Sleep Experiment - Day 2

June 22, 2011 – Day 2

Today was the first day in a very long time that I was actually awake before 7am. I miraculously managed to roll out of bed and into sweatpants when my alarm rudely interrupted my sleep at 6am. The first 15 minutes of my day were hazy at best. Looking for some kind of pick-me-up I chose to go for a walk to the beach. I have to say this will remain part of my morning routine for the upcoming week. Vancouver is beautiful in the early morning! The majesty of the cityscape sprawled at the foot of towering mountains caused me to catch my breath and reevaluate for a moment.

I’ve lived in Vancouver for 3 years now and never have I had quite the same experience that I had this morning. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep and ‘fuzzy’ way everything looked today, but if nothing else, this sleep cycle will be worth it for the mornings.

I can already tell that I am having more difficulty writing this post than I did yesterday. It has been a long day (18 hours awake) and the sentences don’t come very easily.

A brief summary of my sleeping patterns for today:

6am – wake up. I didn’t have too much trouble getting out of bed today. I did not feel very refreshed or well rested.

11:40am – First nap. I had to push this nap back due to a meeting with my supervisor. Nevertheless, I didn’t get any sleep. It was relaxing to close my eyes for 20 minutes.

12pm – wake up. Like I said, I didn’t sleep. Strangely, I felt refreshed following this nap. This could also have been due to the sizeable brunch consumed afterwards.

4:20pm – Second nap. This nap was right on schedule. I don’t know if I slept or not. I felt like I was in a constant stage of falling asleep without ever actually getting there.

4:40pm – wake up. My alarm had to wake me up. This has led to my aforementioned confusion regarding whether I slept or not. I felt refreshed but not nearly to the same extent as after my first nap.

9:40pm – Third nap. This nap was almost identical to my second nap.

10pm – wake up. Like I said, identical to my second nap. However, I most certainly did not feel refreshed after getting out of bed.

And so I sit here at 1:16am and just want to go to bed. I think it is stubbornness on my part that wont let me quit after just one day.

There are a few things I have noticed about my working ability and having all of this extra time. I have found that I am not (currently) able to do actually work after 12am or so. I don’t feel sufficiently up to the task although I hope this feeling will diminish as I start to adapt to this program. Similarly, I was not able to work until about 7:30am when I had come fully awake. For those of you keeping track, I have gained an extra 30 minutes of productive time (as compared to a person who sleeps 8 hours a day). It will be interesting to see how I unlock these extra hours as I start to adjust to this program.

On the empirical data front, I did my PVT as always, but have left out the raw scores for my reaction time. I’m going to get a friend to enter this data for me. This way should ensure that I’m neither discouraged nor influenced by my performance

In terms of my memory I feel less sharp than I would usually. I read about 7 pages of a review article on Quantum Information Processing and feel relatively confident in my retention of the material. However, I felt sluggish in recalling older or more basic information. My vocabulary seemed to be diminished and it would often take me longer to remember information when not fully concentrating.

My analysis would point towards sleep deprivation. And at this point I don’t really see how I can be experiencing anything other than just that (I want to see if my reaction times reflect this). But, before you freak out (Mum) this is part of the process of adjusting to polyphasic sleep. Make your body sleep deprived so that it will adopt the cycle you choose. Force it to recover during twenty-minute naps. But this will take time.

Looking to the future, I anticipate that tomorrow will be a very difficult day. Hopefully my naps will begin to rejuvenate me. I don’t expect immediate results. I will keep fighting towards a life where I can dictate the amount I sleep. But right now, sleep has the upper hand.