼 in Japanese) or it was because of the quantity I ate, or maybe even both. Then at about 6:30, I again ate more than I should have (raw young sardines with rice or 白子丼 in Japanese) and my meal contained a high proportion of seafood, which could be considered animal protein and thus may have impeded my sleep quality. I can't quite say yet how strong a link there is between quality of sleep and quantity of food eaten, and quality of sleep and amount of animal products consumed yet, but there definitely seems to be a connection of some sorts, from my observations and experience today. What I can't explain yet, though, is why I don't feel as sleepy as I should with so little actual sleep.

Tomorrow, I intend on sticking with my target of getting 30 minutes of actual sleep per nap. This time, my main focus will be on carefully watching the size and constitution of every meal, so that I don't take in too much meat or just simply overeat and create excess burden over digestion. For the moment, I want to see if achieving this will improve the quality of my sleep in any way.