Posts by Category: Sleep

Day 5

Posted Saturday 25 August 2012 18:45 by Steve in Sleep

Click here to view today's sleep log

This morning was pretty horrible really. I have been lengthening my core nap by a few minutes each day to try and find a length of time where I don't feel groggy afterwards, and today was the first time that I woke up feeling pretty good after it. The problem is that things went downhill from there!

When I started this experiment, I had a lot of horrible symptoms from the sleep deprivation: Not only did I feel tired but I had a lot of other nasty feelings too. I would describe it as feeling a bit hung over. I felt a pressure inside my skull, I sometimes felt slightly sick, I was dehydrated, my eyes were bloodshot and sore, I found it hard to focus on things and I often felt very hot and uncomfortable. The past 2 days these feelings have all gone, but have been replaced with an extreme sleepiness. To be honest the second day was the worst as I was walking around outside and nearly falling asleep whilst walking. This time I just found it very hard to keep my eyes open.

I did the washing up and weighed myself as usual, but then I tried to do some programming and had to give up very quickly as I was in serious danger of falling asleep. In the end I went for a walk at 4:00am which was a lot earlier than usual. On my way back home I was walking down the street and I saw 2 people walking towards me, and I freaked out a bit and got an adrenaline rush (maybe I am paranoid). The cool thing was that as the adrenaline kicked in I literally felt my eyes go from squinting to wide open and all of the grogginess disappeared. Unfortunately this only lasted a few minutes and when I got home I was back to my sleepy self.

I ran out of chores to do, and I was way too drowsy to play computer games or program, so my only option ended up being to browse the web for a bit. In the end I had to strip down to my underwear and put the fan on me at full blast, and move my chair out of the way and stand at my computer to even stand a chance of waking up.

When 6:30 came around I was very happy as this meant I could brush my teeth and nap. I decided not to use the face mask and to just cuddle up to my girlfriend, so I set the timer for 28 minutes in case I couldn't fall asleep as quickly as usual. In the end I fell asleep very quickly and had a pretty awesome nap.

Today was the first day without work, so we went into Cambridge city centre to do some shopping. I was a bit sleepy but it was nice to not have to sit in front of a computer all day.

I got back at 12:15, just in time for my nap. I slept really well even though I was feeling more alert by this point, and after my nap I felt pretty good. For my 5:00 nap I only drifted off for a short while but after I only felt slightly tired which is basically the best yet! I think I may be starting to adapt now.

I'm hoping that I'm over the worst of this. Let's see what I feel like after my core tonight.


Day 4

Posted Friday 24 August 2012 20:54 by Steve in Sleep

Click here to view today's sleep log

The early morning today was pretty easy, especially compared to yesterday morning. I decided to go to bed about 10 minutes earlier last night for my core, so I have had 3:15 hours sleep, and I woke up feeling a bit more refreshed. I don't know if this is due to lengthening the core or just getting used to the schedule.

I got up and put my headphones on and sat on my computer for a second to write a comment on my core sleep (on my sleep site). All of a sudden there was a tap on my shoulder and my girlfriend appeared in the room. I didn't hear her come in as I had loud music on and it scared the life out of me! She told me that I had snoozed my alarm instead of turning it off, so it woke her up when it went off again. I felt really guilty about that as she was really tired and could do with some extra sleep at the moment.

I did some programming, did the washing up, tidied the hallway and the second bedroom (where my computer is) went for a walk and then went to Tesco Express at 6:00am when it opened to buy milk and lettuce. When I got home I made the sandwiches for the next day and went for my nap.

It took me quite a while to sleep for my morning nap which is unusual - normally I am out like a light. Afterwards I felt pretty good.

When I got to work I came over extremely sleepy. Normally, since I have been doing this experiment I have had serious sleep deprivation symptoms. It's not like normal tiredness - you feel hot and drowsy and a bit ill. This was different because I felt fine, but just insanely sleepy. At about 9:00am someone in the office opened a window and the breeze really woke me up! I went from feeling like I was going to pass out to felling just tired (like how I would normally feel on a Monday morning).

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful: I slept for all of my naps and haven't been especially tired. I had a gin and tonic with my dinner and I don't think it will affect my sleep as that was 5 hours before my core. I have just over 2 hours left of day 4, and the tiredness is just starting to creep up on me.

Although I have felt comfortable and relatively alert, I am still not awake enough to enjoy video games or most of the things that I enjoy doing to relax. Hopefully that will change soon!


Day 3

Posted Thursday 23 August 2012 19:56 by Steve in Sleep

Click here to view today's sleep log

I wrote the last post just after I woke up from my core sleep this morning at 2:30. I did not feel good!

This morning was the hardest part so far by a long way. When I woke up I immediately felt terrible. I took a few attempts at writing the blog and the result was not particularly impressive if I'm honest with you. I really needed to go downstairs and be active but I was so tired all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.

After an hour or so I pretty much snapped out of it: I still felt tired but I was able to concentrate on what I was doing. I spent a while programming my sleep site and added a 'quality' value to my sleeps which colours them green if I slept well, yellow if I slept a little bit and red if I didn't sleep. This took me quite a while, and afterwards the tiredness began to set in again.

The previous days I went for a 20 minute walk at about 5:30 and it really perked me up, so yesterday I decided to go and post the electoral register in the postbox at 5:00am and then go for a walk. At first this made me feel a bit better like usual, but I realised that after half an hour of walking around it felt really monotonous and I felt extremely sleepy. I felt like I could have fell asleep standing up!

When I got back it was torture trying to stay awake, and after making my lunch to take to work I crept into bed half an hour early, and got up at 7:00 with my girlfriend.

I was quite tired at work in the morning, but the morning nap helped a lot. When it came to lunch time I walked home and fell asleep straight away for my 12:20 nap. After work I felt too awake to sleep, which is a shame because I'm a bit tired again now and I think I'll suffer for it tomorrow.

So far, I have never felt great on waking up from any of my sleeps. Sometimes when I take a little nap I feel a bit rested, but not fully rested, and when I wake up after my core nap I seriously feel like I have just come back from the dead! I'm wondering if the timings are not right or something, but I don't want to mess with my schedule too much.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better than today!


Day 2

Posted Thursday 23 August 2012 03:25 by Steve in Sleep

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I have just woken up at the beginning of day 3, after my core nap. I feel extremely tired and I'd love to go back to sleep.

Yesterday (day 2) was much easier than the first day. For me the hardest part so far has been the period before my core (10:00pm - 11:30pm) and the morning (2:30am - 5:30am), and this was a lot easier yesterday than the first day.

During the daytime yesterday I actually felt pretty good - I was very alert and awake. Unfortunately I think I was a bit too awake as I never managed to sleep for my lunchtime or 5:00pm naps. I think this may be why I feel so tired now.

I think I only managed to sleep for all of my naps on the first day because I was a bit sleep deprived - the way I feel now I think today will be similar.


Day 1

Posted Tuesday 21 August 2012 20:16 by Steve in Sleep

Click here to view today's sleep log

Today was the first day of my polyphasic sleep schedule, and I'm tired!

I have read that everyman starts off very easy and gets harder over the course of a few days, so I was expecting the past 24 hours to be easy. I have felt really tired, and it was a struggle to stay awake last night. I think this may partly be because I was slightly sleep deprived to start off with from the end of my holiday (I returned from Spain yesterday).

During the night last night, I had a list of chores and got most of them done. I unloaded the dishwasher, loaded it up, washed up the excess, got some things down from the loft (quietly) and cooked some sausages for lunch today. Before I went to bed at 7:00 this morning I went for a half hour walk and then made sausage sandwiches for today.

I slept for all of my naps, but the earlier ones were more successful. I was so tired for the first nap that I fell asleep quite quickly, and woke up feeling a bit better.

The lunch time nap involved power walking home, quickly sleeping and then marching back to work. I think it would have been better if I had cycled home and relaxed for 10 minutes before my nap. I need to get some oil for my bike before I can ride it so this is not an option for tomorrow.

My final sleep was the least successful but I definitely managed to sleep.

Now I have 3 and a half hours before my core sleep which I am really looking forward to!