Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Polyphasic sleep cycle 2.0 - Day 9

Progress at-a-glance
End of day 9*
  • Mental alertness: 10
  • Physical energy level: 9.5
  • Quality of sleep: 10

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

Detailed comments
Second day of the winter semester is now over, and one day to go before my designated experiment evaluation date. I felt excellent today, both physically and mentally. Since the university gym opened at the beginning of the new semester yesterday, I've even been doing around half an hour of strength training each night, and I've been able to train without any adverse sensations. I'm feeling slightly sore right now from my training session yesterday night, but that's because I did next to no exercise over the Christmas and new year's break. Let's see how long it takes for my muscle soreness to go away, with only three hours sleep spread over half hour segments every four hours each day. I might add that I'm planning on continuing my 30 minute physical training routine every day. So onto my usual daily breakdown of progress.

Between my 12am nap and my 4am nap today, I was feeling extremely sleepy. The whole time was spent writing a single blog post that you saw posted this morning. During its writing, I nodded off numerous times, sometimes for over 20 minutes (my computer is set to automatically go to sleep after 20 minutes). Other times, I'd wake up to find my screen literally looking like thiseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrenerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrru73333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

Needless to say, I wasn't exactly top of the world at that time. I probably should have taken an additional nap during that time, but it appears I was too tired to think of doing such a thing.

Between my 4am and my 8am naps, I took a shower, ate a big bowl of salad (cherry tomatoes, seaweed and cucumber with self-made salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar, chilli sauce based dressing), cleaned my room a bit, and did some kanji homework.

From 8:30am till 11:40am, we had class as usual. I was supposed to, like yesterday, duck back to my room during the hour long lunch break and take a nap then eat some food, but since we had a free period after lunch today, and since normal university students at TUFS don’t begin classes until Friday of this week which meant that Aikido today (and Thursday this week) was moved to 10:30-12pm, I went with a fellow foreign student also doing Aikido with me to drop by their practice session and say hello. Unexpectedly (though on hindsight I should have expected it), we were invited to go have lunch together, particuarly since they were on holidays and we didn't have third period which meant we were free till 2:20pm. I didn't quite know how to refuse without having to give them a long explanation of my back story, which I wasn't convinced they needed to know, so I figured I'd just have a small bit to eat with them and sleep afterward. For lunch, I had a small Chinese style dish with rice (中華丼 chuukadon) and some pineapple from the university cafeteria where we gathered to eat.

I ended up not getting into bed for my nap till 1:55pm (and waking up at 2:25pm and rocking up late to fourth period but that was ok), but mentally (and physically) I felt fine, with no particular need or urge to sleep or anything. And after waking up, my thinking was clear and my attention span was excellent. We had politicoeconomics in fourth period, where I (and everyone else, really) usually fall asleep, I didn't nod off a single time today. Not that I learned particularly any more than if I'd slept through the class, but oh well. Experiment-wise, positive results.

Since I didn't sleep till 2pm, I decided to skip my 4pm nap since I didn't have the slightest inclination that I needed to sleep. Instead, I had natto with half a cup of rice before filling up the rest of my time cleaning my room, hanging out with friends, and going to the gym.

At 8pm after my gym session for the day, I took my scheduled half hour nap, and woke up feeling good as new. I cooked myself a stir fry with carrots, bamboo shoot, something resembling a bok choi, mushrooms, and spring onion, before settling down and writing this blog post while facebooking on the side. It's about time I took my next nap.


One more day to go, before making the final call on the future of my polyphasic sleep cycle.

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