Okay, haven’t posted for a while. Animation editor was finished (totally feature complete and user friendly!) by September 30th and if I can find a way to show it off that does it justice I’ll do so here. I can’t do that at the moment, but I figured I’d wrap up this polyphasic sleep thing!
To sum it up:
- The benefits of waking up early and at a specific time each day are great independent of the sleep schedule. This depends on actually waking up at the specified time… which has proven to be my biggest problem.
- The extra hours in my day take a lot of time pressure off my back. I’ve found that my productivity is variable from 1-3am, however… sometimes I’m alert enough to be useful, other times I just need to drop into unconsciousness.
- Naps, once you acclimate to using them (which happens quickly) give a great energy boost in the middle of the day. The only downside is that you need to remember to have them on this schedule, or you’ll suffer for it later.
- Managing the core sleep section has proven the most difficult to me, since my brain does not function properly immediately after waking up. Adjusting my schedule to coincide with that of others helped a great deal, but it remains the biggest potential problem going forward.
- It’s all surprisingly flexible. Sleep and nap times can be changed easily, and you can swap in and out of monophasic sleep without much trouble as the situation demands.
My verdict: I like it, and I’m gonna keep on it! I might monkey with the amount of core sleep, but this is actually working very well for me. For a more disciplined individual (or perhaps one more aware of their surroundings!) adapting to this schedule would be much less problematic. Going forward, I won’t be following it strictly, instead occasionally going back to monophasic sleep as needed. Tonight, for instance, I’m considering a full nights rest due to the intense workout from my Taekwondo class.
I’m calling this experiment a success.
