This morning ended day 16 of the biphasic sleep experiment. Things are becoming pretty routine now. I haven’t had many problems the last few days, other than changing the time of my 1.5 hour nap.
It turns out that waking up at 7am for work, then having summer class from 12 pm – 3 pm is pretty exhausting business. The last 2 days I came home around 4 pm and slept till 5:30 pm. Upon waking I stayed up till 4 am before sleeping again. This schedule seems to fit better, at least while in summer school. We’ll see how I adapt after it’s over (assuming I’m still doing biphasic).
I assume that the rest of the experiment will be relatively stable, so I will probably continue to journal in chunks of 2 or 3 days. If anything really interesting happens I will break the routine to update everyone, but otherwise expect this schedule.
With all this extra time, I’m wondering what else I can experiment with. Oh well, here are the status updates.
Emotional State: great
Mental State: Alert
Physical State: sore (3 hours basketball last night)
Feelings about Biphasic: I miss sleep, but feel great
Productivity: high
Diet: normal
Stay tuned, more to come soon.
Hi Ibrahim,
Quick question for you:
You mention a experiencing a lull/sleepiness around midday. In my research this seems to be a normal function of the circadian rhythm; that is a drop in core body temperature occurs around this time. This probably goes a long way to explaining the customary “8th-hour nap” observed in many cultures throughout history.
So my question is, if your schedule allowed, would you prefer to have your “nap” during this period of the day? Seems like many (most?) biphasic sleepers are sleeping in the evening, when in reality we may be better prepared for napping earlier in the day. Is there any reason that you’ve found for this being a bad idea? Other than scheduling conficts, of course…
Great journal! I look forward to following in the coming days, weeks, and for as long as you continue to write about your experience with this. Cheers.