After experimenting with polyphasic sleep the past two months, I feel confident declaring that it is not for me. The notion that you can save time by augmenting your sleeping habits, is merely a myth. The little evidence/lack of research I was able to find on the topic only reinforced what I wanted to believe. The truth is simple: due to evolution, our bodies are configured to work a certain way at certain times. When it is dark out, we are meant to sleep. When it is light we are meant to be on the search for food and mates. Our body temperature, hormone levels, and states of awareness change based on the time of day. Some people are less dependent on the structure of circadian rhythms, but I found it very difficult to change. Even though I don't get tired until 3am, I must force myself to go to bed between 12 and 1:30 each night. Otherwise, my body is out of sync with the world, and I cannot operate to my potential.
Changes...
For the first time all school year, I went to sleep each night between 12:00-12:30, getting at least 7.5 hours of sleep each night. I did this after a weekend which consisted of 26 hours of sleep. On top of that I took a couple of 1 hour naps towards the end of the week. I must say, I felt incredible. I have had a lingering cough since late December, accompanied with sinus pressure and nasal drainage. For the first time, these symptoms were gone. My head was clear, and I no longer found myself staring emptily into my textbooks, or gazing off through my computer screen. I felt like my body was at equilibrium with my chemical signals.
A matter of utility...
That said, I cannot keep up this cycle all year. Trying to follow this schedule forced me to spend most of my day preparing for my early sleep. Instead of socializing, I did my homework, I hardly spent any quality time with friends. The only way this could work is if my classes didn't start until ~11:30. Perhaps next year I will go out of my way to meet that. For the short term, I am going to attempt to record my sleepiness to figure out my ideal sleep schedule. This website uses a changed version of a sleep chart developed by psychologists at Stanford University.
Perspectives...
To me, the most important change that has taken place in me of yet, is the change in my thoughts about sleep. When I first started writing this blog, I viewed sleep as a liability, something that would keep me from being productive by using up many hours of my day. Now I look forward to it and embrace it as often as possible. Quite soon I plan on entering the dream world as I imagine it:
Natural History Museum by NeutrophilGranulocyte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
For some reason this room, even though I have never been there, always serves as a sort of trainstation of my dreams-- a recurring motif.
It represents a world where my dreams change reality into something like this...
Next blog I will explore dreaming and its exploits: Lucid Dreaming
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