Polyphasic Sleep Experiment: Day 3, Part 2

I am feeling very good about the experiment, right now. Since the extreme tiredness yesterday, it seems I’ve been improving consistently, and I didn’t get around to writing that until 1AM. I can only assume that the effects of switching to the polyphasic schedule are really starting to take root. My last three naps (one at 3PM, one at 7PM, and one at 11PM) were pretty good. I am still having just a bit of trouble falling asleep quickly, I had particular trouble doing this with today’s 11PM nap, for some reason, but as far as I can tell, that’s not such a horrible thing (not to mention the polar opposite of what I expected with this experiment).

I’m simply not “dead tired” when I lay down for the naps….only slightly tired….and I think that another reason might be that I’m used to rolling around in bed for a while before actually falling asleep when I was on my monophasic schedule. I’m sure that eventually, when I reduce the naps to 20 minutes time and need to be asleep for almost all of that time, that I’ll need to be sure that I’m off in dreamland within the first 5 minutes or so… but, I’ll cross that road when I come to it. But, the way I see it, in my current situation, it can’t be bad. If I take too long for me to get to sleep for one nap, I’ll probably be so tired for the next nap that I’ll drop off as soon as my head hits the pillow. One bad thing about this that I’ve considered is: If I was truly adapted to the schedule, I think that my body would be very excited to get these naps, and that laying down for the first 15-20 minutes of one without sleeping would be unheard of. So, maybe this inability to get to sleep is just proof that my body is not yet fully acclimated to the new schedule, and that I still have a long way to go before I’m a true polyphasic sleeper.

However much that may be true, my naps are definitely getting more refreshing when I wake up. All three today so far were easy to wake up from. Granted, though the upcoming 3am and 7am naps will be the real test. These are the times that my body is used to being asleep during, so it’s a little more difficult to pull off those waking hours without falling asleep. I feel pretty good right now, though. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to skip the extra 5am nap I was planning on adding? Although, I surely wouldn’t count on it :). However, I feel that I should be awake enough to have success with these naps…hell, if I was able to do it yesterday when I felt more tired than this, I should be OK today. I will only find out for sure today if yesterday was the peak of the hill, or if I’m still climbing. For all I know, I could be over the worse of it after yesterdays 3am-7am nightmare (not literally, of course :) )….either that or, this is just the beginning. Either way, I’ll be sure to keep you posted on my progress as I continue the transition. For right now, though, I’m going to go get something to eat.

On this note, before I go, I wanted to mention that it feels kind of odd eating at 1:30 AM and knowing that I’m not going to go to sleep for the night right afterwards. As a matter of fact, speaking of my eating habits, I’m excited to see if there is any weight change due to the new schedule. I’ve definitely been eating more, but I figure this is offset by me using up more energy with more waking hours, so I didn’t think any weight change would come with. I, however, will make absolutely no attempts to diet or stop myself from eating more, so we will see if I naturally gain weight. I’ve also heard of people getting odd cravings after switching to polyphasic sleep. I read one article where the polyphasic sleeper offered the explanation that his body craved certain vitamins or minerals that it was no longer creating by skipping all of the other stages of sleep. This sounds plausible, so I’ll keep my eye out for any significant craving changes that I might experience. That’s all for now, wish me luck for my 3-7am cycle today!