Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Day 11 / Everyman Day 2

Well, staying up at night is easier now -- I didn't get sleepy until 1 a.m. yesterday -- but I'm still very tired in the morning and on and off throughout the day.

Must remember not to be too impatient, as I've only been on *this* schedule 2 days, but I can't help but be dubious still about Everyman's effectiveness. I've been chatting with some folks in the new Polyphaser's IRC channel (irc.oftc.net #ubersleep) and have garnered lots of info, BUT I still haven't found anyone who successfully (i.e. without tiredness) did Everyman. Uberman may sound less likely to work, being harder to implement, but there is evidence that it does work, historical as well as anecdotal. I haven't heard of any famous people who did a "core sleep" polyphasic schedule yet, but Uberman has quite a roster. Hmm.

One weakness to Everyman that I learned today is that you now have a long nap in there that it's just as critical that you get as Uberman's short naps are. Being undisturbed for 20 minutes is one thing; sleeping undisturbed for 3 hours is harder, as I learned last night. The disruption caused me to be holy-crap-tired this morning, and I took an extra 20 minute nap before work to try and alleviate it (I could tell I was past the "shouldn't drive" level). The extra nap let me drive, but I didn't really feel much better until I'd been awake a full hour. Then I couldn't really sleep for my 9 a.m., but whether that's because of the extra nap or the fact that my car is in the shop and I had to camp out on my office floor, I can't say. I got a nice rest, though, and sometimes that's almost as good. That is, I feel much better now, half an hour after "waking".

An upside is that one is definitely less afraid of missing a 20-minute nap on Everyman, because you know you have that core to help you catch up some; whereas in Uberman, you just have to crawl your way back by keeping your naps up, and after 2-4 of them, you feel better. (Which, actually, when you think about it, is about the same recovery-rate, time-wise. But I would bet the "crash" is faster and harder on Uberman.)

So, so far so good I suppose; I'm still functional and not miserable. But also still very tired. I imagine I probably feel exactly what I'd feel like if I was sleeping 4 hours monophasically for a few days. And if that's all I've been doing, then we'll know soon, because in a few more days that sleep debt should rear up and kick my attractive butt. If it doesn't, then hey, we might be on to something.

And I'm just not going to count the 9-day attempt at Uberman towards or against Everyman's adjustment period. I don't have any evidence that having been sleep-deprived when you started (and sadly I was sleep-deprived, having not adjusted well to Uberman by that point) is a help *or* a hinderance, so I'm ignoring it for now, even though I didn't go back to monophasic in-between, so it's probably significant somehow. So I'm calling this Day 2, and the verdict is: Functional but Tired.

-PD

P.S. I notice a lot of people out there are transitioning from Everyman to Uberman. The first one to make it work, please let me know how long it took and if you think it was "just as hard" as the newbie-to-Ubermen people's transitions!

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