Some of you have already guessed it. My polyphasic sleep trial has come to an end. I lasted for another 12 hours after my last update and then I had a huge oversleep. I decided to end the experiment at that point of time because I had many other things to do and I simply didn’t have the mental clarity to do them during the trial. Also from my previous experience I know, that as soon as I enter a cycle where I’m constantly oversleeping I won’t make any more progress.
Even though I didn’t succeed this time, it went much better than with my previous tries. I learned a lot from this try and will definitely have a shot at it again. During my last visit to Las Vegas I even met a friend who is almost completely adapted. This gave me even more confidence that I can succeed with a future attempt.
One thing I learned is that before I can even think about trying polyphasic sleep again is, that I absolutely have to develop a burning desire to sleep polyphasically. I really need to have the feeling that polyphasic sleep is the best way to expand the time I can spend on things I’m really passionate about, instead of just adding more time for work I didn’t want to do in the first place.
I also want to work on creating supporting habits first. Even though I did more preparation work this time, it still was rather extemporaneous. Steve Pavlina found a very good analogy when he compared the process of changing a habit with a game of chess. No sane person would attack the opponents king right away. To be successful you have to develop a good position first during the early game. Only if you are in a good position you go out and attack the king.
Nevertheless I was attacking the king right away with almost every try to integrate a new habit into my life.
So this time I plan to become an early riser first, which will help me normalize my sleep patterns before I give it another try. This will also condition me to get out of bed as soon as my alarm rings. My goal is to get up at 5 every morning, energetic and eager to start the day. I also hope that by sleeping more regularly my sleep will become more restful.
Another important thing for me is to get rid of some ingrained habits that are detrimental to my everyday life and especially to polyphasic sleep. On polyphasic sleep everything gets larger, your good habits but also your bad habits. My biggest challenge in this area is to overcome procrastination. Even starting to write this simple update took me over a month. Imagine to have 22 hours a day to procrastinate. No normal human being can bear that over a longer period of time.
I made some progress so far, but there is still much space for improvement. Currently I’m reading “The Now Habit” and already got some great ideas that I’m currently integrating into my daily life.
The next step after that would be to gradually reduce core sleep and to add in a couple of naps until I adapt to an everyman schedule. This will not only be a good starting point to transition to uberman completely, by reducing core sleep, but also a good way to get used to the feeling of living polyphasically, as I still have to incorporate my daytime naps into my daily routine.
#1 written by Nag Malagi February 10th, 2010 at 18:22
Joachim
Here are my thoughts about this attempt
Perspective 1.
This is the input, in case you want to try again.
Few years back I was trained from professional to do meditation,
You probably know, it’s highly relaxing to mind and body,
If the meditation is successful, it gives rest to body, some say equal to
3 to 4 hour of sleep.
I was not successful in achieving relaxation equal to 3 to 4 hour of
Sleep.
Probably I was doing something wrong,
Still I get good relaxation for mind body by mediation,
If you can explore more about mediation, and achieve that kind of
Relaxation some of experts say, you may achieve your goal of reducing
sleep and get more time for your projects. With meditation of 20 mins
twice a day may reduce your sleep by 3 to 4 hours, that may be decent Contribution towards your goal.
My understanding with polyphasic sleep is , you are trying give rest to your
Mind and body, if its called with different name (meditaion ) it may not matter for you .
Perspective 2.
I have small demo story about efficiency and effectiveness,
Imagine a big room, floor is covered with dollar bills ,
denominations $10, $50, and $100.
If I have been asked pick bills as many I want in 56 seconds
I can pick bills in systematic order from one end of room towards other
end, in that case I will have bills of all denominations .
In this case I am more efficient,
There is one more way I can pick bills of denomination of only $100, and
ignoring all smaller denominations
In the second case I am more effective and I’ve more value for my pick.
In both case I have worked only 56 seconds,
But I have more value in second case,
I have read many stories about successful people in many areas,
most of them not sacrificed their sleep or fun from their life, still they
achieved their peak.
I feel they are effective than efficient.
in this demo, I used 56 seconds, that’s nothing but 56 hours of work week
(8 hour x 7 days)
If our situation is more complex, we can use Pareto principle to
prioritize our activities,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle)
Cheers,
Nag