Thursday, August 30, 2007

Summary

I have finished it. (And posted here a lot more regularly in the process. hopefully this is something I can keep up). So here's a long post with my Summary to date.

I started May 14th. I began with a normal night of sleep, then took a nap at noon, and 5pm. The goal at this time was a core from 4am to 7am, with naps at noon, 5 and 11pm. I did not start napping at 11pm until day 3. Around day 3 was when I started doing more productive things in the night as well, like cleaning, making buns, and some light reading.

The first discovery I made was I needed a white noise track. Due to my place of employment being based at the airport, I needed something to drown out the planes. It also would prove to be exceptionally useful in maintaining consistent nap lengths, and has since helped me nap in many different locations.

I found out on day 3 that I was already reliant on my naps. I tried to drive home before a nap, and ended up feeling very tired during the drive, and it was potentially unsafe. Thus it is not recommended you drive during this period, unless you have woken up recently.

I was already close to the schedule I wanted by day 6. My core period at that time was about 3.5 hours That was about it. I had gradually reduced my core sleep throughout the week. having my naps, somewhat forced, then staying up as late as I can before crashing for my core. I always woke up from my core at 7am. On day 7 I tried sleeping just the 3 hours at night, and I was not quite ready yet. Day 7 was also when I started flexing my naps a little.
I was able to flex my noon nap by 1.5 hours, without any bad effects. I was quite tired by the 5pm nap.

On day 10 I had some complications with my cd player dying on me. Without the white noise cd my naps weren't very good. this was a slight setback. I recommend ensuring you have enough power to get you through the day, and carry extra batteries. Since I have gotten an Ipod, this is less of a concern, but do moniter battery life, and try to keep it high enough to last a full nap or 2.

Day 13 was the start of a busy weekend. I tried skipping a nap while I was out, to disasterous results. At a house party the next night, I caught my naps, which helped, but the liquor in my system made me oversleep. I've since discovered anything more than a drink or 2 will cause me to tend to oversleep.

On day 16 I had a rough adjustment period. This was when I had started cutting caffiene from my diet, which I had been using to try and help my sleep cycle change. For adaptation, caffiene helped me wake up after a nap, or core, but in the long term I recommend it be cut. Try a hot glass of water to wake you up, or really ice cold. Around day 16 is also where I speculated that during adaptation at least, the nap location is likely important that it remain consistent. Lately (post 100 days) I can nap anywhere, on my vacation I slept in some irregular locations, but during adapatation I would recommend trying to be consistent in your nap location. While adapting the less that changes the better, so your body just has the odd hours to get accustomed to.

I got sick around day 21. I think it was something I ate. I slept a lot more during that period to try to help me recover. I discussed maybe adding a reset day (which I never did).

Day 22 I skipped a noon nap, and it wasn't overly deterimental. I just felt more tired closer to my 5pm nap. I've since stopped skipping naps, and force myself to nap no matter how late it is. My body often will still get tired for the next nap, and I found that to work better than just flat skipping a nap.

On day 29 I started trying a more consistent wake up routine, as I still found that to be difficult. I was too physically active in it though, as I started getting too stiff. I also had some really good naps at that time.

Around day 44 I became extremely busy and was forced to miss nap, move nap times, and other bad things. I ended the week feeling extremely tired, but made it. It took me a day or so to get back to a regular routine after a messy week.

Day 53 temperature really became an issue. We had a heat wave, which made sleeping in my car difficult. I now always ensure I park in the shade for as much of the day as possible, which usually means moving my car after my noon nap. I also recommend windows open to get a breeze, maybe a fan to help with that. I also use ice packs on the floor of my car to try and smooth the temperature curve. It's helps but not drastically.

On day 57 I overslept my 11pm nap, but overslept it to exactly 3 hours. This is when I first tried a nap at 6:30 am, and a core 11pm-2am. This felt great and would end up being my normal sleep schedule. My body just liked it better. Finding those times when your body actually wants / needs to sleep in interesting. I have no hints to help you find them, just if you feel groggy after a nap consistently, to maybe try shifting it around a bit.
Day 64 I tried sleeping without an alarm. My body no longer lets me sleep more than 4 hours without the aid of Alcohol. It also reinforced the 11pm core, change, as that's what my body naturally tried to do. Making that change to my sleep schedule was exceptionally easy.

Around day 80 was I not getting as much accomplished at nights as I wanted to, and as a result started feeling like I might as well sleep. I wasn't tired, I didn't need the sleep, my body just saw it as a reasonable thing to do to kill the bored time. Thus I recommend you try to stay on task, and keep yourself working on something at nights. Those are the toughest times to stay awake, and distractions to prevent you from sleeping are vital.

I had a vaction around day 105. During the vacation, to closer match the sleep schedule of the people I was staying with, I cut my noon nap, and slept longer at night. It worked surprisingly well for the first part of my trip. The Seattle part I was actually able to find corners to crash around noon, so I started doing that again. Still kept a longer core. I didn't feel like I needed it, but it was to not disturb the people I was sharing a room with. It worked quite well.

And that Summarizes some of the big point of my first 100 days of the Everyman Schedule. Hopefully that has been a useful, enlightening read. Any questions or comments, please contact me at chkurz (at) gmail (dot) com.

2 comments:

Ashe said...

Your story was on the cover of the Edmonton Journal today! The soundslide is also up on the Journal website.

Toad008 said...

I guess I finished my quick summary at the perfect time then. I might have to add a welcome message to those visitors.