lauantai 30. heinäkuuta 2011

Everyman Day 12 - Completely Unnecessary Oversleep

I was going to write a post anyway today to update what has happened so far. Before the last nap of today the answer would have been "not a whole lot", but I just woke up from 1½ hour oversleep. This takes my totals to actually worse numbers than in the December adaptation. Still, I'd argue I'm still feeling better. Anyway, let's see into the reasons of the oversleep.

Quite simple really, two things happened that made this easy if not even likely. First off I went to be really early - 15 minutes early in fact. I wasn't too tired. It was feeling a bit down and not feeling like doing anything that made me do it. I was planning to stay awake for a few minutes before letting myself fall asleep. I did stay up for at least 10 minutes, but any nap lenght of over 25 minutes is still very dangerous. You fall into too deep sleep and get screwed.

I had much trust on my alarms though. Being a veteran of this already I'd knew that I was risking an oversleep when I go to bed early. But I thought to myself, if I fall asleep early I have the safety net of the computer's alarm. I have not needed that many times and I'm certain it would work if needed. So the problem was... Well, I apparently had not activated the whole alarm. That's useful, right? But these things happen which makes me think if I should have two heavier alarms just as two softer ones. Maybe one more, if religiously used, would render oversleeps at least very hard. In fact, I'll start to think about where I'll get one so that I'm pretty well covered in all situations.

Overall program still feels good, no terrible sleep dep, just very short phases of heavier tiredness mostly upon waking. The middle phase of the day, 14-17, still is by far the most unproductive, but it is also the shortest, which is a win-win situation. Or less lose-lose?

The oversleep today was pretty bad, but for some reason it isn't actually bother me that much. I remember a time when an oversleep left me feeling completely fucked up emotionally. Now I don't feel anything like that. I was only a bit annoyed and feel normal now. On an emotional level it's not a big deal maybe anymore, but intellectually I still want to avoid oversleeps as much as possible. I'll think about making oversleeps even harder and maybe do a blog post about what I come up.

I still need to use my days better, not be so complacent and remember the mantra: Stay active!

I'm going to stay active and bugger off to run 5 km. Why don't you folks do the same?

keskiviikko 27. heinäkuuta 2011

Everyman Day 9 - Refocus

I'm going to hit the sack soon for the 10th core. I've been on Everyman now for 9 full days and if you have followed my Twitter, you'll know that I've had mostly easy time. Two oversleeps, the other for 2 hours few days back and then practically an extra nap, 30-minute sleep shortly after the main nap yesterday. I'd say it has been easier than I could've ever imagined so far. The oversleeps have besides been more than compensated by two shortened cores and two missed naps.

The reason I'm writing this post is that I've noticed some complacency creeping into my daily habits. I don't get up so fast and I sometimes lay down after a nap (that's so stupid - recipe for disaster). So far, those mistakes haven't cost me. But they will if I don't intervene early enough. So I hope that this post is more of a wake-up call for myself, a way to refocus my eforts on the schedule.

I have had decent amounts of REM on the naps so far, but I don't recall my dreams. I just remember that I was having a dream, but not anything of it. I should be accumulating sleep debt, and perhaps I am, but that's happening really slowly apparently, because I'm still very rarely tired and it is so easy, no challenge to stay awake, unless it's just after waking up when you're not yet thinking straight.

My body has adapted to napping already very well. As I said, there's been plenty of REM already, and also I've noticed myself waking up often before the alarm. What I should still do is condition myself to get up, usually I just keep laying down and maybe fall asleep again. That usually results in more tiredness upon waking. Regardless of this I'm still keeping my discipline with the alarms - all three are in use for every nap, even though the instances where I've overslept on a nap using Everyman are rare. I think it makes falling asleep later more unlikely, when you have to set off three alarms. It's not much, but still, like I've said many times, you need to do everything you can to tip the odds in your favor.

Which is why you really can't fall victim to complacency. Polyphasic sleep is a fine-margin game, especially during the adaptation. Considering how easy it has been so far, I really shouldn't even have 2½ hours of oversleeps under my belt. It's improvement, but I still can't be happy. I hope I manage to avoid mistakes during the next 9 days. Now you must be curious about how much did I oversleep during the first 9 days of my original long Everyman attempt (I know I am), so let's take a look... Well, actually, now that I read it, I only had 3 hours of oversleep from two instances by this point back then. That was with three hour core, so it was in general harder than my current effort.

So is all this talk of improving I just had only an illusion? Perhaps, at least it should make me take the rest of the adaptation very seriously. It's surprising to find out that you shouldn't have had any trouble so far anyway. What it does tell me though is that I can look to the previous adaptation for what to expect during next few days, so I'll have a quick look on that too.

Day 10: Solid naps, plenty of tiredness.
Day 11: Similar to 10.
Day 12: Reversion - nap quality seemed to be down, yet I felt better.
Day 13: Low amounts of sleep, but no big troubles
Day 14: Similar to 13.
Day 15: Better, but still tired
Day 16: Overslept core, tiredness escalates
Day 17: Decent feel and numbers.
Day 18: Tired, but good numbers

So overall it seems like no oversleeps would be decent, but not hard task to pull - during the next days I can expect the tiredness to slowly escalate. No reason to get excited for the "success" so far. The real adaptation is still long way ago - this is just the building sleep-deprivation phase. Still having said all of that and basically disproven my own claims of "best adaptation ever", I would still say that there's something going on with this adaptation that wasn't before. I'm confident of success this time. I will not bend over at the first signs of tiredness.

Speaking of tiredness, I should be going to sleep very soon - 15 minutes from now. I've said all that I want to say for now, see you guys soon again.

lauantai 23. heinäkuuta 2011

Everyman: Another Oversleep Debrief

So I had a couple of pretty bad mistakes today. Not in terms of setting me that much back, but in terms of how novice errors they were.

First off I woke up from my core and I don't know what the hell I'm thinking, but for some reason I put my alarm to 25 minutes later and then went back to bed. Now if I would have woken up 25 minutes later that would have been nothing too serious, but I slept through it and ended up sleeping 1½ hours over my regular core.

This wasn't the end of my mistakes though. I skipped the first nap, as I had slept so long it would have been too near anyway, so the time for the second one was today my first. It was a very solid nap, but I felt a little too comfortable in bed and didn't really get up. I ended up falling asleep for at least 30 minutes, but probably a little over.

I mean it's ridiculous. Beginner mistakes. I am very angry at myself - first one was simply avoidable by having multiple alarms and slightly more self-discipline. I really doubt I would have started to reset three or more alarms. As for second one, I should really get some one to shout me "GET THE FUCK UP!" everytime I go back to bed after waking up from the naps.

I had the midnight nap as usual. Overall I have no strong urge to shift any of the alarm times at all. It seems like they have fallen to good spots naturally this time. I really enjoy this long shift at night, I'm a night person and the tiredness seems to come at right time for core. During winter when I used Everyman I would have the third nap at 9 pm, which was too early, I guess. I rarely slept on that nap.

I got a new motherboard to my computer, but it's still acting up and not working completely properly. Which means that I might go yet another day without hardcore alarms... Well, I guess there would be alternatives, but I'm kind of attached to the thought of using my computer as the last stand for waking up. Anyway, I still plan to fix the issues before heading to sleep tonight... well, at dawn. Funny how polyphasic schedules work sometimes?

torstai 21. heinäkuuta 2011

How to Have Your Core Sleep In Thunderstorm

Answer - it's pretty damn hard. So yeah, things keep happening, so updates stay frequent as well. Yesterday was pretty awesome, I woke up from all of my naps pretty effortlessly. Core got a bit tougher.

I woke up only after 20 minutes of sleep - my body must have thought it to be another nap, which is amazing in the sense that it seems to have already adjusted to waking up so quickly. Anyway, shortly after waking up refreshed and not really even feeling like going back to sleep to continue the core, I started hearing the first sounds of thunder in the distance. Soon enough a whole storm moved near and it was just like battlezone in terms of sounds. Every striking lightning brought this loud boom, a clear explosion sound.

I used to have a phobia of thunder and it still it raises my adrenaline levels. Besides, given that this was a particularly strong storm (for Finland's standards), I was even a little more jumpy than usual. So it was no wonder I really struggled getting to sleep.

I got under two hours of sleep before the alarm woke me and even that was marred with the occasional waking up etc. In the end I decided to have some mercy on myself and re-set the alarm to an hour later. However, once again there was another cell of thunder that woke me up with a heavy blast only half an hour later. But I'm fine with that, I didn't want to shift the times a lot anyway.

It raises a good point though. This was a tough circumstance so how do you deal with this kind of stuff? On the other hand, you don't want to limit your sleep too much, but on the other hand, you want to stick to your schedule. For me that has always meant keeping up with the waking times. But yeah, I think this was an acceptable spot where to shift a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if it affects me later today. It feels amazing to be at day four with such little trouble, but I haven't really even started yet.

What else... I guess that's it for now.

keskiviikko 20. heinäkuuta 2011

Everyman: Second Day Glory - Stay Active!

Being and staying active is one of the key components to being polyphasic. It isn't enough to keep yourself occupied, you really need to be active - either by being really engaged with your mind or doing something more physical.

It was this old lesson that was once again reminding me today, when I insisted on just laying on the bed with a laptop on my lap - not a good idea. Being generally passive just invites tiredness and soon enough I fell asleep.

I got lucky though - I woke up five minutes later, so it was so short unnecessary sleep, that I don't even count it as a failure. Beside that five minute moment of tiredness the day was absolutely awesome, even if my core didn't convince me at all. I felt like I woke up many times during that and felt somewhat disoriented. Getting up was easy though, as I already were awake. Same thing happened with first and third naps - I woke up before the alarms went off, completely refreshed.

I gotta be honest I'm surprised, the start has been far better than what I had expected. Sure, I was tired for the most of the day, but the naps itself were great and waking up from them has never been this easy - besides, no missed naps so far, it's awesome. Like everything is clicking right from the off. Of course when I'm writing this positively, I'm bound to fail soon.

In other news, you can now add me in Twitter and keep up to date with my progress. I'll be posting short status updates throughout my day there. Checkout PolySleeper. It's the best place to get regular updates as I probably won't be posting everyday like this, unless I keep getting these reminders that I think are worth bringing up in the blog.

I'll chill out through the night next, I have a bit of writing in front of me and then there's the first Copa America semi coming up later in the night. It's moments like these when I truly enjoy being polyphasic. Only bad thing going on at the moment is the fact that the motherboard didn't show up yet. Come on, of course the delivery gets delayed just when I need it the most. What that means is one more night without heavy alarms and that keeps getting me more and more worried, but as I said, signs so far don't seem bad. Besides, even if the oversleep comes, it's still early and it would only be a small loss.

tiistai 19. heinäkuuta 2011

Everyman: Past the First Day

So, I started the Everyman today - well, it's actually past midnight already so it was really yesterday. I'm pretty damn happy with my first day. I'm tired, but that much is obvious. What I'm happy is that I woke up from every nap and slept during every nap. I still have my doubts over the very uneven distribution of the naps, but it worked fine today.

I still have only two alarms as my computer is still broken down. I get a new motherboard tomorrow so I'll get that fixed to have a loud alarm as well. It will serve as a final back-up that wakes me up everytime.

It wasn't my most productive day, but I've been generally unproductive at recent times, so it my performance didn't go way down because of polyphasing. I'm still stating the obvious though that it's not the first day that's tough. I'm a bit nervous about waking up from the second core, as I still have only silent alarms, but it's only a slight worry - I doubt I'm yet that dead that I need the heavy alarm every time.

I guess that's all for now. I won't be posting every day of my progress, I'll just keep you updated if something significant happens or if I feel like saying something. There will be some miscellaneus status updates in some other posts that I have planned for this blog.

torstai 14. heinäkuuta 2011

Update: New Everyman Adaptation Coming Up & Site Scrapped

It's been awhile since my last post, over a month in fact. I've been sleeping pretty normally meanwhile, polyphasing can be quite exhaustive, especially with the training amounts I've been having. But now it's time to stop resting on my laurels and get going again. I don't know how healthy this constant polyphasing is, but I haven't pretty much even gotten sick or felt bad bar the occasional sleep deprivation induced headache during past 16 months.

I decided to scrap the site, because frankly I don't think I know enough of polyphasing. Yeah, I do have plenty of experience, but it's all from failing - which is all good, as if I've just succeeded on the first try, I wouldn't have needed to grow as a person nor could I teach it to anyone as I would obviously be a natural. When I finally succeed - could be years from now - I would have made every mistake in the book and would have had to find a solution to everyone of them. But at the moment, I simply don't have any credibility to give advice to anyone.

All of my Zeo's censors though have gone past their three (or was it four, I don't remember) month period where they work and already I'm seeing that the readings have started to throw off. Besides, for some reason I have started to twist and turn in the bed so I can't even keep the band on for the most of the nights. Most likely I don't be using Zeo to track data this time for those reasons. I've yet to decide. As for when I start, it will be soon, probably in the next few days. Here's my rough plan of the schedule:
Core: 6.30-10.00
Nap 1: 13:30-14:00
Nap 2: 17:00-17:30
Nap 3: 0:00-0:30

Obviously it's only tentative at the moment, I will see where my natural tired moments fall and then shift it accordingly. The core can't be much earlier though - as much as I enjoy getting up early, my need of heavy duty alarms (I'm even more liable to sleep through alarms at the moment than I was ever before) forces me to get up in a time that doesn't interfere with anyone else's sleep. I can shift it a bit earlier if needed, but we'll see. The core is 3½ hours as it was before, it just works better for me than the usual three hour version.

The first nap is spaced the same way it has been in my most recent adaptations. The second nap is so close due to schedule constraints. If I shift it later, it will go beyond 21, but I think that I'm more likely to shift the rest of the schedule earlier. As for the last nap, I hope it's on the darkest time - I've not made much of the nightly walks this summer, which has been sad as I really enjoy it. Now I would be able to do that.

Why Everyman again? I could try triphasic, but Uberman is just no-go at the moment. The numerous attempts have really forced me the face the fact that I'm indisciplined. You need to get the Bachelor's degree before you can get to Master's. That's the way I view Everyman and Uberman - Of course you could do Uberman straight away, but only very few people can handle the intense adaptation of Uberman. I think I have to grow a lot as a person before I'm able to do Uberman, whereas Everyman, while very challenging too, is something I view very possible. I did go 20-something days using Everyman with minimal errors, after all!

Whether I'm physically even able to do either is a different matter all together - I believe I haven't gone nearly long enough on any adaptation to say that I simply don't adapt. Uberman is also so hard that I need to clean up my diet & just all around fix my life to tip the odds to my favor. My diet is pretty good, but not perfect. I've probably babbled long enough, so stay tuned for more soon. As that site project got scrapped, I might post a couple of posts I had written for the coming sites, if I still like them. Overall most of this blog so far has been just me spouting shit while sleep-deprived, I'd like to have more worthwhile content. See ya soon.