Claire's Random Thoughts

I started my Polyphasic Everyman sleep schedule just over two weeks ago, and I think it’s somewhat working now, despite the fact that I have not been adhering as strictly to it as I would have liked to. I feel like I’m getting at least some REM sleep during my naps! So now I get my stage 4 sleep to allow my body to repair itself during the core sleep and REM sleep during the naps to allow my brain to “defragment” and maintain my cognitive ability.

My slight deviations:
Occasional alcohol and caffeine that interfere with the quality of sleep
Naps are not always on time (or in a few cases skipped altogether) due to sporadic social, academic or career related activities that I refuse to miss
Some oversleep in core sleep to make up for above two errors

I read online that there was also a variation with 4.5 hours of core sleep and two naps instead of three. I’m thinking about allowing myself the extra 90 minute cycle of core sleep tonight to boost my immune system. After all, I did just get my flu shot today and don’t get the flu. If I have to skip a nap from now on, I might take a 4.5 core instead of the most popular 3 hour core.

Something else I might try is splitting up the core sleep to maximize stage 4 sleep. Taking a look at the chart of sleep stages, it appears that the first 90 minute cycle is most effective in maximizing stage 4 sleep, the most important for muscle repair. The longer you sleep, the less stage 4 and the more REM sleep you get. Since I’m already getting quite a bit of REM sleep from the naps, it might be better for my body to split up the core sleep into two 90 minute cycles instead. The next time I feel like developing my experiment even farther, I might more the core sleep slightly earlier, get up after 90 minutes for a while, and sleep another 90 minutes. Theoretically, if I stay up for long enough in between, I should start at the first cycle again and get a little extra stage 4 sleep.

I’m actually feeling better now than I used to. When I was on monophasic sleep, falling and staying asleep was definitely a challenge. I live with three other people, none of which who have 8am classes every day like I do. Naturally, that makes them want to go to sleep later. Unfortunately, this comes with the side effect of disturbing me when I’m trying to fall asleep or waking me up if I finally do get to fall asleep. I also had a little insomnia sometimes, which caused me to waste time lying awake.
This new everyman sleep schedule solves both of these problems. Now I go to sleep in the middle of the night, when everyone else is asleep, so they don’t disturb me anymore (I don’t disturb them either, because I just sit outside by myself on my laptop or in front of my books with my headphones on). Furthermore, I somehow never have trouble falling asleep anymore. I guess when I need sleep badly enough, I’m more willing to “let the day go”, something I had trouble doing before.
Maybe this schedule is good for people with insomnia and/or college students who can’t sleep due to excessive noise?

If I decide to revert to monophasic sleep, it will either be because I can’t control my diet, which will make me fat after a while. When I take a ballpark figure of my calorie intake, I get about 3500 per day, which is a little excessive, even if I work out. I need to work on either eating slightly less frequently or switching to lower calorie foods.

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