When you wake up from REM, or the alarm goes off.
Get the hell up.
If you don't, that next cycle will be a long one as your body tries to go back to sleep. I don't know the remedy if you don't get up right away. I lallygagged after my postponed 11pm nap...lay in bed for an extra 20 minutes. I am thinking of throwing in an extra sleep cycle to cover.
4am - I did a double cycle. I slept for 20 minutes.. got up. then lay back down for an additional 20 minutes. Well, it is an experiment.
7am nap.. was postponed a bit as I was on my way to work. Napped a little in the car.
(No, I was not driving!)
Feeling a bit disconnected today.. not sure what's up. Maybe it was seeing a picture of my homeland yesterday (inside joke). Despite that feeling, I seemed to be quite productive, reducing my e-mail in box to zero. Fireworks should go off every damn time that happens.11am nap postponed until noon. Didn't seem to fall asleep. Might have too many things on my mind. It didn't feel like I was laying down for 25 minutes though. I still have that slightly disconnected feeling. More precisely, I'm feeling like a slacker. I don't want to be working. I want to read this cool book that I have on loan from an intriguing mind. I have Site's to build. Camping gear to assemble. TV to watch.
3pm nap - Simply dropped right off, again waking unassisted after about 25 minute.
The groggy feeling has continued. Very similar to the mid afternoon slump I was accustomed to as a monophasic sleeper.
7pm nap was pushed back to 9pm. I began to feel increasingly tired and yet was unable to sustain any level of sleep during the nap.
11pm nap. Overslept - which does not surprise me at all. Awoke at 4am. Bad news: Frustration. Good News: I feel great. Go figure. Not only did I sleep through my battery powered-place-it-on-the-pillow alarm that I purchased for this experiment, but I slept through the regular bedside alarm. To me, that signals extreme exhaustion. Of note, not only did I sleep through my portable alarm, I was unable to even find the thing. The clock is missing. .. .. WTF? Did I eat it? Sleepwalk the thing to the trash outside by the garage?
I'm beginning to feel that success of this sleep cycle is highly reliant on one's ability to maintain the rigid schedule fairly closely. Since that has been an issue with me, I am having mixed results. I chose the 6 times 20 or Uberman sleep cycle for it's lager benefits of simple and synchronous schedule and the promise of 21-22 hours of productive time. At this moment, I'm definitely feeling that the schedule is too rigid and unnatural to be sustainable for me.
This leaves me in a bit of a quandary. Do I slog through and continue the experiment, or do I do as many other do and modify the sleep times and frequency to something more asynchronous, and sacrifice some of the productive time for a schedule that is more easily adapted to. Perhaps the Everyman Schedule (core sleep consisting of 3-4 hours of sleep at night and 3x 20-30minute naps morning, midday, and evening) I have unwittingly followed a schedule very similar to the Everyman version for about 3 months. Back into the corner of have too much to do and too little time in which to do it, I was working until my mind began to shut down. I know that the Everyman Schedule is something that I can do, and with a bit more understanding and perhaps awareness of what I'm doing, I might not feel like the walking dead while doing it. .. ..
On the other hand, I feel that after only a week, despite the obvious challenges, I've not given my body/mind sufficient time to adjust to the Uberman (6x20 schedule). Today (8/28) was a particularly challenging day.
Please use the poll (upper right hand of this page - YMMV) and let me know what you think I should do. In the meantime, I plan on returning to the Uberman (6x20min) Plan.
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