Polyphasic Sleep Schedule - Weeks 4 & 5

The end of week five on my sleep schedule marks the completion of one month on the schedule and one week with only a single minor sleep in.

The fourth week was much like those prior to it. On schedule for a while then a big sleep in. Matt suggested that it was time to make a change otherwise this pattern would continue forever. The proposed solution was a second alarm device out of reach, thus forcing me to get up. This had the added psychological hack of not wanting to disturb Amanda and therefore providing more motivation to get up and stop the second alarm before it goes off.

As mentioned earlier the out-of-reach alarm has been a success. I’ve been up at 2am everyday since I started using it. The only sleep-in encountered since adding the second alarm was after my first morning nap one day. I now use the out-of-reach alarm for that nap as well.

I certainly feel like I’m adapting to the schedule. The last two days haven’t taken long at all to shake off the tiredness at 2am. During the day I’m usually only tired as a nap approaches. There are still some extreme tired moments though. The train continues to see me fighting to stay awake, particularly the morning trip. In general my body feels physically tired. Its one thing to be able to stay awake and be functional at work but another to feel energetic riding my bike to the station.

Around the middle of this week I was very close to giving up the schedule. Partially because of how I felt and also because of a planned night out on Sat, in which my core sleep was right in the middle. Working the schedule around late nights or the odd party is going to be one of the trickiest things. This particular night has been cancelled so I’m remaining on the schedule for now. I hope to see further improvements in tiredness and energy levels in the coming week. Having been in a state of tiredness for the past month there are times when I just want to have a nice long sleep and feel fully normal again. However then I think about the huge amount of extra time I’m getting and don’t feel like giving that up.

The aim for the coming week is to continue to stay on-schedule and to hopefully see further improvements to my adaptation.