Everyman Polyphasic Sleep Schedule

[LesGawn]

Hi everyone.

I came across this forum while I was looking for information on how to sleep less and have more energy.

Very useful site, by the look of it.

As far as my own attempt to adopt the Everyman schedule is concerned, I was drawn to it because it means I do get to spend some time in bed with my wife and because by all accounts it seems the most realistic to have a chance of maintaining.

Also, 3 or so hours all to myself in the middle of the night sounds like a good opportunity.

I have worked shifts in the dim and distant past, some just nights and some alternating between nights and days.

Now I am trying Everyman because I like early mornings and late nights - plus the attraction of some time of solitude.

My main block of sleep, after a short experiment, is now settled on 2:40 - 5:40 in the morning. Slightly odd scheduling is due to the fact that my 3 dogs ask to go out every morning at around 5:40 - and so I have taken 3 hours back from that as my start point.

Both days I have managed to have 20-30 minute naps at around 10:30 am;
2:30/3:00 pm AND 10:30 pm although I overslept on both pm naps today.

I am also logging my feeling of tiredness on a scale of 1 (minimal) to 5 (very sleepy) for every half hour of wakefulness.

I hope this is the correct place for the post. Happy to answer questions and post a spreadsheet logging the details if helpful to anyone.

Similarly any feedback on the benefits or otherwise would be welcome. I know there are lots of resources on sleep on this site - but good pointers would help. Its a much bigger place than I had imagined.

All the Best

Leslie

[LesGawn]

I am now halfway through week four, and have had to make a number of changes to the sleep routine.

Firstly, waiting until the early hours to go to bed upset my wife and made me feel like a complete zombie!

So - I moved the main sleep period to 11:30pm to 02:30am with a 20-minute nap at 7:00.

This helped on both counts - I didn't feel quite so tired and I did actually go to bed with my wife - I just got up much earlier - and then came back to bed for the last 20 minutes of her sleep.

The main problem with that is making sure I wake up at 02:30 without waking up the rest of the household!

I looked at a number of vibrating alarms - eventually picking an alarm watch.

The problem with that is that although it does stir me most of the time - it is often not enough to get me to the point where I really wake - but then if I don't get up straight away, I go back to sleep very heavily.

Also, even if I felt reasonably alert when going back to sleep at 7, I would feel quite awful just 20 minutes later - shivery and really not very happy.

The day-time naps tended to go much better.

Anyway - I now made a what I hope will be the final amendment. This allows me a bit of extra sleep in the main block, and just one slightly longer nap during the day.

New routine from now on is ...

11:30 - 03:15 - Main Sleep
13:00 - 13:45 - Subsidiary Sleep.

This gives a pattern of 3 hours 45 minutes sleep followed by 9 hours 45 minutes of waking; 45 minutes of sleep followed by another 9 hours 45 minutes of waking.

It is a bit of a shot in the dark, and although I felt fine yesterday with just the one daytime sleep, I overslept last night/this morning - waking at 04:30 instead of 03:15 - despite a backup alarm.

Funnily enough the ones who have adjusted best to the new routines are the dogs. They seem to love seeing me after my main sleep and are happy to go back to bed once I am down and working until around 6:00. They don't bark (often) or ask to come upstairs by rattling the gate - which they often used to do!

Hmmmmm.

I am hoping to get this well established in the next few days as I am taking advantage of my wife not being around in the night for the last ten days and the next four.

A bit concerned, at the moment, about finding a workable routine!

I'll keep you posted.

All the Best

Leslie