Monday, July 17, 2006

Day 10 / new day 1: Uberman / Everyman

Hey, I thought of a name for modified / core-sleeping schedules! We can call them "Everyman" Sleep Schedules. ;)

Seriously, I put a lot of thought into this last night (in between bashing out a truly Ubermanly amount of homework!). It completely makes sense (at least in retrospect) that the Uberman schedule would be quite dependent on factors in one's life that may not be in one's control. Uberman is not something you can in any way "fit your existing life into"; it's something you have to tear your life down and rebuild around. (I know this last week has completely fux0red everything about my usual schedule / routines / habits etc., and I didn't even get through The Razing that Uberman actually requires.) Sure, Da Vinci could do it; he had a 24/7 workshop and a huge quantity of art and tinkering to work on. Ditto Edison, Einstein, Bucky Fuller, etc. Something tells me that if I didn't have a 9-5 job and was possessed with a full-on workshop and no family to raise, I could snap my fingers and do it!

The upshot is, after much thought, the critical difference between Me Then & Steve Pavlina versus Me Now and quite a few other failed attempters seems as simple as lifestyle. Nothing else seems to bear out: For example, Me Then ate far worse than Me Now and was in many ways *less* disciplined. I know I gave this a thoroughly good shot; I planned it as well as humanly possible, was brutally strict with myself, enlisted help -- everything I did last time and then some. What I couldn't do was change my living situation to be more compatible with being up at night -- once I got too sleep-deprived to drive, I was literally stuck in one corner of a basement, and unable to do anything noisy -- nor could I change my work/school schedule to accomodate two or howevermany weeks of sleep-dep it was going to take to adjust in my circumstances. (Maybe that's it: The worse your circumstances, the longer your adjustment period?) So yes. Lifestyle seems to be a MUCH bigger factor than previously credited.

But polyphasic sleeping did something really positive for me last time, when I was lucky enough to have an Uberman-compatible lifestyle. And ever since then, I've wanted to see everyone have the shot at being less tired and having more time. If there really is an Everyman schedule (or several) that can really work, that's FANTASTIC news in my book! I guess I just had to get smacked down by Uberman in order to even entertain the idea, heh. But I never claimed to be smart. ;)

Today has gone well so far, info behind the cut. -PD


It's rather funny, because if I didn't have a reason to stay up until 2:00, I would have anyway -- I had that much homework. I started after my 10:00 nap (keep in mind I also wrote a paper yesterday morning), and finished at precisely quarter to two. Now I'm only a *little* behind, heh. But I didn't actually find the staying up that hard; I was yawning and drowsy--about Stanford 3--but it was doable and I could concentrate on what I was doing. Getting up at 5:00 wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't terrible either. (I got up right on time with one alarm, took a shower, ate, read, exercised, and took my time getting ready for work -- having the extra hour before work is *nice*, since I was getting up at 6 and now it's 5.) I was groggy, but I'd slept well and felt generally rested, i.e. not sick. Similarly, I had some drowsy episodes in the car on the way to work, but nothing so dangerous as Thurs. and Fri. last week; I didn't have to pull over or anything.

So, things are looking good for day ten/one. The clincher for this is going to be, Do I actually adjust to it? Do I eventually stop being groggy? If it's only this bad on the Everyman version, I can probably handle a longer adjustment period; it's a little unfun but it's not tearing up my life or endangering myself and others. And being that I'm still only getting just over 4 hours of sleep daily, the time gain will be totally worthwhile. (And perhaps this schedule could also address Ubermen who don't like having *quite* so much time; I've heard that a couple times.)

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