Day1 (nap7) Final nap for the day (Sept. 9, 2009)

Here is a link to the very FIRST post of this Blog 1st Post of Day1

Nap7 (Last nap of Day1)

Saturday, September 12, 2009

10:18 PM

Just woke up  from Nap7 (9:30pm-10:00pm) and corrected an error in this log. I had skipped writing Nap5 (1:00pm-1:30pm) and that had messed up my labeling for subsequent naps. The error is now rectified, and I can post correctly about this latest nap.
The LAST Nap for Day 1: So what do I have to say about this big final nap? Not a whole lot really. I'm rather surprised, because I thought I'd have more going on. I realize that in  about 2hrs I'm going to have another nap (my 1st nap for Day2 [12:30am-1am]), which makes me fairly content. The time from 4:30pm-9:30pm, where I didn't have a single nap/break was not really that tough. I imagine it will be tomorrow, but for tonight I managed to make it fairly easily. One thing I will say is that I'm actually somewhat ready for the days to run together. I believe that, through cataloging each of these naps, I can achieve more normative control of the day sequence. In other words, I don't think that I'll be thrown for as much of a loop as I was last time when I lost track of the days. It helps that OneNote gives a specific Day,Date,Yr,Time format for each note that I write. In fact, as soon as I'm done writing this & doing something else, I will probably start working on outlining for class projects in OneNote. Oh, actually I NEED to make a "List of things to do" before I do anything else. Ah, alright so it's time for the Psych. State analysis:
Psychological States ( 1=low --> 5=high)

Feeling of "Tiredness"	2
Hunger	1
Clarity of thoughts	4
Willingness to exercise	3
Willingness to write	4
Memory recall ability	3
Awareness of surroundings	4
Feelings of anxiety	1
Calmness	3
Frequency of odd thoughts	1
Errors of mind/typing	2
Schedule Adherence	4
Productivity	2

Not too shabby for the end of the day. Haha, lets just hope those values don't invert themselves come tomorrow.

Day1 (nap6)

Nap6

Saturday, September 12, 2009

4:32 PM

Went to the store & got "lunch" before this nap. I ate around 3:00pm, and was able to nap @ 4:00pm. As is obvious by the time of writing, I got up on time. I even seem to be falling asleep better during this phase of the experiment than I did last time. This is pleasantly surprising, as last time I tried the experiment I never seemed to be able to fall asleep when nap times rolled around. I attribute the change to my increased calm about the process.
Psychological States ( 1=low --> 5=high)

Feeling of "Tiredness"	2
Hunger	2
Clarity of thoughts	2
Willingness to exercise	2
Willingness to write	3
Memory recall ability	4
Awareness of surroundings	4
Feelings of anxiety	1
Calmness	4
Frequency of odd thoughts	1
Errors of mind/typing	1
Schedule Adherence	4
Productivity	3

Looks like, given the scores, this is a fairly mediocre period (post-nap5). Not great, but not bad either. I would classify it as slightly less than "normal" state (same time in the evening, but with mono. sleep).

4:48pm: I just remembered that this will be the longest AWAKE period of my day. I don't have another nap until 9:30pm, which means approximately 5hrs from when I last woke from a nap. On the bright side, late-night naps will occur much more frequently and will likely seem better :)

5:17pm: I have just had a moment of confusion (forgot what I was going to get out of my bedroom). I remembered fairly quickly, but I thought I should document it anyway. I have a sneaky suspicion that it may have been an effect of sleep-dep. However, it may have just been a simple mishap; such a thing has happened once or twice in my life :)

Day1 (nap4)

Nap4

Saturday, September 12, 2009

10:57 AM

This nap was from 10:00am-10:30am. Using the iTouch, by putting it FAR away from bed (by my cpu) was a very good idea. I was actually mostly able to fall asleep, despite having overslept earlier and had breakfast only 1hr before napping. Aside-Many ppl claim that you should eat at least 2hrs before napping to receive optimal sleep ( meal > 2hrs before nap = good nap). So technically I "broke" that rule, but it worked out (also I was starving from staying up all night). That's another good thing about polyphasing (the act of polyphasing sleep i.e. "googling") though; I get to eat a few hundred more calories b/c my body is active longer. This will especially be true if I begin taking walks after waking, or a stricter exercising regimen.

Psychological States ( 1=low --> 5=high)

Feeling of "Tiredness"	2
Hunger	1
Clarity of thoughts	4
Willingness to exercise	2
Willingness to write	3
Memory recall ability	4
Awareness of surroundings	3
Feelings of anxiety	2
Calmness	3
Frequency of odd thoughts	1
Errors of mind/typing	1
Schedule Adherence	4
Productivity	3

It may be interesting to use the Psych. States data and compare certain markers as it relates to times of the day. For example, maybe I will find that "Schedule Adherence" significantly increases during the day, but drops dramatically at night (a hypothesis I worry about).

Day1 (nap3)

Nap3

Saturday, September 12, 2009

9:19 AM

This could be a bad sign. I already overslept (by quite a bit). I was supposed to wake up at 7:00, and I did. I turned my iTouch alarm off, turned my phone alarm off, and hen promptly hopped back onto my bed & decided to "snooze" for a few minutes. 8:45 and I realized that my snooze had turned against me, gone against my will for only a slightly longer nap. Well, at least it was only the 3rd nap. It's not like this is devastating; I had slipups early on during my last attempt, and this time I doubt they'll be as bad b/c I have experience. I think I should catalog my psychological states for most naps (this won't be a very objective study). It'll be on a 5pt scale
  (1=low/negligibe   5=high/very noticeable)
Here it goes:
Psychological States ( 1=low --> 5=high)

Feeling of "Tiredness"	1
Hunger	3
Clarity of thoughts	4
Willingness to exercise	3
Willingness to write	4
Memory recall ability	4
Awareness of surroundings	5
Feelings of anxiety	2
Calmness	4
Frequency of odd thoughts	1
Errors of mind/typing	1
Schedule Adherence	3
Productivity	2

I believe that ought to suffice as my psych.-state estimator, even though it's likely to be seen as a very biased indicator over time. I'll try to have it in in each post.

Day1 (nap2)

Nap2

Saturday, September 12, 2009

3:16 AM

This is being written pre-nap2. I am reading the book "Ubersleep" by Puredoxyk. In it is some compelling theory that 20minute naps may be better than 30minute naps. For this reason, I will slightly modify my schedule soon. I will still adhere to 30minute periods of break time, but I will allocate 10 of those minutes to getting prepared to nap. So it'll be like this:

I have a 3:30am-4:00am nap.

I will get in bed (really on top of my comforter so I won't be tempted to sleep longer) @ 3:30am

I will have 10minutes to get to sleep in a relaxed manner

@ 3:40am, I have to hope that I am asleep, so that I will get 20minutes of sleep before the alarm  

      goes off @ 4:00am.

I will wake up @ 4:00am.

This is the end of the pre-nap2 post. A subsequent post-nap2 write-up will probably follow within the next 1/2 hour. This post was ended at 3:23am (just enough time to brush teeth) :)

Post-"nap": Crappy nap period. I don't know if I actually got to sleep, but it wasover way too soon. I guess that means I did get to sleep. Decided to try to get a couple extra minutes by adding 10minutes to alarm & that ended quickly too. Must mean that I am getting to sleep. Only feel slightly tired, but it was tough getting off of the bed.

Day1 (nap1)

Day 1 (Nap1) Following naps in sub-pages

Saturday, September 12, 2009

12:07 AM

I have decided to re-test Polyphasic sleep. I tried to take my first nap from 11pm-11:30 (did not feel like following the schedule on 1st nap). I did not succeed. I ended up just having to mentally "shut down" parts of my body (from the feet up), and never quite got to sleep. However, I know that parts of my body were at rest, because upon beginning to move, I stretched like most people normally do when they wake up. Side note- The stretching felt really good. :)
Here is my current schedule of class & naps (it's built around my class schedule again).

Nap	12:30am-1am
Nap	3:30am-4:00am
Nap	6:30am-7:00am
Class	8:00am-9:20am
Nap	10:00am-10:30am
Class	11:00am-12:20pm
Nap	1:00pm-1:30pm
Class	2:00pm-3:20pm
Nap	4:00pm-4:30pm
Class	~6:00pm-9:00pm
Nap	9:30pm-10:00pm

Unfortunately, I may have to edit my last nap (9:30pm-10pm) due to that last class and other extraneous factors. If so, I'll just push that nap back to the most reliable time (likely 10-10:30).
So that's the plan. It affords me ~3.5hrs of sleep every 24hrs. As a side-advantage, I will be cataloguing all of this with Microsoft OneNote, which will force me to get back into a habit of… Hmm, actually this will have multiple benefits. I'll list them:
1. Less sleep required each day
2. More effective time for reading/writing/studying/etc…
3. More working w/ OneNote = more familiarity with the software
4. Writing every few hours = getting back into writing practice
1. Can assist with overall writing skill (though not needed).
5. More Halo time lol (jk… sort of)
6. More time for nutrition/health/finance research
So, see there are a bunch of reasons! Oh, not to mention getting to explore more music through Pandora while awake. I'm sure that those of you actually follow me will be somewhat surprised that I'm really doing this again. It's partially to prove that I really can adapt to this schedule, and also to evaluate whether this is a viable option for the next period of my life.
Btw, if you haven't tried OneNote yet, but you enjoy the formatting of this message, then you really ought to try the software.
Good night all my friendly Monophasic sleepers :)