Dealing with conflicts in the routine - part 1

Triphasic works best if the nap times are pretty regular. However, life often has other plans and if you are doing this as a lifestyle, you will not want to interfere unduly with your work life or your social life. The morning nap has never been a problem. The evening nap can occasionally be moved back a couple of hours to accommodate the occasional late night social gathering. However, if I am going to a really late party - say one that starts at 10pm, then I take my evening nap just before I leave and then I do not need another nap until the morning. The biggest issue is with the afternoon nap which routinely conflicts with the typical work day.

I do not yet have a great solution for this problem, and I think that it is one of the major issues with fitting triphasic into a normal routine. I have tried a number of solutions with mixed results. Most of the time, I work at home at that is fine, but I also do carpentry. When I am doing carpentry, I work with a crew and typically have a 7-4 work day. I have tried moving my afternoon nap to 4:15 when I get off work, but it is too long to go straight through; I get far too tired by the end of the day, and I am working with power tools. There is no room to be less than completely awake and alert. I have tried slinging a hammock on the job site, but my co-workers mess with me during my nap. Mostly I have had to go to monophasic while I am working with a crew.

Recently, however, I think that I have found a work-around. I have set up a place to nap in my car. I have a hatch-back and the back seat folds down. It would be a lot easier if I had a mini-van, but with some prep, I can create a spot to take a nap. I have to have the back windows blocked, not just for privacy, but also because it simply gets too hot in the back with the sun beating through the hatchback window. An emergency blanket stuck to the inside with magnets has been the easiest and most effective way to do that. I move my car from the workplace to someplace more discrete, nap for 40 min. and return from "lunch". That seems to get me through till 4:30, when I take another 40 min nap. I use 40 minutes because that seems to be a length of time that is easiest for me to wake from. 45 min I will sleep right through the alarm. Go figure.

When I break my afternoon nap into two pieces, it is not as effective as just sleeping in one 1:30 chunk. I assume it is because I am breaking my sleep cycle. I am groggier, but that mostly passes. The real problem is that each time I do it, I seem to build up a little bit of sleep debt, and every 2 or 3 days, I find that I need extra sleep, so twice a week (Tue & Thr) I go to bed early for my morning nap and sleep a double cycle, which means that I get 5 hrs 50min of sleep on those days. That changes my average for the week to about 4:40/night, but that seems to be the price that I seem to have to pay.

I have thought about trying a 20 min nap at lunch, 20 min after work and then another 20 min nap around 8pm, which would be somewhat like the everyman or spamayl (sleep polyphasically as much as you like), but those systems seem to have a completely different basis. It would have the bonus of REDUCING my total time asleep per day, so it might be worth while to try.

Day 144 of triphasic sleeping, so nice to be back on schedule.

Back on schedule. As I wrote in my previous post, I had a little bit of trouble getting back on schedule. It turned out that I was a little under the weather. I am not sure what I was sick with, but it was some sort of mild flu-like malaise. I think that at this point in the experiment, I have to admit that the triphasic schedule does put some stress on my body - if my diet becomes sub-par, or I am a little run down with allergies, or have an injury, or stop exercising, or whatever, I start to become tired on this schedule. This seems to be the minimum sleep that I can get by on. When I am fit and healthy I have no problem maintaining this schedule, but if I am not at my peak, I seem to need to get a little extra sleep. The first method I try of adding in extra sleep is to make my evening nap a double cycle: ie, 180 minutes. Usually that seems to be enough, but if it is not, I sleep right through my night wake cycle, getting up at the usual time of 6:00 for my morning wake cycle. On day of that has been enough to get be back on track with only 2 exceptions since March - one exception was due to injury and one due to flu. On both occasions I slept throughout most of the day. Not including the days that I have slept in from injury or sickness, I have averaged 4.2 hrs a night. If I include the days that I have ended up "sleeping in", I have averaged 5.1 hrs of sleep per night since the end of March, when I started this. Before I did this experiment, I was averaging 8.2 hrs per night on average, so I have gained the equivalent of 28.25 days so far this year.

Triphasic sleeping is like having 

a discount time machine!

So, have I gotten an extra months worth of productive time? Certainly my projects have expanded to fill the extra time, and I really feel it when I go off schedule and only have 16 hrs in a day. I do a form of task tracking called "Getting things done (GTD)", and so I can compare what I have gotten done this year versus last year. Based on that, I would have to say that I probably gotten MORE than an extra months worth of work done. A substantial portion time has been used visiting my grandmother up in Dover-Foxcroft. I have been made 7 more trips up there than I did last year, and those take a full day. I have really appreciated having the time to do that. I have put surprising amount of time into this blog, which is sort of a wash since if I were not doing triphasic, I would not be doing this blog :). Other time has gone into my business start-up, leisure time, bread-making, and other little things. All in all, I really enjoy the quiet time to myself at night. No matter how crazy my days get, I get this little 4 hour time at night to catch up, or relax, or spend pursuing my personal projects.

Changing around my schedule - update

Well, that did not work very well. Two 45 minute naps are not the equivalent of one 90 minute nap, at least for me. Perhaps next time I will try breaking it into four 20 minute naps like the Uberman, but that seems awkward as well. Over the course of the last month I drifted off my triphasic schedule, only doing it about 1 or 2 days a week. I have found the monophasic schedule to be difficult. I still get very tired around 1:00 pm and I have been sleeping more than 8 hours a day. After the triphasic schedule, it feels very sluggish.

Now however, I have the flexibility to go back on my triphasic schedule. I tried to do it on Monday, but gave up during the night and went to sleep early (at 3:00am instead of my scheduled 4:30am). Last night I again went to sleep at 3:00 instead of 4:30 (still getting up at 6:00). I am not sure why it is harder to do the schedule this time than previous. I have not had trouble switching back and forth before. A few possibilities:

1) Allergies. I have seasonal allergies that make me feel groggy and tired. I am taking Loratadine, which mostly works, but perhaps not as well on a triphasic schedule as it does on a monophasic. I will try taking 2 tabs a day.

2) Standardizing my afternoon nap better. Yesterday I did not get to nap until 2:00, when the nap works best scheduled at 12:30. Today I have a dentist appointment at 11:15, but I think that I might be able to get back by 12:45, so that will be better.

3) Diet. I do substantially better on the schedule when I am eating very well, and while my diet is ok, I have been eating a lot of starch and skimping on the veggies. I will try to get back on CRON (optimal nutrition) and see if that makes a difference.

I will update in a few and let you all know how it is going.

Changing around my schedule

Since the start of this experiment, I have been able to set my own schedule. I work for myself and setting up meetings with clients is pretty flexible. Lately though, I have been the general contractor on a small remodel, which means that, not only am I working at the jobsite, I am working a number of subcontractors, and making sure that the they have the materials that they need, and that everything is staying on schedule. I was having a problem with my afternoon nap. I can't nap at the jobsite (partly because there is no place that is out-of the way and comfortable, but mostly because there is a perception that people who nap are lazy, and I will have a hard time getting the contractors to take me seriously.)

The phrase "Sleeping on the job" 

does not inspire confidence.

My schedule was getting up at 6am, napping from 1:30 to 3:00pm. The problem with this schedule was trying to match it to my subcontractors. They would arrive at 8, take lunch at noon, and then work from 1 till 4. If I am going to sleep at 1:30, then I need to leave the site at 1:00, and do not get back to the site until they are in the process of cleaning up. Additionally, I was trying to eat with them at noon, so my total work day would have only been 4 hours. For a couple days, I simply switched to monophasic sleeping, because it was easier. Now I am trying a new schedule. I get to the jobsite at 7:00, work solid until 12:30, nap for 45 minutes, return at 1:30 and work till 4:00 and then take another 45 min nap. 

Day 100, thoughts, insights, and overviews.

One Hundred days into the experiment. Something that started out as being a wild experiment has become a normal, routine part of my life. Over the past 100 days, the schedule has become less rigid than the original, both in terms of when I have to sleep, and the amount of time that I sleep for each nap. I can start my afternoon nap anytime between 11:30 and 2:30, although around 1:00 is still optimal. My sleep length varies the most for my afternoon nap as well. Between 40min and 2hrs. I set my alarm for an hour and 30, but since I set it for "vibrate-dot", it will not wake me if I am not ready to get up.

However, I still can not miss my afternoon nap. If I skip my nap, I will sleep through the first wake period (12:30 am to 4:30 am). I CAN force myself to get up during that period, but depending on what I have planned, it is often not worth it. I measure the success of this sleep schedule by how productive I am, rather than just by how many hours I spend awake.

Stuff happens at night.

Things I have learned:

- I don't like to sleep 8 hours anymore. When I wake up from a long night, I hurt. My muscles are stiff, and my back is sore. I can not remember if that was typical, but I think that it might have been. I used to have a stretching routine that I did before I got out of bed. I do not need to do that anymore.

-My morning nap is the most rigid. I go to sleep at 4:30. I enjoy starting the day at 6:00. I do not know if this will slip a bit later as the year moves forward. I live pretty far north, so the daylength varies from 15 1/2 hrs to just under 9 hrs. In the winter, the sun does not rise until 8:30 am. I think that getting up after sunrise is important to resetting the circadian rhythm, but that is pretty late. It will be interesting to see how that works out.

- Injuries and illness require more sleep. I have had an injury to my shoulder, and I have had gotten sick twice since I started this experiment. Each time, I have extended my sleep time substantially. Technically, I have stayed polyphasic, but I have not stayed a short sleeper. On the other hand, this was true even when I was sleeping monophasically - I would sleep more when I was sick. There is interesting research that shows a strong correlation between sleeping less and getting sick more. For myself, getting sick twice in 100 days is more, but my core group of friends who, unbeknownst to them, I am using for a control, have also gotten sick with unusual frequency during the past 100 days. So, it is hard to make any definite conclusions, but it is something to keep my eye on. If there are any other extended short sleepers out there, I would be interested in hearing about your thoughts and experience. 

Because circadian triphasic does not require an "adaptation" phase, I have no problem shifting immediately back to my triphasic short sleep schedule. 

- Over time, I have shifted from a 90 minute cycle to an 80 minute cycle. Perhaps it is a slight adaptation to the routine, or a better ability to fall asleep.

In summary, I still find that I am more productive on this schedule than when I was on a monophasic schedule. I enjoy having every third wake-cycle entirely to myself. While I am not always as productive as I imagine that I could be during that night period, I get a lot of benefit out of spending some time reviewing the previous day and planning the next two wake-cycles. 

Diet and polyphasic sleeping

I was recently asked about my diet and how that affects my sleep schedule. I do think that food - good food - is important, and I can quickly tell when I am not eating well. It becomes MUCH harder to maintain my triphasic schedule. I have come to believe that polyphasic sleeping does, inherently, put some stress on the body, and that can be somewhat mitigated by a good diet and reasonable exercise. 

I have tracked my foods periodically for years, so I know that I typically eat 40/40/20 as far as carbs/fats/protein. However, those are not targets; the only macronutrient that I target is protein. I try to get at least 55g a day. I am a flexitarian, and do not eat much meat AND I do a calorie restriction diet for longevity, I have to be conscious of getting enough protein, without a disproportionate number of calories.

I do a CRON diet (Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition). I also kept a journal on my diet for a short while, so you can see specifically what I tend to eat. I track my diet about twice a year with nutrition-tracking software, to make sure that what I am eating at least gives me the known nutrients. This is important because with fewer calories, nutrition packing becomes more problematic, and like most people, I get into habits with food, making things that are quick and easy. So I check periodically, and adjust my diet when needed.

An important part of a complete breakfast.

Of course, I avoid caffeine after the first hour that I am awake, although I have a cup of coffee just about every time I get up.

I avoid overly processed food. I don't think that would have any direct effect on my sleep, but I believe that it has a direct effect on my health. I tend to agree with Michael Pollan's basic rules of health eating: "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much". I believe that my health has a direct effect on my ability to do triphasic sleeping.

I avoid alcohol. I find that more than one serving of alcohol will interfere with my schedule. I fall asleep easily enough, but do not wake even if I set an alarm. I also try to avoid foods with a high insulin index, except right before cardio-type exercise. I find that they make me tired about 40 minutes after I have them. It takes me longer to fall asleep if I just had some, and I tend to "oversleep" by about 20-30 minutes. 

Determining your optimal nap length.

If you are doing any sort of polyphasic sleep, or for that matter, even monophasic sleep, it is beneficial to wake at the end of a full sleep cycle, rather than have your alarm interrupt a cycle. Waking at the end of a cycle means that your mind comes easily out of REM and into consciousness. There is reason to think that you get only minimal, if any, benefit from cycles that are interrupted and that interrupted cycles contribute to sleep deprivation.

There are a couple of ways make sure that you are waking at the end of a full cycle. Probably the best available method is to purchase a Zeo. This device not only monitors the depth of your sleep and will awaken you during your lightest sleep, it also maps your sleep cycle and creates a hypnogram. Since the Zeo determines your sleep depth directly from your brainwaves, it is by the far most accurate method of tracking your sleep outside of a sleep laboratory.

Kitten don't need no Zeo.

A second option is a new app for the iphone. Sleep Cycle uses your movements to determine which sleep phase you are in and then wake you at an appropriate time. At $.99 it is much more affordable than the Zeo, if you already own the iphone. 

Which I don't, because I live in the boondocks and I only get cell service through US Cellular. I also have not sprung for a Zeo, so I came up with a frugal, low-tech method of determining my optimal nap length. I found an alarm setting that would wake me up, but ONLY when I was already in a very light sleep. My alarm is my cell phone (an old clunky one) set on Vibe Dot Dot and tucked under my pillow. When I was first trying this schedule, I would set 4 alarms spaced 2 minutes apiece. Each alarm will ring three times, 9 minutes apart, so I would get a vibrating alarm every 2 minutes over the course of 35 minutes. When I woke up, I would note the time, hone my sleep schedule that way. I started out with 3x90 since 90 minutes is a typical sleep cycle. After measuring for a few days, it turns out that my evening and morning sleep schedules are 80 and my afternoon nap is 55 minutes. These are still just averages, and not as good as using the Sleep Cycle app or the Zeo. My actual nap needs seem to fluctuate a bit depending on exactly when I got up from my last nap and the time that I went to sleep for my current nap. So, sometimes, I will be a bit off from my schedule. That inevitably seems to mean that I will not wake naturally and will need my alarm. On the occasions that I do use my alarm, I am often a bit groggy, but if I get up, have my coffee and move around a bit, I can shake it off. I think the only way to not have an occasional groggy "morning" is to either be very consistant on your schedule, or to use a Zeo.

Day 60(ish) update.

Over the last month, I have had some mixed results. During the beginning of the month, I was observing my nap times pretty strictly, falling asleep faster and had dropped my schedule from 3x90 a day to 3x80 a day, and then occasionally 2x80 + a 45 minute nap for the afternoon nap. I had plenty of energy, mental alertness, and physically felt great.

Then on May 20th, I badly injured my shoulder in a fall.

Reenactment of my injury.

I immediately started sleeping more. This was not a conscious decision, but an immediate bodily response to the pain. I still stayed polyphasic, and I was still waking easily at roughly the regular times, but I was basically laid up on the couch and spent my time reading and drowsing. On a related note, last month I received a note from Piotr Wozniak, who told me that my post on sleep not being needed for muscle is untrue, and that while they are able to repair themselves during any sort of low-activity/rest phase, the catabolic and anabolic cycles are hooked onto the undisrupted circadian cycle. Breaking one's night's sleep disrupts those hormonal changes and results in a slower recovery from exercise and injury. I have not looked into the science of this yet, but experientially, it seems to be true.

During this period of recovery, I did intentionally do some standard triphasic 3x90 days. For example, I have been driving up to see my Grandmother every other Tuesday, and it works well to drive up during the night, take a nap, visit, nap, and then drive back. But my priority has been on healing my shoulder.

While it is not yet better, it is now (mostly) not in pain, and I have moved back to my triphasic sleeping pattern. One of the things that I enjoy about this pattern, as I have said before, is how easy it is to slide back and forth between circadian triphasic and the more typical monophasic pattern. The triphasic does seem to get more efficient the longer that I (rigorously) on it, but the immediate gain of only sleeping 4.5 hrs is very nice.

Averaging 5.0 hours/night.

I have been tracking my hours using "Sleep Tracker". The interface is easy and quick. The gap in the data is from my 5 night white-water canoe trip, and the following 2 days where I had switched to a (semi) monophasic pattern. Overall, since April 5th, I have averaged 5.0 hours a night. 

A little inconsistant, but getting there.

You might notice that on the 22nd of April, I shifted my morning nap from 5:30 to 4:30. That is because, with the lengthening day light it was starting to get too bright, and had concerns about my circadian rhythm being reset by the morning sun. 

I also notice from looking at this chart, that there is a clear penalty for inconsistency. For example on May 7th, I did not get home from a party until 1:00am. I functioned fine throughout the day, but paid for it last evening, sleeping 2 1/2 hours even though I went to bed at my usual time. On April 24th, I did not get my afternoon nap until 5:30pm, and slept through the night on the 25th. A short afternoon nap on April 19th is followed by a long evening nap.

I would likely have stronger gains (shorter overall sleep times) if I stayed more consistant. On the other hand, the inconsistencies arise from a desire to not let my schedule completely dictate my social life. In general, I am apparently willing to pay the average 10 days/year (.5 hrs/day) penalty to have an active social life. 

It will be interesting to see whether I can make my sleep schedule more consistant in the future through better planning, or whether these inconsistencies are going to naturally arise from my priorities of interfacing with the real world.

I am not good at monophasic sleeping anymore.

Just got back from a 5 night white-water canoe-camping trip with some friends. It would have inconvenienced the group to work around my afternoon nap and there is not much to do during the night, so I synced my schedule with the others and switched to monophasic sleeping. I was surprised to find that I had some real trouble moving back to a monophasic pattern. Although I was dead tired each night from a combination of hard paddling, very cold water (there was still snow on the ground in places), and several days of grey drizzle - I did not sleep through the night. I would go to sleep early (about 9:30 or 10:00) I would wake up at about 2:30 or 3:00 am and lightly drowze or read for about two hours, falling asleep in the early pre-dawn. I would wake up again, well after everyone else, around 7:00 am. So I was sleeping for a total of about 7 or 8 hours per day.


When I got back home, I tried to take my afternoon nap, but did not really sleep. I set my alarm that evening to go back to tri-phasic sleep. I awoke at my regular time of 12:30 am, but had a hard time waking all the way up. My vivid dream of navigating white-water conditions continued even as I was turning of my alarm and getting dressed. This half-awake, half-dream state was intense and bizarre. After 5 or so minutes of this I made the assumption that my mind was not done processing muscle memory of the trip, I went back to sleep, and slept soundly through the night waking at about 8:00 am.


I took a full 90 minute nap yesterday afternoon, and had no problem waking from my evening nap.


It looks like I am back into my normal triphasic schedule again. 

Using your circadian rhythm, part 2

On average, americans spend 8.7 hours a day sleeping - more than 28 years of their life! What the heck are we doing with that time? It seems excessive; on the other hand, it is clearly not optional. As far as keeping us alive, sleep is right up there with water, we can only go without for a few days before we risk death. For a long time sleep was thought to be passive, but now it is now known that we pass through 5 stages of sleep. They are called, somewhat unimaginatively, stage 1, 2, 3, 4 and REM (Rapid Eye Movement). Through out the night we pass through the successive stages from 1 to 4 and then back to 1 and then into REM. Then we start over with stage 1. These cycles take about 90 minutes.

A typical, 8 hour, nightly cycle

You may want to notice from the chart a few things. The first thing to notice is that REM sleep and Stage 4 (Deep sleep) are emphasized by color. This is because we think we are starting to understand what these stages do, and that they are important. The second thing to notice is that Stage 4 is more prevalent at the beginning of the night and REM sleep becomes more common latter in the night. The third thing to notice is that we spend a lot of time in Stage 2. As far as I know, no-one has any strong theories about what Stage 2 is for, but I think that eventually someone will discover that it is key to our mental health in some way.

Here is where the circadian rhythm comes in. It turns out that the stages of sleep that we go through are linked to our circadian rhythm - NOT to the length of the sleep. That is to say we do not start the same cycle every time that we go to sleep, but our cycle is determined by WHEN we start our sleep. So by napping in the early part of the night, we get a lot of Stage 4 sleep. A morning nap gives a lot of REM sleep, and a nap in the afternoon consists mostly of Stage 2 sleep.

Correlation between

monophasic sleep cycles and

circadian triphasic

It is interesting to note that the triphasic sleep pattern are similar, but more efficient than the monophasic pattern. There is less time moving through intermediate phases in the triphasic, and no intermediate short waking cycles. The triphasic data is a composite from Zeo sleep data. At some point, I would like to be able to start measuring data directly from my sleep cycle.

So on the triphasic sleep pattern, one gets about equal amounts of REM, Stage 2, and Stage 4 sleep. I think this explains why the triphasic schedule is so easy to change to, and has very little "adaptation" time. 

Using your circadian rhythm, part 1

The master planner of sleep and activity is the suprachiasmatic nucleus, also know by as the "body clock". The signals produced by the body clock are referred to collectively as our circadian rhythm. Our body clock is not a natural 24 hour clock, and uses sunlight and darkness to stay in sync with the solar day. The rise of sleep disorder may be linked to the fact that many americans receive less than 10 minutes sunlight a day, and the body clock becomes out of step with the standard day.

The suprachiasmatic nucleus does not use the rods and cones in your eyes, but a third photoreceptor called the melanopsin. This protein detects changes in light intensity - it receives a strong signal when it gets brighter in the morning and darker in the evening. It is also triggered by the changing light of shadows in bright daylight. The contrast with electric light is not high enough, but the difference between bright daylight (100,000 lux) and shadow (1,000 lux) keeps the melanopsin active, and in turn, keeps us alert.

466 nm wavelength light

Melanopsin respond to a narrow bandwidth of light, in the range of 466-477nm, which explains why full-wavelength light therapy has not been very successful. It also explains why it is so easy to feel energized on a day with a bright blue sky and so easy to feel tired on a grey, overcast day.

So the melanopsin act as our day length regulators. Morning daylight signals our body clock to start its active cycle. Sunlight is strong enough to start this effect even with our eyes closed. The suprachiasmatic nucleus releases a number of hormones including serotonin, adrenalin and cortisol. The increase in serotonin helps us to become conscious again after sleep. Adrenalin and cortisol create increased metabolism and body temperature. 

By mid afternoon, the body's metabolism has peaked. There is a drop in cortisol that is apparently the signal for a mid afternoon nap. We are biologically programmed to take a nap during middle of the afternoon, roughly between 1 and 4 pm. We all know that time of day tends to be drowsy, but despite urban myth it is not because of too-warm offices or heavy mid-day meals (although those things certainly exacerbate the phenomenon).

Sleep hormones correlated 

with sleep need and sleep urge.

A surge in cortizol and adrenalin wake us up a short time later, and we have a few hours before the setting sun triggers our melanopsin and the body clock begins to convert the serotonin into melatonin, which in turn lowers our body temperature and creating lethargy. A few hours later, the melatonin slows down and it becomes more difficult to fall asleep. 

As far as we know, it is not possible to change our hormone production through will power. Therefor, we should use our base circadian rhythm to our advantage when we are designing a poly-phasic sleep system. The triphasic sleep schedule maps to the circadian system well in the following ways:

1) First nap at 1:30pm takes advantage of the mid-afternoon drowsiness to get a nice 80-90 minute nap.

2) The second nap at 10:30 takes advantage of the the increase in melatonin, body temperature drop, and serotonin drop to speed us to sleep.

3) The third nap at 5:00am takes advantage of the daily accumulated sleep debt to aid us going to sleep despite the lower melatonin levels. Upon awakening, the melanopsin resets our body clock, re-syncing us to the solar day.

By using your natural circadian rhythm, you have higher sleep efficiency (time and quality of sleep / number of hours in bed). You fall asleep faster, your naps are more restful, and you awake to a natural surge allowing you to start your day refreshed and alert.

Tomorrow we will talk about an added benefit of placing your naps on this rhythm.

Is polyphasic sleeping right for you? part 3

The next question that one ought to consider if you are thinking about doing a polyphasic schedule to gain productive hours, is whether you are able to fall asleep quickly. While you save time by cutting out some of the Non-REM sleep, if you have difficulty falling asleep, or if you have an elaborate bed-time ritual, any gains that you make on saving sleep, will be lost in the pre-sleep routine. On the other side of it, your morning routine needs to be efficient as well. The more efficient your sleep schedule, the more efficient your extraneous routines need to be.


For an uberman schedule, where you are sleeping in six 20-minute blocks, for a total of 2 hours of sleep a night. However if it takes you more than 30 minutes to take your nap from the time you switch from productive activity, and more than 30 minutes to resume productive activity when you get going after your nap, then your effective time becomes something like 8 hours, and you have lost nearly all the gains that you have made. I find that it is easy to lose 30 minutes of productive time before a nap. My routine involves using the bathroom, doing dental care, take stuff out of my pockets, check my alarm (if I have set one) and then going to bed. I am luck in that I typically fall asleep in under 5 minutes. So my "pre-nap" routine takes about 15 minutes. However, I ALSO tend not to start a new project within about 30 minutes before a nap, so I lose some productive time there. I figure that on average I lose another 10 minutes. So my nap routine, which is pretty simple and relatively quick eats up 25 minutes three times a day.

Mmmm... Coffee.

My waking routine involves making a pot of coffee, while I do the dishes, and then having a cup while I check my email. I am doing some multi-task items in there, but I would guess that I have about 10 minutes of dedicated "morning" routine. Since did a similar routine once a day when I slept monophasically, versus the three times a day now, I lose a hidden 70 minutes in the combined before and after nap routines. This makes my adjusted "awake/ non-sleep routine" time 18.0 hrs a day vs the monophasic 15.3 hrs a day. Which is only a 18% gain, or an extra 1.25 days a week. Still worth doing, but only if the negative effects are relatively minor.

If you are considering a polyphasic routine, be honest with yourself on how long your sleep-oriented routines are, including the time it takes you to fall asleep. The average time to fall asleep in the US is around 30 minutes, which completely negates any benefits of an Uberman or Everyman schedule, and severely minimizes the benefits of a triphasic cycle.

30 days of polyphasic sleep.

I am still loving my triphasic sleep schedule, and expect to continue on it indefinitely. The three "days" per 24 hour cycle work well for me. I am more productive, and I am having more fun as well. I really enjoy the time that I am awake at night. I have been doing a lot of design work and more cooking. I have been baking bread and making cheese. I have been able to pour considerable amounts of time into my new business, Fiddlehead Homes.

I have been tracking my sleep time carefully over the last two weeks. I am averaging 4.9 hours of sleep. I average about 4.5 hours a night typically, and then, about once a week, I sleep through the night and lose my night "wake" period entirely. So far this has happened the night period after white-water kayaking. Out of the 4 times that I have gone whitewater kayaking or whitewater canoe racing, I have slept through the night 3 times. I am not sure if that is a coincidence or not. It has been pretty well documented that we don't need sleep for our muscles. They are able to repair and build themselves during any sort of low-activity/rest phase. Whitewater kayaking is new for me, so it may be that I am sleeping through the night in order to process the new skills. One theory of sleep is that we process new skills (specifically - motor sequencing and motor adaptation tasks) during Non-REM sleep, which is the part of sleep that my schedule is deficient in. On the other hand, it could also be that the kayaking has nothing to do with my need for the extra sleep, and it is simply a coincidence. It could be that I slowly accumulate sleep debt and need to pay it back, and that the days that I can go kayaking are also days where I don't have anything pressing scheduled for that night. I will have to continue to be consistant about tracking it, and see whether I can come to any conclusion.

Negative effects:

My wife, who was born and raised in Texas, has been enjoying suddenly being the tough one when it comes to the house thermostat. I have become much more sensitive to cold. I have been keeping my home about 5 degrees warmer since I started this experiment, and I often have on an extra layer and have the heat lamp on, when I am at the computer. If I am up and moving around, I don't really seem to have that issue. It is just when I am sitting, sleeping or otherwise inactive.

I have gained about 3 pounds over the last 4 weeks. My weight fluctuates by about 3 lbs per day, so at first it was hard to see that trend, but it is clear now. I will have to watch this very carefully. I have definitely been eating more sweets and fatty food. I am not sure whether that has to do with moving my office out of the bedroom and into the dining area, or because I am burning more calories per day, or is some negative artifact of sleeping less.

I do tend to fade a bit at about 3:30am until about 5:00am, when I begin to become more alert. I am debating about whether to change my schedule a bit to take that into account. I may add in a nap and do a 40 min nap at 3:30 and do a 40 minute nap at 6:00, but that seems a bit clunky.

I have difficulty taking medicine "two times a day". I currently take Loratadine for my allergies, and I am supposed to take them every 12 hours. With a triphasic day, that means that I take them first thing in the "morning", then in the middle of the next "day", and then skip a "day". I almost always get it wrong an skip one or take an extra one. With Loratadine the consequences are minor to the point of not making any difference, but I need to come up with a system for the future, when I will have to take a medication regularly.

Dancing cabaret knights - 

a negative effect of triphasic sleep.

The last negative effect that I have noticed is that I constantly have some song stuck in my head. This has never happened to me before, I used to just have thoughts, dialog, or silence; now I have some little tune playing all the time. My wife says that she always has a tune playing in her head, and I have always been unable to imagine what that could be like. Now I know that it is very slightly irritating. My current tune is "Camelot". Unfortunately, it is not from the musical of the same name, but from "Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail".

Overall, the positive effects powerfully outweigh the negative, so onward I go.

Is polyphasic sleeping right for you? part 2

Contrary to part 1, there is strong evidence that polyphasic sleeping ought to be more common. In its broad definition, polyphasic sleep is a term that refers to sleeping multiple times during a 24 hour period. Sleeping 3 times a day is called triphasic, Sleeping 2 times a day is refered to as biphasic, and sleeping once a day is termed monophasic. Polyphasic sleeping does not necessarily connote sleep optimization in order to stay awake for more hours a day, although that is a very common usage.

The majority of americans try to keep a monophasic schedule. Monophasic schedules are so common that any other schedule is often thought to be not only an aboration, but a pathology. There is a pervasive belief that monophasic sleep is somehow more natural, or even more moral. But, in fact, the western idea of sleep seems to be the exception, with its no-contact, sensory isolated, monophasic sleeping.

Hunter gather societies, such as the !Kung and the Efe are fluid, poly-phasic sleepers. They sleep when they are tired, whether it is day or night and independently of when others are sleeping. Much of the world sleep most the night, but have a nap during the day, making them biphasic sleepers. Egyptians, and the spanish fall into this group. Some people argue that the natural human rhythm of sleep is triphasic, with an interrupted night sleep and a nap during the day. Most people in the world sleep on a biphasic or triphasic schedule. Even in the US, the research has shown many benefits of "power naps" including better memory, mental health, and even a decrease in heart disease.

Furthermore, nearly 33% of americans suffer from sleep disorders. Might it be that 33% of us are not natural monophasic sleepers, and that having difficulty with monophasic sleep ought not be a pathology? It is not like we are born sleeping through the night. That has to be taught.

A natural polyphasic sleeper

There is a fair body of evidence that "sleeping through the night" is a myth for adults as well. If you have a sleep disorder, or you have trouble sleeping all night, consider trying a polyphasic schedule. Don't necessarily try to restrict the total amount of time that you sleep, be open to sleeping as much or as little as you need. Go to bed a few hours earlier, take a nap, get up and do whatever routine fits your life, take another nap, and get up at your usual time. For the 50 million americans that suffer from insomnia, what have you got to lose?

Is polyphasic sleeping right for you? part 1

The short answer is: probably not.

If you are thinking about trying a polyphasic schedule, the first question you should be asking yourself is what are you going to do with all the extra time? Even under a relatively non-extreme schedule, like mine, you are gaining the equivalent of two extra days a week.

Except, it is not really equivalent. By definition, any time that you "gain" must be happening when everyone else is asleep. Which means that it is happening at night. In the dark. When others are trying to sleep. This significantly limits the sort of activities that can fill the "gained" time. Unless you live in a true 24-hr city, you can not run errands. You can not make business calls or have meetings. You also can not do anything social. Your monophasic friends are not going to appreciate a 3am phone call to get together and hang. If you live with someone else, you will need to choose activities that are quiet. Additionally you can not do anything that requires daylight, like weeding the garden or white-water kayaking. Surprisingly, even web-surfing is oddly limited. There are no updates during the night on my favorite websites. There are no facebook posts or emails.

White-water kayaking.

Daylight recommended.

So what CAN you do with the extra time? There seem to be two options. Either you are playing World of Warcraft (in which case your rigid sleep schedule is going to irritate your group), or you are doing something creative. Not surprisingly, fighting boredom is one of the most common complaints that come up on polyphasic blogs. Everyone can use a little extra time, but most people are not going to be able to fill an extra 1500 hours a year.

For most people, stargazing 

can only take up so much time.

If you are primarily a social person, then you will not experience any real gains by having extra waking time. If you are a creative person, are your (quiet) creative projects really going to fill 1500 hrs a year, or do you have a couple of 40-hr type projects? I find that it is easier to wake up and get going if I am excited about a current project. If you try polyphasic sleeping and find that you are fighting boredom, then go to sleep! What is the point of having a rigid schedule to give yourself something that you don't use?

Note to self: Don't change the schedule.

I crashed hard about 4:30am this morning, a slightly delayed after effect of meeting some friends for lunch at 1:00. I did not get to my afternoon nap until 3:30, which is 2 hours later than it is scheduled. I slept for about 1:45 minutes, which is fine. My sleep was good and I awoke refreshed and sharp. Now I had a phone get-together scheduled with another friend at 9:00pm, but he had to push it back until 11:00. I thought this would probably be no problem since I was already 2 hrs behind on the day. However, at 10:30 - my usual nap time - I was starting to fade, so I thought that I would try taking a short nap before I talked to my friend. I seemly awoke on my own, but i must have been woken up by my friend calling, as he was on the phone when I checked the time. I keep the ringer on vibrate, so it is relatively subtle. It was 11:00, so I had slept for 1/2 hr. I talked to him, had my coffee and started my day. I wondered if the longer sleep this afternoon and the shorter sleep this evening would average out such that my schedule would be unaffected.

How did I not see this coming?

Now, I have to admit, it hasn't worked that way on other days that I have tried altering my schedule, and today was no different. At 3:50, a full 1 1/2 hrs before I normally sleep, I was suddenly and deeply tired. I lay down on the couch and immedately went to sleep, waking at 6:45, which is basically my regular time. I feel a little bit groggy this morning. We shall see if I can right my schedule without another extended nap.

Most people think that the rigidity of the poly-phasic sleep schedule is a huge downside, and to some extent, this is true. However, it is not like mono-phasic sleepers have a flexible schedule. My friend that I was on the phone with eventually had to call it a night and head for bed. It was only about 1/2 hr past his usual bedtime, and he was worried about the consequences for himself in the morning. I think that the real downside to the poly-phasic schedule is not that it is rigid, but that it does not align with socially excepted norms. I would think that in countries where siestas are more common, that one might be able to do a tri-phasic sleep schedule with no social consequences at all.

Short sleepers

Apparently there are some individuals who only need 3-4 hours a sleep a night naturally and do not suffer from sleep deprivation. They are called "short sleepers", and an oft-quoted statistic says that they are 1%-3% of the population. That percentage seems high to me, since a scientist who studies short sleepers has only found 20 individuals so far. I have been deeply enjoying my extra time that I have acquired by changing my sleeping schedule and gaining an extra 3-4 hours of awake time a day. However, it is not without some penalties. I do have to be fairly careful to keep my schedule consistent, and it sometimes meshes poorly with other activities. It would be pretty nice to sleep as little as 3 hours mono-phasically. These "short sleepers" have a mutation on a gene known as hDEC2. Well, there is another gene lottery that I lost; I have to compensate for it with creativity and hacks. More information on short sleeper can be found in this Wall Street Journal article. 

Not a short sleeper.

Perhaps, not surprisingly, many people that claim to be short sleepers, are in fact, simply depriving themselves of sleep. Symptoms of severe sleep deprivation include: confusion, memory lapses, hallucinations, headaches, eye bags, increased blood pressure, irritability, ADHD-like symptoms, and increased risk of diabetes. That last one is a little odd since coffee consumption has been shown to decrease the risk of diabetes. I know from previous experience that one of my early symptoms of sleep deprivation is that I lose precision in tracking objects with my eyes, and I will get multiple after-images when there is a bright light, or I will be unable to focus on text. My eyes seem to drift across the page, without reading the material. So glad that I am not in college anymore. 

What about the symptoms of non-severe sleep deprivation? Turns out that there is a very easy way to diagnose that. You feel tired or sleepy. That is all there is to it. One of the disqualifications of people that claim to be short sleepers, but in reality are sleep deprived, is that when they have a break in their schedule - a vacation or a weekend, they will tend to sleep in. It is one of the reasons that I try not to use an alarm during this polyphasic sleep experiment - because the point is not to try to get by while sleeping less per se, it is to try to get all the sleep I need more efficiently. 

Reset

Last night thought I might be feeling the effects of some sleep debt. I went to bed at my usual 10:30pm and did not set my alarm, so that I would get whatever sleep I needed. I awoke a couple times in the night, but fell back asleep without any problem, finally getting up at 7:00am, for a total of 8 1/2 hours of sleep that night. Today, all seems back to normal with a 1:15 hr nap this afternoon and a 1:20 hr nap this evening. I have been alert and productive again.

I am still unsure whether the sleep debt came about primarily from accumulated lack of sleep over the last 2 weeks, or whether it had more to do with my schedule becoming erratic. I will be trying to keep my schedule regular for this next two week period to see if I accumulate more debt. If so, then it looks as though I may be able to repay the sleep debt with a single 8 hr sleep/fortnight, which would increase my average sleep from 4:25 minutes to just under 5 hrs a night. Not as good, but not that bad. 

Some signs of sleep debt.

The last day and a half, I have not been waking up before my alarm. I have had reluctance to get out of bed and I have been feeling tired before my nap times. I think that I have some sleep debt. I have been taking my Epworth Sleepiness Scale test since the experimented started. Monophasic sleep was a "3" and most of the experiment thus far my ESS score has been a "1". However, in the last couple days, it has gone up to a "6". The average US male score is "4 1/2." So, I am not going to use an alarm for my evening "nap" with the expectation of sleeping most the night. I will continue taking my afternoon nap. I am curious to see whether the sleep debt will be easily repaid, and I can continue on what has become my normal schedule, or whether this will be the de facto end of the experiment. I think that it is a little odd that the first signs of sleep debt took more than two weeks to show up. I wonder if it has to do with messing with my schedule on Saturday, and then again on Monday or whether it is chronic to the schedule itself. Only time will tell.