How do you polyphasics deal with...?

[Holden McNeil]

How do you deal with cutting short all committments to 3-4 hours?

I'd feel a bit strange (and annoyed) always cutting short socialising with friends, for instance. Say I wanted to meet a friend for lunch in the city - and my naps at at 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. I could get in there about 10:30-11:00... stay for about an hour or two, and then have to leave by 1:00-1:30 - no exceptions. And what if i'm invited out to dinner with family, or family friends? It's not exactly polite in my family to just leave right after lunch/dinner to go home.

You end up getting 22 waking hours per day... but at the same time, there's serious restriction. I'd probably end up staying home instead of going out half the time, which ain't cool.

Thoughts?

[micth]

why do you need to go home?

[David Hausladen]

If you find yourself attending an event longer than your normal waking time, you generally have two options. The preferred choice is to just duck out for a quick nap. A 20- or 30-minute nap is not usually a big problem. If that's not practical, then I think I recall Steve saying that he could occasionally stretch waking time by about an extra 50% if necessary. Not something you'd want to do regularly, but I doubt it's a problem once you've finished adaptation, as long as it's done sparingly.

Since neither of these are really great options, the best solution to the problem is to think about what kind of events you'll have to attend before you choose a sleep schedule. If your social events are regularly longer than the normal waking time for the given sleep schedule, and you can't duck out of those events for naps, then that schedule just isn't going to work. And if no polyphasic schedule works for you, there's nothing wrong with finding that polyphasic sleep simply doesn't work in your current situation (as Steve did).

[ahimel]

We scheduled our naps around what our schedule needed, so that most events can start right at the end of a nap. This gives you 3-4 hours for whatever you need to do. For example, I go see my sister every tuesday evening. Nobody questions when you say, "I can't make it by 5; it'll have to be 5:30." That's my 5 o'clock nap. My next nap is at 9; again, no one questions when you've been there for 3 hours, and it's 9 o'clock, if you say, "I've got to get home to bed." I usually don't get the 9 o'clock nap until 9:30 or 10:00, but that's not a big deal.

Last friday we were at a kind of marathon gaming party, starting at 7PM and going until about 2AM. At about 9:30 I was too tired to stay up, so I crawled into a corner behind the table where I wouldn't be in the way, and slept until 10. No big.

I would say that the ability to sleep in the car is critical. But if you get tired enough, you'll sleep.

[Holden McNeil]

Originally Posted by ahimel

I would say that the ability to sleep in the car is critical.

Thanks for the comments guys, And yeah, sleeping in the car would be probably the best thing you could do - just popping out for 30 minutes or so in a quiet car park somewhere. Mmm. lol. Aside from that, I guess it's a sacrifice you have to take in cutting things short, or not being able to go out at all in certain circumstances. I'd be worth it for some and not for others, so essentially it's a personal/subjective opinion.