Starting bi-phasic tonight

[silicon toad2000]

After wimping out on my early riser trial I have started bi-phasic tonight.
The timetable will be 9-10:30pm and 2:30-7am.
I had a bit of trouble falling asleep tonight and the short sleep moved to 11pm-12:30am.
Now it's 1am on the 20th and I'm up for another 1.5 hours before I go back to bed.
I get the feeling that I am going to need a lunch time power nap tomorrow to get through the day.

[Ilya]

Congratulations on your persistence. However your trial will go, you will emerge knowing more about your abilities and about your sleep needs in particular.
Good luck with your trial.

[silicon toad2000]

so far so good, its 8am friday 20th.
I had a little trouble getting back to sleep at 2:30am, despite that I feel good. The strange thing was that i seemingly woke up monetarily between each sleep cycle.

Thank you for the encouragement Ilya.

[Amadeus]

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Enjoy the misery.

[silicon toad2000]

6pm 20th

I thought I was going to be really tired today, but I haven't been. I didn't even have my normal tired patch in the middle of the afternoon.
Tonight I'll be going to bed when my kids do about 8:30.

[silicon toad2000]

day 2

second night was successful. I slept 8:30-10 and then 3am-7:30. Haven't felt tired yet.

[silicon toad2000]

Day 3.
I had a little trouble getting to sleep for my 8pm nap, but for the amount of sleep I am getting I feel great. So far I am really impressed with my results.
One bonus is I am using time for my nap that is normally pretty unproductive. It's that time just after the kids go to bed when my wife and I normally sit down and relax for a bit. Now I sleep for that time and rise when I am normally beginning to be productive again.
I feel more driven also. I have more of an urge to get things done.

[silicon toad2000]

Day 4,

I got my 1.5 hours nap last night, it took a little while to get into noddy land but I persevered, lol continuously adjusting the wake up time on my alarm.

Then slept 2:30-7am.

I had a bit of a headache today around the base of my skull. I've had it before when I haven't slept much. Normally it's accompanied by an overwhelming tiredness. So I'm thinking that while biphasic sleeping is allowing me to sleep less and not feel tired, there is another key part of sleep that I may be missing out on to my detriment.
I spent a bit of time reading articles on the net about sleep cycles and such.
It seems unopposed that we cycle between light sleep and deep sleep while we are sleeping and these cycles usually last between 90-100 minutes. Also that the amount of time spent in delta sleep per cycle decreases the longer you sleep. Delta sleep seems to be the sleep your body needs to regenerate. One of the principles of biphasic sleeping is that by breaking up our regular 7.5 hour sleep into two sessions we are effectively taking two sleep cycles from the end of our sleep which contain very little delta sleep and replacing them with one early evening or afternoon sleep cycle which contains more delta sleep than either of the cycles we removed. Given that I don't feel tired at all yet I would deduce that the early evening nap contains more delta sleep than both the removed cycles put together.
A couple of sites argued that the sleep cycle follows the path from stage 1-4, back up to phase 2 and then into REM sleep. Then from the REM sleep back into the cycle again. As the night progresses the amount of time per cycle in delta sleep decreases and the amount of time in REM sleep increases.
While It was clear the delta sleep is needed for the body to repair itself, I could not find a definitive, multi-source clarification of what role REM sleep plays.
Anyway, onwards. I'll have to see how things go.

[silicon toad2000]

Day 5

going well, i went for my nap this evening and fell asleep right away. I decided I am going to set my time to 100 after I go to bed for my nap regardless of if I fall asleep or not.

I still have not suffered from a case of the 3:30pm yawns which I experienced often when I sleeping 7.5 hrs solidly.

[kaushal1]

Its good if u feel that a bi phasic sleep can satify u. I think one can save one's time in this way which one spends in sleeping.

[silicon toad2000]

Day 7,

chose to have a monophasic sleep last night. The mrs was complaining that she never saw me as she was going to bed when I got up again.
Tonight I'll be back with it.
It's great having this extra time, it also helps me set apart different sections of the day to focus on different areas of my life.

[silicon toad2000]

Still going along very well. Tonight was the latest nap I've had yet, 10:30 - midnight. I'll be up for a couple of hours and back to bed just before 2:30am to get up at 7am.
Still feeling generally more awake and focussed than I did on monophasic sleep.
I seem to have more of an urge to do things. If I find myself watching TV but not enjoying the program or surfing the net rather than reading specific articles, my mind seems to give me a prod to go and do something more valuable with my time. I don't know if this is a result of the sleeping patterns or the increasing business my life has taken on recently, perhaps a result of both.
I have a period of low productivity just after I wake from my nap, usually about 15 minutes. This is the same for me as the 15 minutes immediately after waking in the morning.

[silicon toad2000]

I had a 'normal' sleep last night. By the time I ran all my errands and did what I wanted to do it was too late to have a nap and have an awake time before my core sleep.
I've had my nap for today now and have another 3 hours of productivity before me.
I find it easier to take my naps now, I'm falling asleep more quickly. I also find myself very weary when I awake from my nap. I have been setting a timer for 100 minutes and turning out my light. I am unsure how long it is taking me to fall asleep so I am unsure how much sleep I get and if it is a full cycle or not.

[silicon toad2000]

The issue of how much sleep I am getting in the nap seems to sort itself out. If there is not enough sleep, the next night you are more sleepy and get the full amount.

Last night a friend called me right in the middle of my nap. I might make a habit of diverting my phone directly to voice mail during my nap. I would turn it off but I use it as the alarm to wake me up.

[silicon toad2000]

I hope I got the days right.

Everything is going along really well. Friends have commented after I have told them what I am doing that I seem much more alert and well.
I seem to be thirsty when I wake up after my nap.
The tone on my phone that I use to wake up is starting to get really annoying, I think I'll have to change that.
Also I find that if the awake period between the nap and the core sleep is less than 2 hours, it's not worth sleeping poly-phasic that night, you may be better off having a mono-phasic sleep.

[silicon toad2000]

I had a big normal sleep a few nights ago and again last night as my schedule didn't allow for my nap. I found that after a normal sleep im usually not quite tired enough at nap time to fall asleep.
I decided that even if I can't sleep I should at least use the time for quiet meditation.

[silicon toad2000]

Progressing along nicely. Still working at finding my cycle time but not wasting too much time falling asleep. In the interests of not wasting time i think i have been cutting my nap time short so that I am not getting my full 90 minutes.
The mrs has even joined me, she has a short nap in the afternoons.

[beetee2]

Originally Posted by silicon toad2000

I hope I got the days right.
Also I find that if the awake period between the nap and the core sleep is less than 2 hours, it's not worth sleeping poly-phasic that night, you may be better off having a mono-phasic sleep.

Thank you for this insight! This is exactly the information I was looking for!

I work full-time during the days as an application developer, and I'm going to school full-time in the evenings, so on Mondays and Wednesdays the earliest I would be able to nap would be 10pm. I was wondering if it would even be worth the attempt if the best I could do would be 10pm-1130pm nap and 230am-6am core. Still debating on the practicality of it all, and wondering what the wife would think of it. Thanks again!

[silicon toad2000]

I'm moving my nap time a little later as I have been having trouble getting to sleep when I go for my nap. I need to get a pre nap routine in place i think.

Betee2, give it a go, but I think you'll want to look at your core sleep times, i think you're an hour short.
when i was reading up on this, i found someones website who tried a core sleep of only 3 hours but found it wasn't quite enough. you might have to go 10-11:30 and then 1:30 to 6. I know i said i found 2 hours awake between nap and core wasn'tt worth it, but that was me. If you give it a go for a while, at least then you'll know.

[silicon toad2000]

my sleeping hasn't been quite right since i broke the cycle and missed out on a whole bunch of sleep after going to a friends birthday.
I think if you are lacking a bit of sleep it's prudent to have a few normal sleeps while you get rid of the sleep debt and then get back into the bi phasic.
I had a big normal sleep last night and I'll have another big normal sleep tonight which should get me all caught up and then I'll get back into the bi phasic.

[silicon toad2000]

Well the 30 day trial is over.

I'm going to stick with this one, it really suits my lifestyle and allows me that little extra productive time in a day.

I have learned that nap spacing is important.
Getting unbroken sleep during nap and core sleep is important, as it is during any sleeping.
Sleep debts should be recovered with a couple of monophasic sleeps before getting back into biphasic.