Day Whatever

It's been a while - time to catch up a bit.

I'm still polyphasic (it sounds like i need to be cured of something.) I get between 1 and 3 1/2 hours core a nite, depending on how I feel. Occasionally I will sleep a little more, like 4 or 5 hours core. I have slept 8 hours only one night in the past month I think. Last night I got a luxurious 4 hours because I was doing deadlifts today and wanted to be well-rested. Guess what. It didn't help - I was down a couple of reps from last time. It might have been that I did extra warm-up on the bike, or that I needed one more day recovery from the squats two days ago - I finally got to two plates on my squats - only 3 reps, but they were deep, thighs down to parallel with the floor - and my legs were still a little sore, but it wasn't the sleep at least because my routine is improving as per normal with a setback today only. These things happen.

I routinely sleep in the back seat of my car now at work (whatever car I happen to have since I work on location and rent vehicles regularly.) I head out there at noon and get a nice 20 minute nap. I overslept one noon-time nap last week - for an hour!! The reason was that I had accidentally turned the volume all the way down on my iPhone and the alarm didn't sound. Luckily the students were all busy with an exercise and no-one cared that I was late getting back to class.

I have tried taking my core at about midnight, around 4am, and around 6. It seems to work fine no matter which of those I choose. I find I sleep longer if I take it earlier - I think I'm just susceptible to turning over and going to sleep again when I know I don't have to get up for work.

On non-work days I nap at 8am, 12pm, 4pm, 8pm, 12pm (or core), 4am (or core).
On work days I nap at 8am, 12pm, 6pm, 9:30pm, 1am (or core), 4am (or core).

Two things I have noticed consistently is that my eyes are weaker than before, and my short-term memory suffers, Both are slowly improving. It's not a wonder that my eyes are strained, I use them a lot more than I used to - it's taking a while for the muscles to build up stamina. Also, the short-term memory problem is just basic things like forgetting what I was about to say, or putting something down and forgetting where I put it - fairly normal stuff.

So the key thing to note is that my experience so far is not a static one that is pefect, fit-into-the-mold Everyman schedule. The thing that fits is the 20-minute naps. Longer than that and I am sleepy afterward. Shorter and I am not well-rested enough. I set my timer for 21 or 22 minutes to give me a couple minutes to get comfortable and drift off so that there is a 20-minute sleep period. But I don't set it for longer than that.

It is also nice to note that since starting I have not had any caffeine. I have completely lost my desire for it, since I have so much more time than before and if I were to have any it would wreck my ability to nap well, breaking my polyphasic ability and so actually slow me down because I would have fewer hours in the day. How's that for incentive? Works for me!