Click here to view today’s sleep log

Last night I had 1 beer and 1 glass of wine about 5 hours before I went to sleep. I was pretty tired before bed, so I went to bed about 20 minutes early.

This morning when I woke up I felt quite sleepy and also slightly hungover. It wasn't a proper hangover, but I definitely had some very mild hangover feelings. I think this is probably because I have a little bit of sleep debt from missing my nap on Friday.

After we got up we played some computer games for a while, and then set off to London, to Yu Lee's mum's house. I have a course tomorrow and Tuesday so I am going to be staying here for a couple of days.

When we got here we had a massive lunch, and then went out rollerblading with Yu Lee's mum in the park. It wasn't an epic 17 mile session like yesterday, but we spent a couple of hours out and got back around 4:00pm. It wasn't too strenuous but I could definitely feel it in my legs afterwards, but I think this was mainly due to yesterday's session.

At 4:15pm we went for a nap, and I set the alarm for just over 2 hours. I took a few minutes to fall asleep, and drifted off into a nice deep sleep. When I woke up I was definitely dreaming, and as I woke up I thought it was a long and complicated (and pretty cool) dream, but the alarm was quite distracting and by the time I'd turned it off my memory of the dream had faded. I am definitely waking from REM more often than not at the moment.

After our nap we had dinner and relaxed, not doing much. I feel really sleepy this evening and it is only 11:00pm, so I think I will go to bed at 11:30. It will be interesting to see if I sleep the night through: If I wake early I will know I wasn't that tired, but if I sleep through until the normal time it probably means I needed the early night.

I think it's a good idea to get some extra rest as I want to be alert for my course tomorrow.

Today marks the end of the second week of biphasic sleep. This time I am going to start off with my alertness chart. As with the previous summary, I have been recording my alertness from 1 to 10 for each hour every day.

Here is a reminder of the 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

Here are the results for this week:

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
DAY:	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
	09/09/12	10/09/12	11/09/12	12/09/12	13/09/12	14/09/12	15/09/12
00:00	Asleep	5	4	8	Asleep	6	6
01:00	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep
02:00	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep
03:00	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep
04:00	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep
05:00	7	6	6	8	9	6	6
06:00	8	6	5	7	8	9	7
07:00	9	6	5	8	8	9	9
08:00	9	6	5	8	8	9	8
09:00	9	8	6	8	8	8	7
10:00	7	7	7	8	8	8	7
11:00	7	6	7	7	8	8	7
12:00	7	7	7	7	8	8	6
13:00	6	8	8	7	7	8	Asleep
14:00	6	7	6	8	6	8	Asleep
15:00	7	7	5	7	7	7	8
16:00	7	6	6	7	7	7	8
17:00	7	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	Asleep	7	7
18:00	8	8	8	8	8	9	7
19:00	7	8	8	8	8	8	8
20:00	7	8	7	7	8	7	7
21:00	7	8	7	7	7	8	6
22:00	7	7	7	7	8	6	6
23:00	6	5	8	6	7	6	5
Mean:	7.26	6.79	6.42	7.42	7.67	7.60	6.94

This week I have really felt that this sleep pattern is starting to work! As you can see above, mostly I marked my alertness as 7 and 8 and there were a few 9s in there too.

I had 2 days where I messed up my naps which were days 8 and 13. As you can see days 9, 10 and 14 were all lower scoring days, which shows that messing up my naps affects me for a couple of days afterwards.

In general my naps have been more successful this week, and I think this is mainly down to taking my naps at the same time each day. I have felt generally alert throughout the week, but not quite 'normal' yet. I am hoping that in a week's time I will be fully adapted.

Click here to view today’s sleep log

Last night I was very tired because I didn't sleep properly for my nap. In the end I decided to go to bed half an hour early, partly because I felt more tired than usual and partly because I have woken up naturally after 5 hours a few times, so I wanted to try sleeping for 5 hours to see if it was easier to get up.

When I woke up this morning I felt pretty tired but i don't know if this is due to sleeping 5 hours or just because I was tired from the previous day. I definitely was dreaming when I woke up so it should have been a good time to wake up.

At 7:00am we went out for some more rollerblading, and this time we managed to go for 28km which is 17 miles! When we got back we ate bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches and then went for an early nap at about 1:00pm.

This was one of the best naps either of us have had, and even Yu Lee said she felt great afterwards. We were asleep for 2 and a quarter hours, and afterwards both said that it felt like a whole night's sleep. I woke from a dream and even remembered fragments of it.

After our nap we went to town and spent the afternoon there, and then went to a greek restaurant for dinner.

Now it is 23:30 and I feel dead! I am very tired, and I am looking forward to going to bed. I am going to try to hold out until at least 12:30am so that I don't mess up my sleep pattern tomorrow.

Click here to view today’s sleep log

Today started off as a really good day. I woke up feeling mildly sleepy, but it cleared pretty quickly and I spent most of the morning doing some programming.

Work was easy today, and I had almost no tired feelings all day. I would say my alertness was at least what it used to be on monophasic this morning, and very slightly tired this afternoon.

After work I settled down to sleep, and was just about to drift off when my phone rang (thanks Mum!). After I finished my phone call I tried to go back to sleep, and was just getting settled when Yu Lee came home.

We ended up laying in bed and talking about her work for half an hour before I attempted to sleep for the third time. This time I think I slept but only for about 10 minutes. She wasn't tired either so we both got up and made dinner.

After dinner I phoned my Mum back and spoke to her for a while, and then Yu Lee said she was tired and went for a nap. I joined her, but set the alarm for 30 minutes as I didn't want to ruin my core sleep. I woke up feeling a little better, but 20 minutes is just not good enough for a nap! I really need my 1.5 hours!

I woke Yu Lee up after 1.5 hours (like she told me to) but she was too tired and ended up going back to bed.

This evening I have felt much sleepier than I have done for a few days. I really missed my nap today! I still managed to get quite a lot of programming done, and I have lasted until 12:30am. I am going to go to bed a little early, and see if I feel good on 5 hours sleep.

Good night!

Click here to view today’s sleep log

Last night I met up with one of my Spanish friends for a language exchange, and as usual we went to a bar and I had a few beers. When I did this on Monday I felt very tired the next day, so this time I decided to get an early night. I went to bed at 11:30pm which would have given me a 6 hour core (4 cycles).

This morning I first woke up at 4:30am, after exactly 5 hours of sleep. I looked at the clock and decided to go back to sleep, but then I woke up again at 5:10am and got up. This is the second time I have woken up after 5 hours, so I am starting to think that my sleep cycles are 100 minutes long, so 5 hours marks the end of 3 cycles.

The other conclusion that I got from this morning's sleep was that my sleep pattern is working! I obviously am getting enough sleep as I am waking up naturally.

Today was the best day yet in terms of my alertness - I felt good (but still very slightly tired) all day. When I got home I managed to sleep for my nap, even though I wasn't that tired beforehand, and afterwards I felt refreshed.

When I woke up from my nap there was a note in the hallway saying:

Stephen,

I have a big headache. Going to sleep downstairs (5:35pm)

Yu Lee

Yu Lee ended up sleeping for over 2 hours, and afterwards she said her headache was gone. Napping must be good for you!

This evening we went out for dinner. We went to Nando's and hadspicychicken and rice, and I had a glass of wine with my dinner.

Right now it is 12:30am and I feel pretty good. The tiredness is just starting to kick in and I am planning to try going to bed at 12:45 instead of 1:00. Normally I have been having 4.5 hours sleep during the night, but as I think my sleep cycles are closer to 100 minutes I am going to try extending my core slightly to see if it makes my mornings less groggy. The ultimate aim is to not even need my alarm clock any more!