day #4

Oh boy, what a night!

...but one step at a time. First I had some very interesting moments during the day. 

One of my concerns before entering the experiment was that I become a impatient and angry mother to my 2 children Almaith (5.5 years) and Aodhan (4.5 years). Yesterday I had a situation which put it to test. In the evening on our way home from the grocery store Aodhan for some reason set his mind on wanting a car...now! This I-WANT-NOW is something that pushes my buttons very much. Usually I try to explain for some time why it is not going to happen and if this doesn't work I snap and get very angry..... Yesterday however I was able to walk a different path. Maybe I was too tired to get angry but I just didn't buy into his whining in any way even though he was very persistent with it. I kept talking calmly to him and in the moment when I usually snap, I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and gave him a long hug instead!

If polyphasic sleeping affects me in this way permanently, I will be pretty happy!!

We will see about it, when Almaith comes back tomorrow from her school trip week. (One of the main reasons I chose this time in space to start the experiment was a week with only 1 child).

So the day was pretty good and besides one or two stomach ache attacks I felt good. But the night was very exhausting. 

I made it to the 2h nap with happily dancing in slow motion while tidying a drawer. I could have gone on but I laid down in time. 

After half an hour I woke up so out of it and extremely tired. Somehow I made it an other hour and decided to throw in another nap. What happened after that I don't really know. For 3  hours it was one big fight with sleep and trying to wake up and dreaming about waking up and so on.... not very pleasant at all. 

Lately it happens frequently that I wake up tired. Maybe half hour is not the right time anymore. In the beginning of the experiment I woke up most of the time by myself after 20 min. Since 2 days however I always sleep a full half hour until the alarm goes off.

And lately after a good phase I don't want to lay down out of fear for how I will wake up. I think I will experiment more with shortening the nap time a few minutes. It might be that after adapting to entering the REM right away, half hour might be too long and I go beyond REM into a deep sleep phase.

day #3

5 am. 

Time flies.  

Gotta rush to write the entry before the 6h nap ;-)

Today I had a pretty good day. Just in the night after the 2am nap I experienced a crisis. For this nap I usually sleep on the sofa to not disturb my sleeping family in our bedroom. It was really difficult to wake up and I made the mistake to stay sitting on the sofa instead of getting up immediately(well, well, just after talking about it yesterday!). 

I think I spend about an hour sitting there in a zone of half dreaming and fighting the sleepiness at the same time. Very unpleasant! Now that I managed to get moving (after putting on some nice music and dancing around while organizing one of our misc-messy drawers) I feel pretty good and in better shape than yesterday at the same time. Less cloudy. 

Also I went for a walk during the day which made a big difference! I noticed a change in awareness. All my senses are hightend and I'm much more sensitive on all levels. Whatever happens to me (walking by a person, eating food.....) I have an immediate response to and know exactly whether this is good for me now or not. This response is less mental or thought kind but more a full body sensation. Does that make any sense? I wonder if it is my instincts being more up front, or just nerves being exposed.....

I'll contemplate on this for some time and find out.

Physically I noticed some changes.

1. I don't feel so cold anymore, there are even some moments of heat wave...

2. My body feels a bit tired and I need to put in some stretching during the day. But I expected much more cramps and muscle ache and thus I'm positively surprised.

3. I'm quickly exhausted. Walking uphill and up the stairs is more an effort than usual. I guess it's still transition time... Slowly I will try to put in more exercise, but one step at a time.

What was quite impressive to me today was around early night, when our 4 year old son couldn't sleep because of some ear pain and needed mommy for holding his head and comfort him. I was able to lay down with him without sleepyness. I slept only for a 15 min. nap at 10pm then he woke me up again and it wasn't a hassle at all...:-))

 

day #2

4:30 in the 2nd night.

So far I made it without oversleeping the 30 minutes. In most of the naps I actually woke up before the alarm went off (after 20-25 min). Once even after just 15 minutes but I decided to take advantage of the 30 minutes and went back to sleep -with the result that it was much more difficult to get up....I felt disoriented. 

It looks like the night cycle between 2am-6am is a good time to do some housework since it keeps me moving and the blood circulation going. 

There are surprisingly little side effects so far. The main thing is feeling cold. Yesterday I took 3 baths to warm up! So far there were no cramps or eye twitches ;-) Just a cloudy head and a tendency for head ache, which is easy to treat with enough water supply. (I drink lots of warm water, feels very soothing). Also a slight sensitive stomach, which I like: it keeps me from nibbling away on sweets and "comfort" food and calls for healthy choices.

I found a few tricks to help me:

1. I prepare a flask of hot water before I go to sleep and drink right after waking up a big glass of it. 

2. When I wake up I get up before the brain starts an argument, put on a sweater and move around immediately. That helps to get over the first tiredness. 

3. I noticed sometimes a kind of shakiness during the wake up process. It feels like my whole body is vibrating. I know this sensation from other occasions (for example when being woken up right after falling asleep) and have learned that it is not at all a good idea to get up before the vibration disappears completely. I don't know what it is but it feels like some part has first to reconnect with the body before I'm whole again. Once I made the mistake to interrupt this process and got up too early. I was completely lost and felt sick to the stomach to the extend that I had to throw up.... that taught me a lesson!

During the day I had periods where I felt completely normal as if I had a full night sleep. It's too early to know if it is always in the same cycles, I'll keep observing.

I really enjoy this night time and do things that I would otherwise not allow myself to take time for. It's kind of my "spa-cycle" in the middle of the night with foot massage and all sorts of things.

When I enter into the night both times I got  scared of the time ahead of me, that I won't make it and all kinds of other crap going on in my mind. But staying in the present moment helps a lot and as this I welcome it as a teaching.

It is a bit difficult to concentrate to write this (might be easier in my mother tong) and I have no idea, if it makes sense! I hope that the ability to concentrate will improve big time. Would love to also be able to work on the computer in the night.... somewhere down the road.....

I'm glad, I didn't have to throw in another nap during the night.

day #1

12th of January 2009.
Today I start with the polyphasic sleeping experiment. I decided to go with the 6x 30 minute rhythm and try the 2-6-10 o´clock cycle. This allows me to bring the kids to school in the morning and then nap at 10. also in the evening I can get them fed before 6, take a nap while they play a bit and then start the evening-going to bed-ritual refreshed. Well, the word refreshed is very strange to me right now at 4.30 in the morning on my first night. I just realized that I will not sleep it off tomorrow, after being awake almost all night.... it will just go on and on and on....(if I make it)....right now quite a scary outlook.
There are a few questions or "concerns" that I would like to examine with it.
1. does polyphasic sleeping affect my menstruation cycle?
2. I use to get a fever blister when I am under stress and in 90% of all cases it is triggered by lack of sleep. I wonder, if I can conquer this "habit".
3. Will the symptoms which I normally experience in a situation of sleep deprivation, be as strong or as present with polyphasic sleep, once I get adjusted to it (for example my skin often feels very tight or like sun burned when I´m over tired).
4. One of the worst things for me when I don´t get enough sleep is dealing with the kids! I´m not as patient as usual, noises get quickly on my nerves and I have a tendency to snap. I give myself about 10 days to adjust, if I turn into an angry and impatient mother after that (more then I am already;-) I will of course quit.
So far I managed to keep the timing and didn´t oversleep. I think I will continue the blog entries by date...I have a feeling that I´d like to write more than once a day.... Feel free to write to me. This is my first blog ever and I just have to learn about it.