Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Day 44 Update

I really need to get around to making a post here.
I have had a super chaotic week. With the Jazz Festival going on, I have been extremely busy. I've been flexing my naps a lot, to accommodate all the things I need to do this week, like gigs, and attending concerts. It's starting ot have a toll on me. I'm getting worn out, but I think I'm as worn out or tired as I would be normally if I slept like most people. Totally worth it though to see Jeff Healey, and Herbie Hancock though. I have another 3 concerts left, then it's the long weekend, so hopefully I can rest up a bit there. I also have a funeral to attend on Friday, on one of my few days off jazz.
This weekend too, I'm performing Saturday, and Sunday is Canada Day, and I have a kayak lesson on Monday, and I have to be somewhat available to do a story for the Edmonton Journal. Sometimes it's hard being famous. Although it's not hard to inflate my own ego, or pretend that I'm famous.
I'm quite certain if I can successfully survive this week while being polyphasic, I should be good to continue indefinitely. After this week, I'm not worried about forced nap shifting or anything until August, when I go on vacation. I'll have to explain to the Friend in Vancouver I'm visiting what my sleep schedule is like so he knows what to expect.

On a side note, I have found a rip in my napping blanket. That makes me very very sad. It's a custom made "Grandma Quilt". I'll have to get my mom to patch it before the tear gets too large, and I'll have to get in the habit of folding my blanket after every nap, so it doesn't get snagged on anything anymore. Those are the sorts of things I worry about more now with my sleeping pattern... It's great.


EDIT:
Do to a request, I am intending to write a summary of my Polyphasic experience to date. I've had complaints that it's a little difficult to go through all my blog entries to get to the meat of it. I am intending to do this, but it's not going to happen until next week. I just don't have the time to spend on it currently.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Exciting News!

So I got a call from a friend in Edmonton today. He works for the Edmonton Journal (I think, that or the Sun). Anyway, he's been following my sleep experiment and has discussed it with his boss, and got approval to do a video short about me. Very Cool! He's planning to be in town on the Canada Day long weekend, and he's going to take some pictures, and compile some footage. I thought that was very neat, and I am looking forward to it. I might have to clean my car up abit, so when I'm showing off my napping quarters, it looks a little more hospitable.

I talked to C, my Jazz trumpet friend, about it at our practice tonight. She showed her usual support of exclaiming, "You're that weird!" She does have a point. This odd sleep schedule is weird enough to be an interest piece. It probably didn't help that as I was mentioning that to her, my fly was open. I guess that just emphasized the weirdness.

So now I have to plan out what sort of things I need to show / explain. I'm sure he will help me with that though. But Exciting!

Day 38

For those of you who wish I'd do more productive things during the night, Yesterday was a good night.
Our house hadn't done dishes in a couple days, and as a result we had to use the last 3 plates left in the house for supper last night. So I spent the night cleaning the kitchen up a little. I washed pretty close to every last dish in our house, which took a reasonable amount of time. But now the kitchen is cleaner, and we can actually continue eating.

Then I cleaned out my keyboard. Like actually cleaned it, removing all the keys and everything. It really needed it, and I was able to make my spacebar work like a normal space bar again. I might take my work keyboard home sometime this week and clean it out too. It's starting to look a little grimy.

Alright, time to get to work I guess.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Curses

I had a super oversleep. My discman, that plays my white noise, and has my alarm at the end, ran out of power in the middle of my nap last night, and with no alarm I slept until 5am, basically taking my core sleep at the end of my nap. I feel really tired today.

This just shows an even better reason for me to buy an ipod, or some sort of rechargable portable music device, or maybe run a power adapter to ensure that doesn't happen again. It sucks.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Day 36

Ok, so I'm getting worse and worse at updating this blog.
It's because there is not much to write about sleepwise. I'm still going strong, and loving my extra time. Still not really accomplishing anything spectacular in the new time, but it's there.
This weekend was quite fun. Didn't get up to too much. Roomie N stayed up though on Friday until my usual bed time, at 4. When I woke up at 7 though, he was still out. And stayed that way until I woke up from my 12. When things like that happen it really make me appreciate my new schedule. I "found" a 5 hour period more than Roomie N, and all it costs me is about an hour later in the day.

So as this blog continues, I see it moving further from my ssleep schedule, and more to just what I feel like talking about. Of course I imagine I'll have little updates occaisionally about some of the projects I complete during my night hours. So what topics should you expect to see here? Well, all the things I'm interested in. From Video Games (Team Fortress 2 release date announced, awesome), Politics (Want guns? Just attacked US troops, then say you won't anymore. That's apparently all it takes for the Americans to hook you up...), boring odd facts about my life (I just got new phones! And got a great deal on them! Went in expecting to buy some phones I saw in a flier for $140, and walked out with a set better for our house for only $75), and other things that come to my head (Watched Pan's Labrinth finally last night. Good movie. Makes me extremely frustrated at the people I've overheard at movie stores and in theaters saying they would never see it, because it's subtitled. I didn't come to the movies to read! Sometimes I get scared for society).

So if you find that boring, then take off eh! If you still care to hear about it, feel free to stick around. Or if you want me to do something different, post a comment, and I'll think about it.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Day 31

One full month into this experiment!

I need to change my wake up routine. I am starting to get really stiff from it. I guess I could start doing less sit-ups and push-ups, but I think that will counter-act the usefulness of it. Today I didn't do anything, I just jumped out of bed as soon as my alarm went off. I'm feelig alittle tired right now, so we'll see if that fades away.
I also had difficulties getting to sleep last night. Now that summer is getting here full swing, the sun is starting to rise as I'm heading to bed. That just surprised me. I need to be a little more accustomed to falling sleep with the birds chirping. Maybe I can make a modified white noise cd, that's just 10 or 15 minutes of white noise, with no alarm sound, and use that at night for my core, and let my usual alarm get me up.

So I booked all my flights for my holiday in the fall. Really glad to have that out of the way. Unfortunately now my credit card is maxed again. I had to Pay for N-Roomies as he's a bum, and doesn't have a credit card or something. He has to use my card for everything online, which kinda sucks. At least he's good at giving me cash before charging anything to the card. The problem is just getting that cash onto my card.

I also joined the Saskatoon Canoe Club yesterday. I'm pretty excited. I didn't get out on the water last night, but I'm hoping to get a chance to on Thursday, or Saturday morning. I figure if I head out there when I wake up at 7, and am bored because my roomies don't get up until cloer to noon, I could enjoy the river. We'll see how I feel come Saturday.

Sleepwise, I had two awesome naps yesterday. I don't know exactly why... for both my noon and my 5 I fell asleep really fast, and woke up at my alarm feeling great. Hopefully I can do that again today. I've also found lately that my appetite has gone down. I still think I'm eating a lot, and somewhat healthy. My bills at McD's are down to a more affordable $10 a meal though, which is nice. I think I'm maybe not eating less, I'm just taking food like I've been taking naps, I eat a little here and there, instead of a couple large meals a day. I do keep forgetting ot take my vitamins in the morning htough, and often remember as I get to work, then take them with supper. Not a big deal.

But alas, I should get back to work.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Day 29

I am bad at updating this blog over the weekend. I just get too distracted.

I had a great weekend. Got all my naps more or less when I wanted them, and felt great the entire time. I went to a movie (Knocked Up) Saturday night, and as a result that bumped my 11 nap to closer to 12:30, which I was a little nervous about, but After forcing myself to sleep again at my core period, it turned out ok.

I'm starting to enter busy mode, with the pending Jazz festival rapidly approaching. It's going to screw my sleep schedule up somewhat, but all in good fun.

So sleep informational-wise. I'm trying to establish a more consistent, regular, morning routine. The worst part of my day for tiredness is right after my core sleep, from about 7-9 or 10. I'm hoping if I get accustomed to a specific wake up process, that will help me get out of bed quicker, and feel more alert, quicker. I'm starting with something easy, to see if it helps. So every morning now, I'm getting out of bed right at 7, and I'm doing some sit-ups, and push-ups (hopefully a side effect of getting me in better shape) then a shower. We'll see how well that works.

Other news in the sleep world, Kevin has suspended his attempt at Everyman. He started around the same time as I did, so we were both learning things at the same time. It seems like it was just a busy time in his life, and he's travelling, which made it a hard time for him. I think he's planning to try again in a couple weeks, with the bit of experience he's gained from his first attempt. He's not the only one I've been incontact with that isn't doing so well. Poor Brendan started his sleep change with 2 friends, but his 2 friends only lasted a day or two. They were pushing for the more difficult Uberman schedule. Makes that schedule sound ever more intimidating than before, as I hear more and more abou thow difficult it's transition period is (even though it's short). Maybe someday I'll shift my Everyman to an Uberman schedule.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Fun!

So I have really been enjoying this blog. Not only because it helps me keep a record of this experiment, and it helps me explain what I'm doing (I tell people to just go read the blog), but I also get to enjoy the interesting results I get from my traffic analysis.

I don't get a ton of visitors, and I'm not very high on any google ranking or anything, so as a result I get to see what sort of weird queries poeple make that end up here. Here's a selection. "saskatoon weather" Pretty straight forward. I have to assume the number 1 result on google would be pretty darn close to what the searcher was looking for, but for some reason they went through a couple pages of results, and came to a blog called sleepless in saskatoon? That's a pretty big tangent. "fun things saskatoon" I win! At least I can understand why my blog title could be about fun things to do in Saskatoon at night (there is none.) I just feel proud that someone looking for something fun to do in Saskatoon thought my blog fit the bill. Boy were they wrong.

Another thing I'm finding quite interesting is the geographical locations of my visitors. Saskatoon has the most visitors, which makes sense, but Edmonton and North Battleford have a reasonable showing. I have a couple readers from South America which is neat. Lately Europe has been kicking it up a notch too. One of the more interesting things is that Europe now has more visitors than the States, which was not what I expected. A large majority of my polyphasic sleeping connections are from the states, and Europe seems to have a small showing in those circles, but they win for readership.

Very interesting stuff to data junkies like myself.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

My Schedule and Work

One of the very positive aspects of missing that nap yesterday for the BBQ was a raised awareness of my sleep schedule from everyone at work. They actually got to see me tired, and are now a lot more accomidating about my nap times. I'm not fun to work with when I'm tired. Some of the engineers I am in contact with too now know not to call me around noon, as I'm asleep. I do have to put up with some friendly banter about it, but it's pretty easy to take it all in stride when I start talking about all the things I did the day previous, after work.

One of the interesting comments I get is everyone mentions surprise that I'm awake at any given time. Yeah, I have to run off for naps on occaision, but I am awake more time in a day than you hibernating folk. Plus, only one nap fall during the work day, and it's over lunch. It's just as likely to miss someone since they are out on a lunch break.

It's also fun to talk about it. A large number of people find it amazing, or insane, but some surprisingly have heard about. One of the engineers I work with seemed to have a surprising knowledge of it, which I do not expect from anyone in this province. I really enjoy the start of the discussions. One of my co-workers asks me if I'm getting pretty tired, since I'm missing a nap, and everyone else at the table laughs, and I seriously reply, yeah, I'm thinking about ducking out for 20 minutes pretty quick. Then they all look surprised, and shocked, as they realize I'm serious.

I can't imagine what it's like for some of my more remote friends, if they talk about it. I may have secured my Crazy uncle/ co-worker / friend / freak title with this experiment.

Day 25

Missing naps really sucks.

I was forced to miss my noon nap yesterday, as we had a large BBQ with one of our biggest clients, and some key personnel from their company. I was expected to attend the entire thing, and I did. Screwed my noon nap though. I didn't have a chance to lay down until about 2 or 2:30, which I decided was too late. I figured I would just take my 5pm nap a little earlier, and hopefully everything would work out. I was extremely tired from about 2 until 5. I question if it was actually a good idea to drive home. Had my 5 nap, felt great, and everything seemed to be going awesome.

Then I laid down for my 11 nap. I guess my body is still somewhat attached to the monophasic schedule. Skipping that noon nap didn't catch up to me until 11. I recall going to be around 11. I woke up briefly in the middle of the night. I recall glancing at my clock and seeing 3am. I went crap, that missed nap screwed me, but I was still super tired, so I changed into my core sleep clothes, and went back to sleep.

So missing a nap is very bad. Done it twice now, and both times resulted in me oversleeping my night away. Occaisionally that may be required, but I think I shall try to not do it again until I have a couple months, and an adjustment under my belt. If I'm at a spot where I can't nap at a designated time, like a gig, or meeting or something, I think I will nap as soon as I finish, no matter what time it is, then try to force naps back on schedule after that one. Hopefully that works. And also hopefully, I don't have to find out if it does for a little while yet. (Jazz Festival week might be a challenge)

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Day 24

I have hit a new complication in my sleeping habits.

It's freaking warm out. My noon nap isn't too bad, because I can park in the shade all morning, but my 5pm nap, my car is broiling. I have been leaving my windows open, but it's still hot. So the issue comes up. Do I try to drive home before napping? Do I just run my car for 5 -10 minutes before the nap to run the AC? Invest in some ice packs, and toss those in the car before napping? My car was hot to the point where it was harder to sleep. I won't have that problem today, as it's 20 degrees cooler than yesterday, good old Saskatchewan weather. Hopefully it doesn't heat up until I have some sort of plan set up.

Other problem I've hit. My cheap headphones that I stole from my Roomie, are too cheap. after 1 solid week of using them, I have broken the right headphone. It just crumbled in my hand when I went to put them in last night. So I guess I need to look into a slightly better set of headphones, or new player. (I can get an Ipod if I sign up for a TD bank account, so I might look into that.) Overall still seemingly uneventful last couple days. I'm adjusting back to my schedule quite well since my sick days. I have to flex my naps a little today though, due to a meeting we're having with a client here over lunch. Stupid lunch meetings. At least they are feeding me.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Day 22

Time for more updates!
So Sunday, I skipped my noon nap. I think that would have normally been a pretty bad plan, as I get pretty exhausted when I'm close to nap time. It worked ok for me though, largely I think due to the fact I spent my weekend sleeping. (Not monophasic, or polyphasic, just all the time) Once the 5pm nap came around though, I was pretty dead tired. I think I'll have to work pretty hard to force the schedule to get back on track, as it's a little odd yet, but I don't anticipate it being overly difficult.

This morning, Day 22. Waking up and gettting out of bed after my core is still the most difficult thing about this sleep schedule. I've done quite well at getting out of bed, but it is oh so tempting to just roll over and go to sleep. I am always extremely tired when I first hear the alarm. Once I get out of bed, after about 10 minutes of trying to make some breakfast, I'm fine. Fully awake and all. I need to change something about my morning routine to make that waking up easier. Maybe if I force myself out of bed right away and go for a 10 minute jog or something that would help wake me up. Or get in the habit of making a delicious big cup of black tea as soon as I wake up, instead of waiting until I get into work. I'll have to experiment with that over the upcoming weeks. Any suggestions anyone?

A friend of mine expressed interest in hearing more of what I have been doing with all my new found time. So I will try to discuss it a little. I am at work, so I should probally be a little brief... Currently, I'm spending my extra time doing a whole lot of nothing. I can't really think of any big thing I've accomplished since the switch. As it is I've been watching some Anime series I've been intending to, and finished 1 or 2. I have been taking the occaisional walk, and now that the weather is good again, I hope to take more of those. I made buns once, but they didn't turn out spectacular, so I'm holding out on another batch until I can find my cookbook, and try some other recipes. I've been reading a bit more, working on finishing Dracula finally, and The God Delusion as well. I've also become an active member in the polyphasic sleep community. I've been coding some templates and trying to gather some information to put into the new polyphasic wiki. And because I'm a gamer, I've been playing some games at all hours of the night. Even virtual worlds are reasonably empty at those hours, and it's been a great time to get some things done in otherwise busy areas. Oh, and I've also just started working on my Japanese. I took some courses in it once upon a time, and I'm quite rusty, so I'm working on polishing it up, and learning a bunch more vocabulary. My written Japanese needs a ton of work too.

So it looks like I've been accomplishing more than I thought, when I actually put it all down. Amazing how some of the little things just add up. I have to remember that I've only been doing this for 3 weeks, and I wrote off productivity fo rthe first stretch, as I was unsure how tired I'd be.

Big ones still on my todo list: I really need to write up a Bio to give to some of the musicians I play with. I've been hounded for it, but just never get around to it. I don't like blowing my own horn (I play strings! Ba boom chick). I think it would only take a night or two to actually put one together. I definitely should finish that before Jazz Festival though. I also have not started doing any work with the code I intend to use for a hobby software project that is in the design phase. And has been in the design phase for a couple years now. Maybe by putting those here, I'll be more motivated to do them. I'll look like an idiot if I don't. Oh, and I need to look into finishing my degree via classes, and correspondence.

Should probally get back to work though. I do need to accomplish things here too.

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Weekend update

I have been sick. I think I ate something bad. It has been an interesting couple days.

I bumped my core shorter (like 1-7am) to try and help with recovery, and on Saturday I slept straight from my noon nap to the end of my 5 nap. Surprisingly all that extra sleep didn't throw the rest of my schedule off. I was still able to nap at my usual times. Saturday night I think I'm pretty much all better, and am dropping back to my usual sleep schedule. I slept an extra hour and a half on my core, as I'm committed to an event this morning, and I want to try just skipping my noon nap.

That will prove to be a bit of a complication on this sleep schedule. When I get ill, which is generally quite seldom, I think I'll have to adjust my sleep schedule dramatically to get over it. I just slept when I was tried, but tried to stay close to my nap end times. I think it worked reasonably well.

Some other polyphasic people I've talked to seem to live by a reset day, once every couple weeks or something, where they just sleep a lot more that one day. I'm not a fan of it, as I think it disrupts the schedule, and negates some of the benefits of Polyphasic sleep. However, if I get sick again in about 3 weeks, that may be a hint that I need to start scheduling something like that.