Polyphasic Insomnia

[Scott]

So I've finally gotten around to adapting to polyphasic sleep, but lately I've been running into trouble falling asleep during naps, especially my nap at 3:30am - which you'd think would be the easiest time to fall asleep, right? Well, it's 6:30am now, and I just finished with four consecutive failed attempts at napping (I slept for a total of no more than five minutes). I think this has been causing some extra drowsiness in the early-mid morning hours, although strangely, right now I'm not feeling too bad. I'm only on Day 9, so I realize my brain is still trying to figure this thing out, but does anyone have any idea what might be causing it and/or what to do about it? I haven't been consuming caffeine, alcohol or anything of that nature, nor anything else I can think of that would interfere with sleep. Thanks!

P.S: There's a no-frills summary of my experience here with links to the blog posts, if you're curious.

[vuurstorm]

Have you tried adding some "down time" to your schedule. Get some slow paced music like Enya and start listening to that half an hour before sleep time.
What I usually do as well that seems to work is when I get into bed, I close my eyes and then say to myself that I intend to sleep for half an hour and then I try to stay as relaxed as possible and keeping my mind empty.

[and]

See how it goes after two days.... after that I would start worrying... You might also establish a pattern for every time you go to sleep. Thinking same thoughts, having same lighting conditions, same background noise, etc.

[Epic]

Hi, I'm on day 4 or 5 of this sleep schedule. I'm wondering if anyone has experience free running the naps instead of sticking to a schedule. For instance, always stay awake for at least ~3 hours, 15 min then only sleep as soon as you feel really tired and ready for it.

I wonder if one's sleep schedule would proceed like free run sleeping. Thas is, in greater than 24 hr periods. Right now my naps are 12, 4, 8, 12, 4, 8. If I free run them maybe they'll look more like 12, 4:10, 8:30, 12:50, 5:05, 9:10, etc.

I haven't tried this since I'm not accustomed to the basic schedule yet but I intend to try it.

Maybe this would reduce your problem of falling asleep. I often have trouble falling asleep and hope this will help in the future.

[vuurstorm]

I have tried changing my schedule to a more free schedule after a couple of days and it ended in a disaster.
I kept on getting tired in less that 3 hours. When I changed my times my mind just did not get enough rest in my half-hour sleep sessions. After changing back to a strict schedule It took me a week to recover

[Epic]

I was about to try this immediately as I was having more trouble falling asleep but I will stick to the solid schedule for the forseeable future.