Click here to view today’s sleep log

Last night I felt pretty tired by the time I went to bed. I think this is because my nap wasn't really very good quality, so I have built up a small amount of sleep debt. I was expecting to not want to get up this morning, but much to my surprise, I actually woke up at 5:05am before my alarm and turned my alarm off.

When I got up I felt slightly tired, but to be honest it faded pretty quickly once I started working on a new skin for the polyphasic society website. Although I have only been doing this for a couple of days, the mornings are becoming one of my favourite times of day! The time went really fast and it was soon time to go to work.

At work I actually felt pretty tired for the first couple of hours, and then my eyes ached all day. I think this is mainly because I don't have a lot on at the moment so I am not taking many breaks and am staring at the screen all day.

When I got home I didn't feel particularly sleepy, so I wasn't sure whether I would sleep for my nap. I think it only took me a couple of minutes in the end to fall asleep. I woke up half way through without the alarm, and I'm sure it was either after half an hour or an hour but I can't remember which. I closed my eyes for what seemed like a couple of seconds and then my alarm started beeping to get me up. I felt like I'd had a good amount of sleep, and after I'd got over the initial post-nap fuzzy feeling I was alert and refreshed.

This evening I've felt like I would during a monophasic evening, but now it is midnight and I'm starting to get sleepy. The sleepiness I feel on this is totally different to when I was trying to adapt to everyman: Although I feel sleepy I can still function and am not having to fight to stay awake. When I was adapting to everyman I found it really hard to do a lot of my usual leisure activities, especially playing computer games, but this evening I managed to get a good few hours of Guild Wars 2 in, even after I had started feeling tired.

Anyway, I have rambled on long enough. See you tomorrow!

Whilst I was doing the experiment, I kept a spreadsheet where I recorded how I felt each hour throughout the day. I rated my alertness on the following scale:

Score	Meaning
0	I give up
1	Microsleeps. Feeling like falling asleep when doing physical activity such as walking.
2	I could sleep at my desk by accident whilst trying to type something if I'm not careful. Occasional microsleeps a possibility
3	Uncomfortable (extremely tired) / very sleepy. Even just sitting down is uncomfortable and/or I have to fight off sleep constantly
4	Very Tired – I could fall asleep in less than a minute. Programming is impossible or at least very difficult
5	Reading would make me fall asleep or feel really sleepy
6	I could read without sleeping but it would make me feel drowsy
7	Normal Monday afternoon after missing a few hours sleep on Sunday night
8	Slightly Tired (definitely don't feel like I could fall asleep). Normally I would feel like this at about 8:00pm – 9:00pm
9	Normal Awake
10	Better than normal

This is not very scientific - I literally just asked myself how I was feeling each hour and picked the item on the scale that best fitted how I felt at the time.

Unfortunately I didn't record this from the very start of the experiment which included some of the worst times for me.

The following is a table with my results. It may seem like the scores are not very low, but I think the worst you should ever feel on a normal day is about a 6. A feeling of 2 is extremely uncomfortable, and 1 is living hell if you feel like that for extended periods!

I have colour coded the table: Orange cells are periods just before a sleep, and yellow cells are periods just after a sleep.

	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
DAY:	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
	24/08/12	25/08/12	26/08/12	27/08/12	28/08/12	29/08/12	30/08/12	31/08/12	01/09/12
00:00	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep
01:00	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep
02:00	3	4	Asleep	Asleep	4	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep
03:00	4	4	3	3	7	4	2	4	3
04:00	5	2	5	6	5	5	5	5	3
05:00	4	2	4	7	4	6	4	5	5
06:00	3	4	4	4	6	6	2	3	2
07:00	4	5	5	8	8	7	3	5	5
08:00	3	5	5	7	5	5	5	8	6
09:00	2	4	4	6	7	7	7	8	5
10:00	6	4	5	7	6	7	5	8	6
11:00	6	4	8	6	4	6	6	6	6
12:00	7	4	6	5	5	6	6	4	7
13:00	7	6	7	6	8	7	6	7	Asleep
14:00	7	7	7	6	7	7	7	8	7
15:00	7	7	6	5	7	8	7	8	7
16:00	7	6	5	7	7	8	8	8	7
17:00	8	7	7	7	9	8	8	8	8
18:00	7	8	8	7	8	6	8	7	7
19:00	6	7	7	7	7	8	8	7	7
20:00	7	6	5	6	7	8	8	7	7
21:00	6	6	4	6	6	6	6	5	6
22:00	5	x	2	4	5	4	4	2	5
23:00	5	x	1	3	6	3	4	1	5
Mean:	5.41	5.10	5.14	5.86	6.27	6.29	5.67	5.90	5.70

You will notice that the last day in the chart shows the day where I made the crossover from everyman to biphasic. I will continue to chart my feelings until I am fully adapted to biphasic, so that we can compare how bad each adaptation felt.

Also, if you look carefully you can see 1 hour where I scored a 9. During the whole adaptation period I had 1 hour of feeling normal on day 8. That's why I gave up!

Click here to view today’s sleep log

I'm not expecting the adaptation to this schedule to be difficult. Everyman is a weird schedule that feels very unnatural to adapt to, but biphasic sleep is a very common sleeping pattern, and I think it should be easy to get used to.

Today was the first day of my new sleep schedule, but I slept 6 hours for my core last night to try and catch up on some sleep that I was lacking from my everyman attempt. When it came to nap time I did just about manage to sleep for most of it, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as the 1.5 hour nap I had yesterday. I think this is because I am not used to sleeping at that time, and I had a lot (6 hours) of sleep last night.

Now it is 11:00pm here, and I am starting to feel tired, and I could probably do with another 6 hour sleep to clear off my sleep debt, but I am not going to do it. Instead I am going to wait until 1:00am so that I will be a little bit sleep deprived tomorrow so that I can fall asleep easier. I think it will take me a few days to get back to normal without a longer sleep, but it should give me a chance to get used to napping, and then I can catch up if I still need to.

I was debating whether or not to sleep at lunch time or after work. At the moment I come into work an hour earlier than most people, and leave an hour early, but I could probably get a 2 hour lunch break if I want to instead and leave at the normal time. This would allow me to sleep at 1:00pm which is the time that most people say feels most natural.

The thing that made me decide that I probably won't want to sleep at lunchtime permanently, is that my girlfriend said she might try this sleeping pattern out too, and she doesn't get home until 6:00. If she does this we would like to take our nap together. She is not going to start until I've tested it out though, so if I feel really tired at lunchtime tomorrow I might just head home for a sleep.

I don't really have much else to add at the moment! To be honest, I felt amazing yesterday and this morning because it was the first time in over a week that I hadn't felt tired. Now it is 11:00pm and I just feel mildly tired, whereas the past few days I had been fighting to stay awake by this time.

I will post back tomorrow and say how I feel...

Click here to view today’s sleep log

Goodbye Everyman

Last night I had another miserable night of tiredness. I was debating adding an hour or two to my core, but everyone seems to think that it is much better to add a nap, so I struggled through the tiredness with the intention of taking an extra nap this morning.

This morning came again and I was still very tired, so I did give in and took an extra nap. I woke up naturally after 10 minutes and felt very slightly better, but still not good. After my 6:30 nap I still felt pretty grim so I discussed the idea of giving up with my girlfriend. Before when we spoke about giving up she had encouraged me to carry, on but this time she told me maybe it was time to give up.

Why I Gave Up

Overall I think the everyman sleep schedule is not right for me at this moment in time. The following are my reasons for giving up:

Too Hard to Adapt

The main thing that made me give up was that the adaptation process was simply too difficult for me, and I'm not even sure if it would have ever worked for me. After about a week of sleeping with this pattern things seemed to improve, but in the past few days things got significantly worse. Today was Saturday, and I feel like I already wasted last weekend, and I am not willing to go through another weekend of feeling like a zombie.

Since I have started I have not really been able to enjoy ...anything! Playing on the computer for more than an hour each day has been rubbish, I can't drink alcohol, I can't drink tea, I can't watch TV, I can't always program. Basically the enjoyment was taken out of almost every activity that I can do at home (although roller blading was still cool).

Too Many Naps

I love a nap, but 3 a day is not really worth the effort. Most of my naps were 22 - 25 minutes long, but realistically they took longer than that. I often started to feel alert before my naps and needed to spend 15 minutes or so winding down to get me in the mood for sleep. Also, after each nap I had at least 10 - 15 minutes of feeling sleepy. This means that each nap was really taking up to an hour!

Also, if I want to go out for the day, getting home for a nap would be an inconvenience. Getting back for 3 naps on the other hand would be severely limiting.

Too Inflexible

I understand that the schedule would become more flexible after I am fully adapted, but even then I think it is still too rigid. During the adaptation it is way too rigid.

I have a course coming up in 2 weeks and I will not be able to nap, and I may not have been adapted by then so what would I do? I normally see my next door neighbour at 4:30pm - 5:30pm but that is when my nap is so how can I see her? In 3 weeks time I need to come into work early to launch something, and I will be working from 4:00am until about midday. What if I can't get my nap then?

And god knows what I would do if I was on holiday for 2 weeks!

I don't mind sticking to my schedule most of the time, but it seems like it would be very difficult to fit all of these things into my schedule.

Incompatible with my Lifestyle

I like to drink beer, tea, meet up with people in the evenings, go on holiday, visit my family... Basically I have a social life! I think cutting down on the amount of caffeine and alcohol that I drink would be a good thing, but I don't want to give these things up forever.

In the next couple of weeks I have 3 or 4 things coming up where I would like to be able to relax, eat and drink what I like and come home when I like. I really don't think I could do this whilst adapting and I think living my life is more important than this experiment!

What I Have Learnt

All in all, this experience has not been a waste of time. I think I have learnt a lot from this past couple of weeks.

It's Good to Try Something Different

It's very easy to go through life doing things in the same way as everybody else. A lot of us eat, sleep, drink, work and do lots of other things in a certain way just because everyone else does, and we don't think that there could be a better way of doing things. This sleep pattern was not for me, but I definitely don't like my normal sleeping pattern and I don't want to go back to monophasic sleep.

I Rely too Heavily on Tea and Alcohol

Having to give up tea was really difficult for me. I normally drink at least 5 or 6 cups a day, and I really don't like not being able to do that! I don't think this is a good situation to be in, being so reliant on something throughout the day.

Similarly I think I have been drinking alcohol a bit too much as well. Most nights I had been drinking 2 or 3 beers in the evening, whereas on this sleeping pattern I sometimes had 1 with my dinner but no more. I even left half a pint of beer behind in a restaurant the other day!

I am hoping to cut down on tea and alcohol after this. I will still be drinking tea every day, but I will be doing so only at the beginning of the day. Before I was often drinking tea in the evening and I think this was having an effect on my sleep.

Similarly I will cut down the amount of alcohol I drink. If nothing else this will save me a lot of money! This isn't to say I'm going to be teetotal: I still enjoy a good drink and intend to indulge in it regularly. I just don't want to spend so much time sitting in my house drinking.

I Like Infusions

This is a relatively minor point I think, but I have discovered that tea is not the only hot drink worth drinking! I really like a peppermint tea, or camomile and honey, and a whole range of other strange infusions that I bought for this experiment. I intend to drink these in the afternoon instead of tea as they are naturally caffeine free.

Napping is Amazing

One of the really positive things that has come out of this is that I've learnt how to nap. In the past I have napped from time to time, but I would often feel really tired and still not be able to nap, or it would simply not cross my mind that I could use a nap. Now I know that if I ever feel a bit sleepy, I can always take a 20 minute power nap for a bit of refreshment.

I would also like to include a daily nap in my new sleeping schedule.

I Have a Better Understanding of How Sleep Works

Getting by on such little sleep, and managing it so precisely has taught me a lot about sleep. I understand more about how sleep stages work, how circadian and ultradian rhythms work, and what it feels like to feel truly tired. I have experienced nightmares, sleep paralysis, microsleeps and at times even euphoria due to my sleep pattern.

I have also truly experienced what it feels like to fall asleep. When you are extremely sleep deprived, and trying to nap, sometimes you seem to drift into a light sleep without losing consciousness.

First of all, all of your limbs go numb, and then you feel really heavy and warm, like you are melting into the mattress. It feels like it would take a great effort to move any of your body parts. You start to see hypnogogic imagery (lights, colours, dreamlike images) and sometimes hear sounds. Your eyes gently roll back and start to move from side to side.

Most people probably don't really get to experience this and it has been interesting.

I have also learnt how to fall asleep and it is really simple:

First I take a few deep breaths. I breath in through my nose deeply, so that my stomach rises, hold the air in my lungs for a few seconds, and then exhale through my mouth. I repeat this a few times and it makes me feel a little bit more drowsy.

Next I start counting my breathes. Every time I exhale, I think in my head 1, 2, 3... all the way up to 10. If I get distracted and can't remember where I'm up to I start again. If I get to 10 I start again.

I have no idea how well this would work if I wasn't sleep deprived, but I found this to be an excellent way to clear my mind and drift off to sleep during the experiment.

[ EDIT 4/10/2012: It turns out that this technique doesn't really work for me if I am not sleep deprived. Taking a couple of deep breathes is a good way to relax a little bit, but the counting thing no longer works for me. I think it is useful if you are really tired but can't clear your mind of thoughts (especially due to not winding down), but concentrating on counting seems to be counterproductive when I am not exhausted.]

The Snooze Button is a Waste of Time

I have really had to jump out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off during this experiment, even if only because it was 2:30am and my girlfriend was sleeping. This is a good habit to get into!

Before this experiment, every morning I would set my alarm to 7:05, and snooze the alarm until 7:35. This is really not worth doing, and I intend to get out of this behaviour from now on.

I Like Rising Early

I always thought of myself as a bit of a night owl, but I have realised that waking up early is great! My girlfriend always said I should get up half an hour earlier so that we can eat breakfast together before work, but to be honest this is not good enough. I want to be able to get up, have breakfast, shower, and still have an hour to spare to do whatever I want.

I Like Being Awake at Night

As well as being awake in the morning, I also want to be awake at night! I've always known this to be honest, but during the experiment I found it quite cool to be doing the dishes at 3:00am and going for a walk before sunrise when everyone else was still in bed.

I Spend too Much Time in Front of a Computer

I had some horrible feelings in my eyes, and I think a lot of this was due to sitting in front of the computer too much. I think it would be good for me to be a bit more active.

I Can Use the Computer Standing Up

Related to the previous point, I had terrible back ache for periods during the experiment. Because of this I ended up building something to rise my keyboard and mouse up to standing height, and I intend to use this in the future as well. Obviously I will not stand at my computer all of the time, but it actually feels quite good to not be sat in my chair all of the time.

My Girlfriend is Amazing

The final thing I want to say here is that my girlfriend is really supportive and I couldn't have tried this without her support. Even though she thought this whole sleep thing was ridiculous, she still talked me out of quitting several times, and really helped me feel better when I was feeling low. One night she even got up at "stupid o' clock" to keep me company! She also tolerated my waking her up in the night with my vibrating alarm clock and having to come home at inconvenient times for my naps.

My New Sleeping Pattern

My everyman experiment officially ended at 1:09pm today when I decided to take a 1.5 hour nap to switch to a new sleep pattern. My new sleeping pattern will be biphasic sleep, commonly known as taking a siesta!

Sleep Period	From	To
Core Sleep	1:00	5:30	(4.5 hours)
Nap	16:30	18:00	(1.5 hours)

This should be a lot easier than my everyman sleep pattern, and I should only need about 6 hours per night instead of the 8 hours I generally need on monophasic.

This schedule is also supposed to be very flexible. I have heard people who are on similar schedules say that they can take their nap anytime between 12:00 and 19:00 which is going to be great compared to the rigid everyman naps. The only downside is that the nap is 1.5 hours long, and is much more difficult to fit in than a 20 minute power nap, but I think it will be worth it.

The Future of this Blog

I will not be blogging every day with this sleep pattern as it is not weird enough to be interesting, but I will continue to log my sleeps on my sleep site and will continue to log notes throughout my adaption period.

I also have a few more things to post about everyman, and will probably write a conclusion post at some point when I am fully adapted to biphasic.

Finally, I wouldn't rule out a similar experiment at some point in the future. A big part of me wants to know if it would have been possible to adapt to everyman, and I would also love to try the uberman sleep schedule.

Click here to view today’s sleep log

Last night's core sleep was weird! I went to bed at 23:30 and fell asleep straight away. For the first time since I started this experiment, I remember dreaming as it woke me up.

I dreamt that I was walking through a park, when I saw a group of people that I knew. I went up to them and started talking, but they all had a puzzled expression on their face like 'what is he talking about?'. Then all of a sudden all of their faces morphed into complete strangers. I didn't realise that I was dreaming, so I freaked out thinking that my sleeping pattern was making me hallucinate and I was talking to random people. This made me wake from my dream.

I opened my eyes and looked around the room. All of a sudden I started sliding across the bed to my right hand side. I tried to put my hand out to stop myself sliding off and I couldn't move it. I tried to scream but I couldn't scream, until eventually I snapped out of it and let out a very quiet moan. I think I was experiencing sleep paralysis and it was terrifying!

After that I looked at the clock and it said 23:50, which means I was definitely dreaming in the first 20 minutes of my core, which I think is a good sign. It's just a shame it took such a terrifying experience to realise that my REM is moving forward in my sleep cycle!

This morning I was not brilliant, but not as tired as yesterday. I can't remember everything I did in the morning, but I know that I cleaned out the dishwasher and did a very small amount of programming.

My 6:30 nap made me feel quite a lot better, and afterwards I played on the computer for a bit before work. I felt quite alert at first, but I didn't really have anything to do at work apart from stare at my screen all day which made my eyes tired.

About half way through the morning the receptionist brought me up a package which had arrived in the post: It was an eye pillow that I ordered from amazon.

At my lunch time and afternoon naps I tried out the pillow - it is basically a small thin pillow filled with rice and lavender that you place over your eyes instead of a face mask. It does a really good job of blocking out the light, and is generally more comfortable than a face mask, but you really need to have your head pretty close to horizontal for it to work. At lunch time I slept on the sofa so I kept thinking it was falling off, but in the afternoon I slept in my bed which worked better.

This evening we went to Tesco and bought some pizza, and then ate it at home before playing some online games for a few hours. Now it is 21:30 and I am so tired. I am considering taking a 4:30 long core tonight to try and pay off some sleep debt. I'm not sure yet though.

To be honest I am starting to think that in the long run I probably don't want to keep up this schedule as it is really inconvenient to take so many naps. I would probably prefer a biphasic (siesta) schedule as it would still offer me a bit more time than monophasic, but would be a lot easier to fit around my life. I still would like to see if this everyman adaptation works though...