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
posted by PureDoxyk at 12:01 PM
10 Comments:
Cool, Just found this site researching my own shot at USS, the original Uber(wo)man is back. looking forward to reading the ongoing blog.
- Tor
Rock on! It'll be nice to have company. ;) -PD
I plan on giving this schedule (or a modified version of it) a shot beginning in about a week or so. I've already felt my body beginning to adjust - I'm napping in the middle of the day for brief periods, and I keep waking up at all hours during the night (usually feeling very refreshed, until I remember that it's 4am and I have nothing to do but go back to sleep).
I'm thinking about picking up one of these to help me with my naps. I've found that I have no trouble falling asleep just about anywhere, but the getting up part leaves something to be desired.
I'll be watching this blog closely in the coming weeks. Good luck to us both.
Eeeeenteresting! I have a couple questions:
1. I've never "prepared" for this by napping in the run-up. The way I see it, you're going to be god-help-me-tired for a few days no matter what you do, so you might as well just stay normal and then deal with it. Do you think napping now will really make it easier to stop sleeping at night later? I'm curious.
2. What "modified version"? I have a very curmudgeonly view of modified versions, generally, I'll warn you. See my earlier post on "Core sleep". Bah. But what exactly is your plan?
3. Interesting earthingy! I will keep it in mind in case my existing timer fails me. (Though I kept waiting for it to before, and it never did; that stupid thing woke me up every time!)
Wow - quick response...
Re #1: Since I've decided that I'm going to start at a set date, I think my body is subconsciously preparing itself for the new rhythm. I'm not real sure whether or not it will help, but it doesn't hurt to try. Best case scenario, I have a very smooth transition; worst case scenario, nothing happens... I figure I might as well give it a shot.
Re #2: After reading Steven Pavlina's experiences with polyphasic sleep, the general idea I picked up was that it's not so important that you stick to exact intervals, but that you find something as close as possible that your body can work with. By 'modified version', I meant that I probably won't stick to exactly 20 minutes. Steve seems to have found the magic point at 25, and I'm sure that +/-15 minutes will work for some folks as well. It might be 15 minutes, it might be 30 - I'm just going to have to figure it out, I suppose.
He also found that during the transition it helps to throw an extra nap in the wee hours of the morning. I'm under the assumption that as long as you don't oversleep any given period, it's probably OK to take multiple naps when the need arises. Toward the end of his sleep logs he mentions that after a while, he just started sleeping when his body felt like it, rather than being strict with the clock. I'm sure it takes quite a while to get to this point, but I might get there evenutally.
Re #3: I'm mainly looking into that because I'm sure I'll be away from a dedicated alarm clock for more than a few of my naps. As I mentioned, I have almost no problem falling alseep in different locations/positions, but I'm sure I'd encounter significant difficulty in waking up from them. And for under $30 on eBay, I figure, why not?
Rock on; well, let me know if the napping-in-the-run-up thing helps. It's not an option for me, much as I'd love to nap during the day... ;)
Hmm, yes, I love Steve Pavlina and I've read his stuff several times...he's one of the only people I've encountered who was really successful with this in the long run, and you're right, he did modify things and he did eventually quit keeping such tight track. But you'll note that IN THE BEGINNING he stuck pretty much right on it, and I attribute a lot of why he succeeded when others failed to that. I succeeded; my friend Nora who did it with me succeeded; and *every single other person*--about 15 of them--who tried it with us, failed. The ONLY notable difference we saw was that Nora and I were strict as hell (not because we're super-together people, but because we know we're *not*, and we needed this to work--or rather I did--so we decided to go balls-out or nothing)...and the others were not. I really, REALLY think that during the first week AT LEAST, being SUPER strict about the times is an absolute must. If you decide to do 25 or 30 minutes, fine -- but don't ever, ever sleep longer than that. In fact, don't even lay down longer than that -- lay down, set a timer, get up.
It's not easy to train your brain to adapt to this, and everything I've read before, during and since the last experiment bears out the fact that the best way to train yourself to something like this is to be VERY, VERY CONSISTENT about it. Some people, like Steve, may find that later, they can get a little, or even a lot, of wiggle room. I expect to get some wiggle room myself eventually (I didn't last time, but I also didn't need to--in college, one's schedule is pretty nicely set in stone). But for all the reading I've done on this, nothing has changed my opinion that one must be 100% ON for the first 7-10 days, minimum. (Scientifically speaking, it takes 21-28 days to form a "habit" for your brain/body, so I wouldn't actually recommend that anybody mess with the schedule for the first month.) Also keep in mind that Steve Pavlina has the cohones to eat vegan, do Yoga every day, get up at 5 a.m. every day (before he started the Uberman schedule), etc etc. If you have those cohones and that kind of self control, by all means, modify. But part of MY experiment, here, is to see if non-ubercohoned people (like me) can do this in the Real World.
Dammit. I'm going to have to retype all that in a post eventually, heh. Oh well...I'll have time! ;)
Thanks again,
PD
I've been poly for a few days now, and i've found injecting another nap ( well a mini core really ) into the early AM has been a good idea for me, i really didn't want to deviate from a strict schedule but without it i'd have crashed and burnt by now, but i do want to cut it out.
Something else i didn't expect was not being able to sleep quickly, i have always been the kind of person who was asleep before my head hit the pillow, but i've found that, even though it really tired, i've had trouble napping, basically I'm getting too anxious about getting to sleep on time, not relaxing, and i end up only getting 5 - 15 mins of sleep, but I'm getting better.
I love it when i've had good nap, I've discovered how much more alert and switched on than other people around me are. And as far as work goes, i've been working on some code that has been causing me to beat my head on my desk for over a week, i woke up after one of my first really good naps, and solved the problem in 10 mins, Experiences like that have really helped to keep me going in the difficult times.
-Tor
Yes, you know how I feel about cores and extra naps...maybe after you get into it you could add one, but in the beginning, no way. It IS hard to do for the first week--REALLY HARD. I certainly never said otherwise. But it's imperative that you do it straight and not make any modifications at least for the first couple days (I'd say, week minimum). Otherwise your body won't get used to it.
It SEEMS like the body would get used to whatever schedule you put it on, as long as it was consistent...but I'm not sure. Nobody I've ever seen who modified Uberman in the first couple days was successful in really adapting to it.
Congrats on the good experiences--those are really what make it worth it, and you get more as you go on. -PD
Hi PD,
A neat science experiment that I always wanted to try was to measure my brain waves as I transition to see how they change and how that correlates to how I feel. Under most circumstances, EEGs are prohibitively expensive, but with a little knowledge in electronics, you can build one yourself. Here's the website:
http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/
It is very affordable to do it this way, and if you have a friend with a bit of experience (you might even be able to learn it easily), I think it would great to build one.
~Kirk
Kirk -- What a fantastic idea! Thank the gods my husband is a geek god...now, can he build this for me in under a week? We shall find out!
Thanks much!!
-PD
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