Polyphasic sleep: Day 6
Ahh, day 6. So yesterday, I took some sunday naps, like I normally do, but I was rather worried that I wouldn’t be able to sleep on time… and I’d wake up like I was dead. Turns out, however, the long sunday naps I took had minimal effect on my ability to get to sleep quickly. I still tried to go to bed at 10pm, and I did do some extra tossing and turning, but as soon as wifey came to bed after catching some True Blood episodes, I immediately fell asleep.
Waking up this morning was pretty much like a regular morning. Again, the iPod touch helps me actually truly wake up, instead of just hitting some random snoozy style button, I have to turn on some extra level of cognition to slide the alarm off.
This morning is definitely the most awake I’ve been. I feel little twinges of tiredness, at least I have over the last 30 minutes that I’ve been awake, but for the most part other than the occasional yawn, I’m doing pretty well.
I think the largest problem, to date, is the external psychological motivators of other people. Telling someone you do “polyphasic sleep” is basically the dumbest thing you could do… as they’ll start looking at you like you’re some sort of vampire, or other freak. Instead, I’ve just started telling people if they ask that I’m only getting four hours of sleep a night. Somehow, perceived sleep deprivation seems more socially acceptable than some sort of crazy systematic napping.
Oh, and the other good part about the four hours of sleep a night? I know that I technically only need three hours of sleep, so if I toss and turn for like an hour, it doesn’t freak me out the way it used to when I thought I needed 8 hours of sleep a night. Back then, if I was tossing and turning, I’d continuously be more and more frustrated, because I knew I was going to be SOOOOO tired in the morning if I didn’t fall asleep really quickly.
I’m not going to say I’m completely adjusted to the polyphasic sleep pattern just yet, but I’m pretty damned close. I think the shift in timezones from the move made it much better than it would have normally been… since my body was naturally waking up around 4-6 anyway.
I’m going to keep updating this daily, just for my own benefit as much as anything. We’ve got a new show coming on TechVi, and it’s going to be live at 6am EST, which means I’ll have a reason to wake up at 5:15 EST every day anyway, and I like the idea of having something to write about daily that is much longer than a twitter status update or something.
