Light, Sweet, Crude

...That's me. ;)

Nothing really new to report, other than that a minor-ish medical procedure I had really wanted to get done before Uberman started has inexorably been postponed until 3 weeks in. The procedure carries a "you might want/need to take it easy for a couple days afterwards" warning, so I'm not sure if it'll throw me off or necessitate extra sleep...I certainly hope not; getting three weeks in and having to readjust would just be cruel. But we'll see; I usually recover like gangbusters from just about everything.

In other news, I'm almost finished with the pre-Uberman testing. My reaction times, visual acuity and anything else I could think of have been ridiculously thoroughly noted. And I'll rely on you all to let me know if my sense of humor gets worse, or something esoteric like that. ;)

-PD

Scheduling: Like A Puzzle Made Of Jello

Hmm, so here's a piece of planning that I knew, in the sub-cockle regions, that I needed to do, but I've been putting it off, I think, subconsciously. This is one of those things that needs to happen because I'm a grown-up (physically anyway) and because of the stickiness of my current situation. College kids and lucky others might not have to think this far ahead, but for me...yeah, I'd better. As to why I'm posting it...I was originally just going to write it out for myself (it does involve more personal info that I usually flash to the 'Net), but for people doing this, especially with tight schedules and sticky lives, I can't imagine it wouldn't be useful. I'm not sure if it'll go in the book yet, though.

Here's the question: How am I going to spend my time? There's less flexibility in there than I'd like, and far less than there was last time. Even though last time I was working part-time and taking 22-credit-hours a semester and tech-directing the theater group, I was also living in a dorm, with all the company, and freedom of noise and movement that that entails.

Click "Read More" for the boring details...

Now, I live in an, um, "lower flat" (glorified basement) with my wondeful dreadlocked husband (S.) and my beautiful, frighteningly spunky three-year-old daughter (M.). The daughter has a real bedroom; S. and I share a bed walled-off by bookcases and a square of living-area packed, as you can imagine, quite full of stuff. (We share our living-space with a music fetish -- guitar, bass, amp, piano, pieces of drum-kit stacked in a corner, home studio taking up a bookshelf...and a computer fetish...three of 'em, networked, plus auxiliaries...and way too many books...and a huge anime collection...and, yeah, a three-year-old. It's pretty tight.) Two people sleep upstairs, one of them lightly, and I wouldn't hang out upstairs anyway (too messy for my taste). I do have a backyard with a garden in it (don't ask how I managed to plant a garden this year, but I did, and damn am I proud of it -- it's a pretty decent-sized veggie garden, all organic, just like the Great One likes 'em. Mmm.). And a garage, which is currently trizashed, but which I have permission to work on (and which I think I can scrounge a corner out of, once worked on, for a chair and a reading-lamp and maybe a radio). I live in the Metro Detroit area, where there is nothing to do for 20 minutes in any direction and nothing WORTH doing for 45, that I know of, anyway. Our population of intellectuals and crazy people is sparse to say the least, and they generally don't advertise. So I can't count on just going somewhere, especially at night, and being entertained.

Those are the physical circumstances. Now: Time taken up. I work full-time; I agreed to come in early to make up for the hour off in naps I'll be taking, so I figure I'll get ready and go to work right after I wake up at 6:20. (Should mean lighter traffic, too, thank the lords of miserable Motor City.) I'll get home around 6 as usual, take a nap if I haven't on the way home, and play with my daughter until her bedtime at 8:30 or so. That's all pretty written in stone, except on weekends; but now we get to the hard part...

Usually, I chill out between 8:30 and 10 or 10:30 and hit the sack. I practice one of the instruments for a few minutes in there somewhere (usually), play some video games or muck with my website, maybe do some reading-for-fun before I pass out. (Homework I've worked on in the cracks all day, and then I do marathon study-sessions twice a week to get my assignments in. Papers and tests eat into my sleep-time, usually, and/or I have to take half a day off work to finish them.) -- FYI, I just realized that's confusing, because if I have homework, don't I at least have a campus to hang out at? But sadly no; I attend college online, because, well, you've seen my schedule! ;)

Now. After I wake up from my 10:00, S. would like me to be gone for a little while, because he likes to have quiet time to code or work on his projects, and he usually takes it when I go to bed. There is an all-night restaurant I know of (actually two; one close by and one more interesting) where I could go and either study, read or, once I get a laptop (I plan to buy a used one with some student loan money I've got coming), write. I think I can handle those; even on a regular schedule I don't usually get too darn tired before 2 a.m. If I run into something interesting to do (you never know; when I was younger we used to hang out and roleplay in places like that...running into a cool group is unlikely, but you never know), I can nap in my car and keep it up. But if not....

Then there's the dreaded 2-6 block where I KNOW, at least for the first week, that I'll have to keep busy or fall asleep on my feet. Probably no way I can write or study then, and at home I'm limited to being don't-wake-the-kiddo-quiet, which is pretty darn quiet, and I can't turn on more than one lamp or I'll wake S. Nor can I really go upstairs, except to pee or get something from the kitchen. Yikes, huh?

Well...The weather's lovely; I can take walks. Or rollerblade (NOTE TO SELF: Get reflective clothing). I can work by moonlight in the garden (which actually sounds fun); I can very quietly work on the garage. (ANOTHER NOTE TO SELF: Set up lamp in garage; there is no way I'm wrangling all those spiders and mice and gods-know-what-else in pitch blackness!) I have some minor art projects and crap I can do which may or may not work out if I'm terribly tired. I can practice bass or guitar on the back porch or, I suppose, park my car somewhere isolated and practice singing, or reciting (not that I'll ever have the balls to do either of those in public, but I do very much enjoy them). I bought a floor-cushion yesterday (score, it was 75% off!) so that, if I just can't do anything besides play video games or watch TV, at least I won't be sitting on the couch to do it. (The couch is blessedly uncomfortable--it'll be great for napping; you get kinks within 10 minutes on it--but not so uncomfortable that I wouldn't fall out on it at 4 or 5 a.m.!)

So. Now you see what I'm up against. I would pay darn good money for a house or even a room of my own, or to live in a city where there are actually things to do and see at night...not having either of those is going to make this seriously challenging. But that's the point, I guess -- If I can do it, darn near anybody should be able to. Uberman's Uberman, I could call it. ;)

Interesting...

So, how long can you go without sleep before it, you know, kills you or something?

Apparently more than 33 years...

(I was always told it was about 2 weeks and then you'd go insane and die. Guess not!)

-PD

Things you can do to Avoid Oversleeping

Some advice I got asked today reminded me that it'd be a good idea to list some of the tricks I know for avoiding oversleeping, so avast! Here they be.

Just a quick reminder first though: It's NORMAL to want to oversleep during the first week; this schedule is a bear to adjust to and you WILL be exhausted at first. Don't freak out, but also don't assume that you're such a superman that you won't need any of these measures. It's always better safe than sorry when it comes to oversleeping -- you don't want to go through all that trouble and then have to start over!

These tips run from the Simple to the Nigh Ridiculous -- the trick is, what works for you? So be smart: Think about what wakes you up the fastest and take advantage of it. As an example, last time I did this, I programmed my computer to reboot when I had to wake up -- it wasn't loud, but it launched me out of bed like my ass was on fire! That might not work today, but if I have a lot of trouble, I plan to record my daughter crying "Mommy!" and queue that up to play...when I hear that, I'm usually halfway dressed before I even realize what the hell is going on. ;) So, be creative!

Click "Read More" for the list.

1. Two alarms are better than one. Four are even better than two. For a real punch, set some to loud radio, some to annoying static, and stagger them one minute apart.
2. If you're like me and you can shut off an alarm and be back in bed before you ever wake up, do the above, but make each one that goes off farther away than the last one.
3. Don't sleep on your bed; beds are too cozy. You'll be tired enough to fall asleep darn near anywhere, but you don't want to get too comfortable. Good alternate places are the floor, an easy chair, your car, or outside on the lawn if you can get away with that.
4. Don't sleep in total darkness. For the first week, leave the lights on all night, or at least one light. It's lots easier to wake up when the room isn't dark.
5. Leave something to do right where you can see it when you crack your eyes. Start something interesting right before you go to bed, or make yourself some food, or whatever, and leave it right where you'll see it as soon as your alarm goes off -- this'll help get you back into doing-stuff mode.
6. Set up a music player of some sort right next to you when you lay down, queued up with a good "wake-up song". As soon as you crack your eyes, hit "play". (This worked great for me -- I used Placebo's "Pure Morning", which is prosaic as hell, I know, but hey, it worked.)
7. Does the phone wake you up? See if you can get someone to call you at precisely your wake-up time. (The Internet is a great networking place for this, since you probably know someone for whom your 2:20 a.m. is right in the middle of their day.)
8. If you're really lucky and can get a Live Human to help you out, almost nothing works better than a knock on the door, shake on the shoulder, and a few minutes of conversation (or something to do with said human). There might be an opportunity here, too, for nearby Ubermen who may be willing to drive to your house at 2 a.m. for five bucks! ;)
9. Plan something PHYSICAL for the first half-hour after you wake. Walk, exercise, clean, organize, fix your bike, whatever. Don't get up at 2 a.m. and go sit on the couch with a book -- you're doomed if you do! (In fact, Steve Pavlina and I both discovered that this is true even after the first week...it's always a bit tougher to get your body going in the middle of the night. I found that I had no tiredness and no trouble at all, as long as I planned to get up and get my blood moving, first thing. After that, I could sit around all night with no problems.)
10. This is a weird one, but I've seen it work: If you really can't wake up, try this. Before you go to bed, prepare a bowl or wide-bottomed glass half-full of cold water (add an ice cube to keep it cold). Balance it on or next to your body, where you won't knock it over just by breathing or twitching, but where it's nonetheless guaranteed to soak you if it does tip. Now tie a string to it, and tie that string to your wrist -- preferably the wrist of the hand that you're going to move to turn off the alarm. You get the idea, right? ;)
    

Crazy or what?

So, a milestone has been reached -- I've been called crazy. This is an important part of being a pioneer. In fact, I used to rate the success of my experiments on how crazy people told me I was (though by this rating, Uberman was not the most successful experiment...well, it was overall; but not while I was doing it. The most crazy-succesfull experiment I ever did was going a whole winter barefoot. Which, like Uberman, worked a lot better than you'd probably think it would...but that's a different story I guess. ;)

Well, okay, to be totally fair, when exposed to the public I generally get called crazy at least once a month (even in goth bars); but to be even totally fairer, I haven't been really exposed to the public for many moons now. Last time I did Uberman, I was called crazy at least three times before the experiment was really underway. I was beginning to worry that the "good luck totem" of yore might be absent this time. But no, there's obviously just a longer run-up this time. Two weeks to go, and I've been called crazy once. We're moving in the right direction.

Of course, I would like to point out, real briefly, that as crazy pioneers go, at least I'm not as crazy as this guy. Um, yet. I admit, I'm a little jealous of his abundant craziness and willingness to bite the bullet for social research. Go, crazy people!

-PD

P.S. It bears pointing out that the flipside of this is, "If you hate being thought of as crazy, you might want to rethink the Uberman schedule, or anything even remotely pioneering, for that matter. Go be boring, and be happy. Moooo."

"It's too hard"...

Okay, I'm going to try not to get tedious about saying this *all the time*. I have said it in all of my articles, most of my emails, and pretty much everything I've written or talked about with regards to the Uberman schedule. But now that I'm starting to communicate with more people who are also making attempts, I'm sensing that this really isn't sinking in.

"Uberman" is not the kind of name you give something because it's a little bit hard.

Adjusting to this schedule is, for a short time, really, really, REALLY hard.

Do not attempt it if you cannot handle hour upon hour of very intense struggle for at least a few days. It will suck. You will be thrashed. You might think you are dying. THIS IS NOT FOR PEOPLE WHO PLACE A HIGH VALUE ON BEING COMFORTABLE ALL THE TIME.

It is normal, during the first couple days, to have to fight for every second you stay awake. It's normal to be miserably tired, to lay down for naps only to toss around for 15 minutes, sleep for 5 and then want to kill kill KILL EVERYBODY when the alarm goes off. You are GOING to be sleep deprived for a couple days! Probably more sleep deprived than you've ever been, unless, like me, you have a lot of experience with it. And having experience doesn't make it any more fun.

I will cut the rest of this, but anybody who's actually doing or considering doing the Uberman schedule should click "read more" and read the whole post. Seriously.

It's like getting a tattoo: YES it hurts, duh; it's a needle. But the idea is that you endure the pain --very real, very ouch, very not-fun pain-- in order to gain something bigger in the long run. With a tattoo, you can dull the pain by getting drunk, but that thins your blood and the ink doesn't take, often ruining the tattoo. It's the same with the Uberman schedule: You can dull the pain of the first couple days by sneaking extra sleep, but you're sabotaging yourself, and you'll probably fail to adapt to the schedule if you do that.

If that doesn't make sense to you, there's probably very little I can say about this that will -- and if you try it, you'll probably give up in a couple days, because you'll extend naps, take extra naps, etc. to "dull the pain" of it, and it won't take--you won't stop being tired!--and eventually you'll give up (and who could blame you? You can't live tired all the time). IT'S NOT EASY. IT'S REALLY NOT ANY FUN AT ALL, AT FIRST. That's okay. BUT IT WILL NOT STOP BEING DIFFICULT UNLESS YOU STICK WITH IT, 100%. It hurts me when I see people complain about how they can't take those first couple days, so they added a bit here and there so that they wouldn't be so miserable...I feel bad, because they tried, and they endured a lot, but then they hamstrung themselves, ruined their own effort.

Let me elucidate a bit more about not being able to nap, because that's actually a specific one I don't think I addressed already. It's not a bad thing if you can't fall asleep quickly in the first week, or even a little longer. When you're sleeping all night, especially if you aren't sleeping well, it can take a half hour or more to get to sleep; your brain doesn't know, in the beginning, that it only has 20 minutes. It has to be trained; that's what this is for! You train yourself to fall asleep quickly by getting right up the second the alarm goes off, no matter how much sleep you did or didn't get. You don't "reset the timer" because you only slept for 10 minutes and you want 10 more. You get up. Trust me, your brain is smart. You will go a few days with no naps or barely napping; that's the idea. But after a few days, IF YOU'RE REGULAR ABOUT IT, your brain will catch on, and you'll begin to zonk right out the second you hit the pillow (and wake right back up after 20 minutes).

But if you mess with the schedule AT ALL, your brain/body will not adapt to it. Think of it as a matter of flexibility, a power-struggle if you will. If the schedule adapts to you, you don't have to adapt to it. If it doesn't flex an inch for you, however, you WILL adapt, and more quickly than you think. That's why I keep telling people to MAKE NO MODIFICATIONS AT ALL for at least the first week or two, and preferably for the first month!

Of course, for those pioneers who think they can modify the schedule in some way from the get-go and make it work, kudos; that's all I was doing when I first tried this anyway -- pioneering. But deciding to do X and doing it is way different from deciding to do X and backing down once you see how hard it is.

I said I had experience with sleep-dep, but I don't want that to sound like a reason why initially adjusting to Uberman was easier for me -- it wasn't. A few months prior to trying Uberman, I decided to deliberately see how long I could go without sleeping. It was partially a gung-ho experiment and partially out of desperation to sleep well, which I hadn't been for months (I thought, maybe if I'm as tired as someone can get...). In the end I went just over 80 hours (82 if I remember correctly). It was interesting; I'm glad I did it. If you never have, then you won't know that after about 35-40 hours, sleep dep stops being unpleasant, and becomes more like an altered state; like being on a strange but not half bad psychedelic drug. You get all floaty, a bit painfully clear-headed, and quite giggly. In fact, when I finally went to sleep, it was because a concerned friend made me--I would have quite happily gone another day or so. It's comparable, actually, to what I hear fasting is like, though I've never done a fast longer than 24 hours.

Uberman, at least for me, was nothing like that. With the small amounts of sleep every couple hours staving off the psychedelic effect, I was simply gods-awful tired for three days. It was horrible; I probably moaned and bitched to everyone about it. I couldn't think. I heard a constant, high-pitched humming noise, and my eyes itched something horrible. I would get cold-flashes and shiver until I thought I would fall apart; then they would abruptly pass. Not fun!

But the important thing was, in spite of all that, I laid down every four hours and stood up 20 minutes later, every stinking time, and after a week I felt pretty much fine. After two weeks, I couldn't believe that I'd ever consented to live any other way. And after a month, and from there on out, I told everyone who asked me about that week I looked like such shit for, that I would GLADLY do it again, two or three times over, to gain what I'd gained. So there you go.


I hope that's helpful to some of you,
-PD

All the prep you'd have to do is done

Holy crap, what a week. School is on and my books were supposed to be here Monday, but neither of them are...work is insane...my stupid ex just got me nailed with a $400 bill...stuff like that. You know, a "week". Grrruurgh.

But enough of that -- I have a few minutes between meetings & I will update this blog, darnit. I found my oo-ugly timer (it had, in fact, bailed in the car). Pics this weekend, in case you don't believe me that someone could actually make a hideously ugly kitchen timer. They can. I didn't pay extra for the ugly, either. *shrug*

I got the hookup with the Cognitive Web project -- they have seven really good mental acuity tests online for the taking, but only once a month. So I will take (the rest of) them over the next week--the Pre-Uberman run--and then take them all again post-Uberman and see how much smarter I've gotten. ;) Seriously, though, I need to get to work on putting more tests together. It's so darn hard to find the time for it on my current schedule...but it's got to get done, and once I actually *start*, things will get much easier (after, of course, they get much harder).

Suggestions for types of test are welcome. I have quite the handful already, but I need more. Having too many to actually do is better than not having enough.

I've made a couple other little preparations -- tracking down all-night restaurants, putting a blanket & pillow in my car just in case -- but really, for the experiment itself, I'm pretty much as ready as one needs to be. There are a couple more things I could add to my to-do list, but why not wait until I have the time, heh? In short, preparing for the information-gathering and stuff that needs to happen to make this a real, useful research project is far harder than actually preparing for Uberman is. So don't let me scare you off.

-PD

Waurgh

K, I haven't slept well in about 4 days, work is killing me, yadda yadda etc. But I did want to post today to say that I managed to go buy a timer. I'd post a photo, as it is quite spectacularly ugly, but I think it fell out of my bag in the car. Either that, or I bought it and lost it mere hours later. We'll hope it's in the car.

More when my brain is less identical to the stuff they patch asphalt with.

-PD

Ten Reasons I Can't Wait

Okay, the world gets lit on fire on July 7. Here are ten reasons I can't effing wait:

1. I'm sick of never knowing if I'll get a good night's sleep or not -- it's hard to be left alone for 8 straight hours, and if it gets screwed up, it's 12 or more hours until you get to sleep again! Augh!
2. My to-do list is piling up again; on a regular schedule I now have to sacrifice work or school (time with the baby is not an option for sacrifice) in order to have any time to relax.
3. Since I can't afford regular chiropractor visits anymore, I'm starting to get reeealy sore again. Sleeping for long periods is agony.
4. I haven't had time to write fiction in WEEKS. Which means that in approximately 3 more weeks, my head will explode, taking out several city blocks.
5. I miss the night. And the early, early morning. And three a.m., which has always felt special to me (ever since I was a kid, and scared myself with a book on "demonology", and woke up spontaneously at exactly 3 a.m. for six months, it's always seemed like a magickal time). Dammit, life's too short to sleep half of it!
6. I have an office job I actually want to do well at, which means I can't satisfy my neophile cravings for abnormality by not fitting in at work -- I love this company and it requires absolute Superhuman Perfect Officeness from me. So now I miss being weird. Hey, after a couple decades, you get used to it. ;)
7. The nights have been BEAUTIFUL lately, cool and clean and cutting. And I don't even have windows in my bedroom! 3v1l!
8. Having not slept well for most of the last week, I'm HATING on yawning constantly and feeling like I either have no energy or am boasting a near-fatal blood-caffiene level. No, I'm not looking forward to feeling worse for a few days, but I NEED that nice superhuman energy that comes afterwards!
9. I keep getting cool ideas for the book, which I have no time to do more than scribble on stickys. I'd really rather be working on it for real!
10. Time alone. I'm an introvert; we NEED time alone. Right now I get it in little slivers, in my office, in the bathroom, in the car in rush hour. Not good!

Also, if anybody has suggestions for science experiments to run on myself, I'm assuming I won't get help from the sleep clinic & am compiling my own...

-PD

Night Birds

I love night birds!

Granted, this is just insomnia, nothing noble, but it DID let me hear the night birds screaming again. They sing during the day, but at night, they do something else. Maybe it's...

• experimentation with emo-style birdsong
• political rallying (anti-human, maybe?)
  
• holding murder trials (they say ravens do that)
• tribal bird rites of some sort
  
• teenager birds trying to wake people up

...Whatever it is, at night they scream. But in such a way that listening to it usually doesn't give me the heebies...it does make me tingly, though, and want to go put on my ninja outfit. (No, I don't really have a ninja outfit. If you want to send me one, though, that'd rock!)

I don't know about you, but I can only sleep for so long (couple hours at most) without waking up. And when I wake up, it can be awful to try to get back to sleep! The brain gets in high gear sometime while I'm sleeping, and then you might as well try to relax in the middle of a demolition derby. I don't "lie awake worrying"; I worry in my sleep and then by the time I wake up I'm a wreck!

I usually don't get out of bed if I don't have to--that makes going back to sleep even harder--but sometimes it's unavoidable. From what I gather, having one's nightly sleep broken by an hour of two of aggravating wakefulness (aggravating minus the night birds, of course) is pretty normal, or at least I know it's not just me. Perhaps it's a genetic or psychological protection against being "out of it" for too long, or a symptom of modern living. (Maybe if I got up at 4 a.m. and worked a farm all day, I'd sleep like a rock...instead I spent most of yesterday in the hospital with my mom--she hurt her knee--and driving places.)

Anyway, yay night birds! Maybe I can catch this last hour of sleep now...

-PD

I'm not dead!

...Just unbearably busy. I look at my "Holy Shit Keep Busy List" and it's kind of funny...seems from this vantange that I'll need all that extra time just to keep up with what I'm doing now. Yikes.

This is all going to start end of June / beginning of July, pretty much as I'd hoped -- honestly, I can't wait -- but I'm having to work around a medical thing now that they say will seriously sap my energy for a couple days, and just so happens to HAVE to happen right in the middle of when I wanted to start. *sigh* I usually recover from things with sub-superhuman but nonetheless impressive speed, however, so I'm assuming I won't have to move my start time.

I need to get back in touch with the sleep clinic and, if they're going to blow me off, start looking elsewhere and/or determining some test for myself, asap.

And I need to set up my main site again, at puredoxyk.com -- it was down w/ hosting troubles for a while -- and reorganize it so that some of the Uberman stuff has a place there. And I'm going to stop thinking about things I need to do now, before I give myself a panic attack. ;)

Oo, and I still don't have a timer, dammit. *grr*

-PD

Legal issues, To-Do Lists & a Modified Start Date

Something I'd almost forgotten about, which may be a challenge: Staying on the right side of the law. Or rather, staying the heck off its radar, which we all know is more important anyway.

I'm not a malicious person, mind you; I don't destroy shit or disturb people when I can avoid it. But I am annoyingly creative, and easily bored, and fond of harmless mischief and amusing social commentary.

I was polishing my Keep Busy List today. It's going very well; I'd thought life had gotten rather boring lately, but it turns out that time restrictions were a large part of that; once I wrestled myself into forgetting about "not having time", all sorts of interesting things to do popped up.

Many of which I'll be doing at night. Now, I live in a middling neighborhood; a good area for this area, but considering the proximity of Detroit, that's probably not saying much in terms of good-area-overall. I'm not worried about running into gangs or anything; this is a safe neighborhood, and I've been in not-safe neighborhoods so I can say that with confidence. That doesn't stop the cops from being royal dicks whenever possible, of course; and I can really only count on the fact that I'm an adult white girl with a clean record to protect me so far -- Being out at night is halfway to crime itself, as far as people with Egoitis and a badge go. (And I meant that "thank god I'm white" bit 100% as an insult to idiot racist cops, in case it wasn't clear. I'm not prejudiced...well, except against cops. ;)

(click "read more" for the rest)

Then I looked at that list, and started thinking...Bike rides, okay; but I live right next to a huuuuuge wooded park; can I really stay out of it? If I bike through the roads, the cops'll nab me for sure (since the park "closes"), but if I muck about in the woods I'm just asking to get rolled by one of the homeless residents, so can't do that. (Nothing against the homeless per se, and I don't blame them for sleeping in the park--I probably would too--but I wouldn't want to stumble across one at night, thankyou.) And what about the tantalizing call of some of the less-than-kosher items on my long-term "to do if ever possible" list, like hanging up Robert-Anton-Wilson-type signs in public places? And with all the stupidity in the news lately, can I resist stealing my toddler's sidewalk chalk and making some noise?

Oh well. I'll just have to be middling smart about it, and--since I'd planned on checking out Ann Arbor anyway--try to keep any political noisemaking to there, where the cops are more used to that sort of thing. And as for being out at night, well, my record's clean and my daddy's a lawyer, so I guess errant cops can be cordially invited to kiss my ass. (I also carry a voice-activated tape recorder, which I shall pack extra batteries for, just in case.)

School started yesterday. In light of the incredibly cramped summer semester, I'm thinking about making the start-date of this experiment the beginning of July. Some of that depends on work (I have a business trip coming up, don't know exactly when yet), but I think it'll work out best that way. If I wait until later in July, I'll be running into finals and papers, eeeg.

-PD

Which is worse, sleeping badly or not at all?

Okay, this is weird -- I woke up exhausted after a night of screwy dreams and tossing around, and I was grateful. Thank you, oh screwed-up world of sleeping "normally", for reminding me why you are often no fun, and helping me look forward to--no pun intended--breaking the cycle.

I doubt I'll have time for much research or anything this week, but I do hope to finalize my "keep busy list" and get a timer.

-PD

This will come in handy:

A list of 100 things to do.

A lot of them are drawing-related, and I can't draw (but I have a good book on it and "keep meaning to" learn), and some are impossible due to my living situation...but still, Ideas Are Ideas.

Sc0r3.

-PD

The Uberman Sleep Schedule Is NOT For You If:

• You don't have a huge list (physical or mental) of things-you'd-love-to-do-if-only-you-had-the-time
• You love sleeping for long periods of time
• You love sleeping in on weekends
• You have no problems with sleeping (no sleep disorders, no soreness, no schedule issues, no moral complaints)
• You have trouble filling your time
• You are not willing to torture yourself a little for greater gains
• You value being "one of the herd", blending in, doing what everybody else is doing
• You are uncomfortable being alone at night
• You are uncomfortable going out at night (this one doesn't matter if you won't have to go out, but most people will, to avoid waking up the rest of the house!)
• You do not have the capacity for iron self-control in the face of devastating physical urges
• You're no good at scheduling or being on time / you hate clock-watching (meaning, you can't tolerate it for a few weeks or months)

...There, that's a list I've been meaning to make for a while. It's all things I've said before somewhere, but as we all know, God will reward the Consolidators. (C'mon, it makes more sense than rewarding Fred Phelps!)

And yes, all of the above applies in the negative quite perfectly to me. I keep lists like some people keep cats; I sat through nine hours of tattoo-gun just to have a pretty picture on me; I prided myself on making minimal noise while giving birth; I'm rabidly punctual; I hate wasting half my life sleeping and don't do it very well anyway; and I couldn't be "one of the herd" if there was a whole storeful of anime hanging in the balance. Sad, but true.

So now you know.

-PD

Dual-Use Acronyms (and Food): The GI Index

Well, thanks to some very useful comments delivered to my LJ (all the comments are still going there and to E2, which for the moment is fine, though I hope they'll eventually find their way here), I now understand much more about some of the nutritional issues that may affect, or be affected by, the Uberman schedule.

Right alongside the Scienceblog article about glucose comes this useful blog about the glycemic index (thanks for the link, dsymetry!), which turns out to explain a lot more thoroughly what the issue is with glucose, different types of meals, and sleep.

(More info behind the cut -- click "Read More" at the bottom to see the whole post.)

"Glycemic Index" or GI, by the way, is one of my favorite terms now. It actually has a dual meaning -- but let's not go too quickly; this can get complicated. The GI is a way to differentiate carbohydrates, because, as everyone not obsessed with fad diets knows, carbs are good for you, if they're the right kind in the right proportion (just like fat and cholesterol, and, um, the rest of "food"). The GI index is probably most useful to diabetics, and for their sake at least, foods ought to be labelled with it; but it can be darn useful for the rest of us, too, who are fighting our way through the epoxy lake of industrialized food-manufacture and trying to eat right anyway.

High-GI carbs generally have more glucose, and are the kind most Americans get too much of. The key to them for our purposes is not that they contain "sugar" (because that is actually not the core measure of the Glycemic Index anyway--there is a Glucose Level (GL) measure that does that), but that they digest higher in the gastrointestinal tract than low-GI foods do. (GI is also a common medical abbreviation for "Gastro-Intestinal", so isn't it cool that high-GI foods--those with a high Glycemic Index--also happen to digest in the upper-GI area, and the low-GI foods in the low-GI area? c00l! Yay for easy-to-remember science!)

Low-GI foods, then, as I understand it, are whole grains, pastas, and "resistant carbs" which resist digestion until they make it almost all the way, um, "through". ;) A good quantity of them helps reduce the risk of some cancers, and gives you more constant energy, and is better for dieting folks than the other kind. High-GI foods are going to give you quicker, more quickly depleted energy, and are (generally) more readily stored as fat.

Another possible effect, which the Newsletter I linked to above has a small story on, is that eating a high-GI meal about 4 hours before sleeping can help you fall asleep faster than eating a low-GI meal. Is this because your body is done digesting sooner? Or because you've (run out of energy) in a shorter period of time? Or because of the effects of glucose levels ("sugar-crash") on tryptophan/seratonin levels?

I have no idea--and neither do the scientists; it's just one small study, from what I gather. But it's good to know that a) GI levels have an impact on digestion and sleep, and b) that there's a reliable measure of "good carbs" out there. I will need the carbs for energy, probably, when I'm on Uberman -- I mentioned earlier than even with my less-than-careful diet last time, I found that I needed more and higher-energy food while doing Uberman. But I can't be eating only high-GI foods to fall asleep faster, either! I never did notice a real difference, last time on Uberman, in my sleep quality depending on what I ate...but I will definitely take the GI rating of the food I eat, insofar as I can know it, into consideration in making and recording food-choices this time.

Well, it's always interesting to learn something new!

-PD

Oh, P.S. Thanks also to dsymetry, I also learned about "over-training syndrome", which is definitely something to watch for on Uberman. I do do a moderate amount of regular physical exercise now, more than I used to for certain, and it's interesting and relevant that lack of adequate recovery time, or too much non-workout stress, can have such a nasty physical impact. Will definitely watch for those symptoms, just in case.

Science rules!

Bit of information floated my way (though I wish more did...I need another 3-day weekend, darnit): Apparently there's now scientific proof that glucose (sugar in the form absorbed by the body from food) causes you to get sleepy.

Oh yay, oh yay, the siesta is vindicated.

But perhaps more pertinently, it seems that avoiding excess sugar (including natural sugars, such as in fruit), especially during "Shit I'm Tired Week" and right after waking up, would be wise.

Thanks to my heroes at scienceblog.com for the article.

-PD