Still Going Strong

I realized it's been a while since I've updated this blog, so here's a new post. I'm horrible at keeping up with journals. I'm on Day 66 right now, and I feel great. No detrimental effects that I'm aware of. A great development: I have flexinaps! The time between the beginning of my naps can easily be anywhere from 3 to 5 hours, and I've stretched it to 6 and even 7 once without anything horrible happening. I just felt a little sleepy after my next nap.

My friends have been incredibly supportive. I've gone on a few church trips, even one in which I had a roommate, and everything worked out fine. I would nap during lunchtime, during car rides, etc. At night I would quietly read with a tiny light or surf the Internet. At first I was worried about how I would make my alarm wake me up without waking up my roomie, but then I discovered I could put my cell phone on vibrate and nestle it next to my neck so I would be certain to feel it. Worked perfectly.

What else, what else? Hmm... sometimes I'm lazy in the morning. After my 5am nap, I often lay in bed looking out the window, or reading if I remember to have a book nearby. I don't think it's due to actual tiredness at all. It's my inner laziness coming out. I've always had trouble motivating myself to get up in the mornings. It may have been too much to expect polyphasic sleep would eliminate that trait. If I have somewhere to go that day, though, then I'm up and at 'em with vigor. I'm looking forward to the school year starting again, because I have no choice but to get out of bed early in the morning. Summer was a good time to start polyphasic sleep, but not as good for maintaining discipline.

I'll try to update this blog occasionally as time goes on. I'm looking forward to my polyversary next summer, even though that's a long way away.

Sleep Deprivation and Thermoregulation

Interesting abstract of a scientific journal article I found:

During the cold test,T _re did not change but _sk and were higher after SD (P<0.05). Increased (+ 6%,P < 0.05) was related to earlier and higher shivering, with a possible increase in the sensitivity of the thermoregulatory system as shown by the shorter time to onset of continous shivering (d): 8.66 (SEM 1.33) min versus 28.20 (SEM 1.33) min (P < 0.001) and by a higher _sk observed at d: 27.60 (SEM 1.40)° C versus 21.40 (SEM 0.60)° C (P < 0.001). These results were associated with higher cold sensations and shivering following SD. They also suggested that SD modified thermoregulatory responses at a central level especially in a cold environment. (source: SpringerLink Journal Article)

 What all that gibberish means is that their test subjects felt colder after being deprived of sleep. It's a scientifically demonstrated effect.

What does this mean for me?

It means I was suffering from sleep deprivation previously, and that's why I was cold. I figured.
And now that I've recovered, I'm not cold anymore. I feel warm. I'm guessing that means I'm no longer sleep deprived. Yay!

Day 15 Diagnostic

I love love love being a polyphasic sleeper. It keeps getting easier and easier to be awake at night. Now I'm fully awake most of the night, just as I am in the day. It's just between 4 and 6 that I struggle, and even there I'm improving.
Miraculously, last night at about 1:00 my body stopped feeling cold. Ever since I started polyphasic sleep, my body has had trouble regulating its temperature, so I've felt cold almost constantly. Only when I exercised did I feel warm. But then, today in the early hours of the morning, bam! Warm. Now I'm not cocooned in my pink hoodie and two layers of pajama pants, lol. I feel fantastic.
I practiced a little basketball this afternoon after fourth nap. It's a beautiful day out. I enjoy the long walks I go on when the world is quiet.

It's hard to believe this is Day 15. It doesn't seem like that much time has passed. Here's my Day 15 diagnostic:

• appetite - normal during daylight hours, approaching regularity at night. i have a new meal called "munch," which is short for "midnight lunch" hahaha. digestion proceeds regularly as well. tmi? lol
  
• creativity - apparently normal. i don't do much creation in the summer anyway. when fall comes, it will be more apparent whether my creativity and productivity have increased the way Steve Pavlina's did
• health - fabulous. no sicknesses, no sore throats, no weakness. in fact, i feel more drive to be active and athletic now, so my physical fitness is quite good.
• sleep - i fall asleep very quickly every nap, and i dream every nap. i remember my dreams when i wake up, though i forget them later if i don't make an effort to retain the memories. i almost always feel better and more awake after my naps than before them. my naps are nice and flexible; i can stretch my waking periods anywhere from 3 to 5 hours comfortably. 6 waking hours is a stretch but i can do it without immediate impairment. i just feel it later. i haven't tried naps less than 3 hours apart, because i've had no need to.
• concentration - if it's any indication: i've been working on a 500-piece puzzle, and my ability to do it is unchanged from doing a puzzle of that size as a monophasic sleeper. i'm just as i was before. i can still focus totally on whatever i happen to be doing, if i'm interested enough. i still zone out when people around me are conversing.
• stillness - i'm a rather patient person (unless i'm really excited about something). i'm very calm, and usually still. but my body has changed a bit as far as sitting still goes. i think i've mentioned this briefly before. sometimes when i'm sitting, i can't stay still. i have to start shaking my leg or wiggling my foot. i don't know what to make of it. it doesn't happen at a certain time of day. just every once in a while, my body will complain about being still.

That's about all I can think of. I'll continue to make side notes about my condition as I post entries on this blog. Oh, I just remembered something: my eyes don't like to stay still for very long. I used to have staring contests with my cat sometimes. Now my eyes won't stay still long enough for that. The good news is, I've heard that people who move their eyes around more instead of leaving them fixed are less likely to develop eye problems. Yeah, yeah, I know: citation needed. I have no idea where I heard that, but it makes sense. Moving my eyes uses the muscles that control my eyeballs, and using a muscle exercises it. Exercise is good. The bad news is, I'll never be able to gaze deeply into the eyes of my long-lost lover after running through a field of flowers in a white sundress. Bahahaha!!!

Breaking the Habit, Tonight

The alternating pattern continues: today was a great night of alert awakeness, complete with running and a bike ride. Maybe tonight I can break the pattern. I have high hopes.

I've noticed something interesting. I get tired after about 5 hours, or when I'm expecting a nap, or when I'm bored. Whichever of those comes first. When I'm expecting a nap, I can feel what some call "sleep pressure," somewhat like the non-urgent need to go to the bathroom, which slowly intensifies. I think the presence of this "sleep pressure" before my naps indicates that my body is continuing to adjust to this new sleep schedule. This is day 12. That means I've gone 12 days without a full night's sleep. If polyphasic didn't work at least a little, I would not feel like I do now. I would venture to say it works a LOT, because I feel fabulous.

I biked 7.24 miles today, which is a bit more than yesterday. I enjoy biking. In the fall, I'm looking forward to biking to school again. That's 7.6 miles if I remember correctly, but it's very difficult because of the huge hills, and it takes a while because of traffic lights.

I recently read something or other that "debunks polyphasic sleep" and effectively says that all polyphasic sleepers who say they're fine are liars. Liars! That bothers me. For one thing, Steve Pavlina, probably the most famous polyphasic sleeper on the internet, seems like a very honorable man who would definitely not lie. He's all about personal development and self improvement. I am quite certain that he is not the kind of person who would construct such a web of lies simply for--for what? What could possibly be his motive for lying anyway?
Furthermore, I'm a polyphasic sleeper, and I'd say I'm fine. Would the guy who wrote that report call me a liar, too? If he does, he has another thing coming. lol.

Alternating

Every other night, I mess up. 0:00-6:00 on Tuesday was perfect. On Wednesday I went back to sleep after my second nap and slept for an hour. On Thursday, 0:00-6:00 was good. On Friday, I did the extra hour thing again. On Saturday, perfect just like Tuesday. And today, Sunday, I did the hour thing again! It's ridiculous. On the good days, I'm amused by it. On the bad days, I wake up from that extra hour feeling frustrated and not well-rested. But hopefully I'm improving. The bad days aren't getting worse, and the good days are getting better. On Saturday between 0:00 and 7:00, I ran a third of a mile, biked 6.4 miles, and walked almost a mile with my dog. I did all of that before most people are even awake. Pretty cool. I was pretty hungry after that. lol.

Conclusion: I need to make sure I get up when my alarm goes off, and I need a snack around 3:30 in the morning.

Rambling and an Extra Nap

Yeesh. Two steps forward, one step back. So the night at the beginning of June 2 was terrific, but the next night was terrible. Very sluggish and tired, no walks. And the night I'm almost done with now was somewhere in between. To entertain myself as the night wore on, I learned about early musical forms that led up to the emergence of classical music. Then I wrote a computer program to store my nap times and make calculations about them. I've taken my 4:00 nap but I still feel tired. Next nap is at 8:30, and I don't really want to wait, but I shall. Maybe biking at 5:30 will improve my tiredness status. My body says it doesn't feel like biking, but I know I'll enjoy it if I do.
I have half a mind to take another nap between now and 8:30. Is there any reason not to? I don't think it'll mess too much up. The only thing I can feel getting in the way would be pride. I accept pride so long as it doesn't interfere with logical decision-making. Hmm. Seven naps in one day. 4:00 and 8:30 with a 5:30 nap in between. Am I tired enough to choose to do that? Or am I just being lazy? Bike ride or nap, that is the question. I'm rambling quite a bit, which is another sign of tiredness. Yes, when I close my eyes I feel a veil attempting to cover my consciousness. I think it would be wise to nap again, so I shall.

Huge Leap Forward

Oh my goodness. I feel spectacular! Today is rapidly becoming the best polyphasic day I've ever had. I read a book until 1:00 when I napped. Then I went on a walk around my neighborhood for quite a while, which invigorated me. By the time I got back, it was getting close to 3:00, which is when I usually feel most tired. But instead, I was still alert from my walk, and I stretched leisurely, enjoying my awakeness. I wondered what to do with the hour before my next nap, and realized I felt like doing math problems. o.O Yes, math problems. So I got out my precalc book and did some simple trigonometry problems just for kicks. Weirdness. Then I napped, woke up feeling great, chilled out for a while, went on a bike ride when the sky had a little light in it, and stretched again. Now I feel absolutely fantastic, and I think the day will continue to be wonderful.

I suspect it was the late night walk I took during first slice that kept me going when I would have entered a zombie-like state as usual. It got my heart rate up and made my body reach a higher state of awakeness than if I just sat around like I usually do at that time.

Mmm. I feel fabulous.