Quote:
Originally Posted by copla  Is there a reason you're going for 6 hours? It's less than a lot of people, and a big improvement on 8, but it doesn't seem to be that significant of a time savings compared to 4.5, especially considering how the nap is a bit of a hassle to remember and employ regularly. How much time to you think you can shave off 6 hourse by the sleep cycles shortening? Also, as an aside, how do you tell when the sleep cycles are shortening? When you start becoming more groggy upon waking do you just fiddle around and see when you tend to wake up less groggily? |
Copla,
like you, I feel much more refreshed after a day/night of biphasic sleep than I did after monophasic sleep. I initially put this through a 30 day trial (
summary) out of curiosity, but one of the main reasons for keeping the routine was the improved sleep quality.
I arrived at the 1.5/4.5 hour split after a bit of trial and error : 1.5/3 wasn't quite enough, and neither was alternating between 1.5/3 and 1.5/4.5 . In the end I decided to stick with the 1.5/4.5 split.
The fact that there is only a small (1.5 hours per day) saving for me to do this (from 7.5 hours per night when I was monophasic) is enhanced by the fact that I'm now more refreshed after sleep, and my productivity has increased accordingly. I'm now faced with the wonderful situation of not only being able to get more things done, but of having more time in which to do them. Superb.
I don't find the nap a hassle to employ, any more than watching your favourite TV show at a given time. It's just a part of my routine. In fact, it'd seem odd if I
didn't take a nap.
The sleep cycles do gradually shorten, though not all that much. Glen Rhodes found that his had shortened to around 75 minutes at some point in the first couple of years; mine have shortened to 75-80 minutes after a little over two months. You can tell by the time you'll naturally wake up - perhaps after a couple of weeks you'll begin waking up a couple of minutes before the alarm goes off (still set it though, just in case). This 'automatic waking' will gradually occur earlier and earlier; at least on some nights.
As for grogginess - yes, just trying different things is the answer. Try adjusting the start time of the nap, the gap between the nap and core sleep, the length of the core sleep, switching the gap and core sleep (3 hours in the evening, followed by 90 minutes in the early morning), and breaking up the nap into smaller chunks. Experiment, enjoy and be sure to post your findings (don't forget the
polyphasic sleep logs thread).