I’m a snooze-fan. I can snooze for an hour (ok, even two some weekends!).
When I worked for the man, the alarm would ring 45mn before getting out of bed … and we would enjoy that fuzzy feeling under the covers just that little longer. However it often meant waking up feeling more tired. During a couple of months last year I experimented with waking up at the same time everyday as suggested in this article. I would wake up at 6am, do things for 1h, make some breakfast, and then join my girlfriend who had been snoozing for 30mn. Surprisingly I always felt more energized than her, even sleeping an hour less (on the other hand, I was tired earlier in the evening). Waking up at once was difficult for the first few days. But once I got used to it, it was actually easier. It didn’t feel like crawling out of bed, but rather like jumping out of bed. The same thing applies to Polyphasic sleep. I’ve been tempted to snooze. I have done so for a couple of naps and once for my core-sleep. And it’s a bad idea. You feel more tired, one snooze leads to another, so … I’ll try my best to avoid it.
As suggested yesterday, I’ve started to log my mood and awareness to track how I feel throughout the day. Here’s my (subjective and made up) scale:
| 0 |
unconscious … sleeping like a log |
| 1 |
experiencing micro-naps, hallucinations and extreme trouble to stay awake |
| 2 |
eyelids closing, small winks |
| 3 |
very heavy eyes and body, no concentration capabilities |
| 4 |
sleepy mood. ready for bed in 5mn. |
| 5 |
generally tired. sandy eyes. Can keep up for 1h |
| 6 |
Tired but active, can do tasks requiring moderate concentration. |
| 7 |
Fully aware, medium energy levels, can work for hours and do physical activity |
| 7 |
Fully aware, good energy levels, can concentrate and do challenging sports. |
| 8 |
High energy levels, excitment, great concentration and good body feeling. |
| 9 |
Higher than normal mental clarity, body awareness, extraordinary insights, fast thinking. |
| 10 |
I think I have become a buddha. |
Below is the raw data which I’ll convert into a graph when I have some time to parse it. I log ( time, subjective score, comments).
[2012/03/14, (2:50,6,”tired body, sleepy eyes, a little cold”), (3:18, 9, “relaxed, aware”), (3:55, 7, “relaxed”), (5:21, 8, “excited”), (6:10, 7, “tired”), (6:30, 7, “tired eyes”),(6:38, 6.5, “eyes, thick head”), (6:50, 5, “heavy eyes”), (7:04, 4.5, “headache, sandy eyes”), (7:47, 7, “awake, relaxed body”), (8:00, 7), (9:30,8), (12:00,7.5, “doing sport, yawn”), (12:30, 6, “sleepy”), (13:30, 7.5), (14:00, 8), (17:00, 6.5), (17:35, 5, “waking up”), (18:00, 7, “tired”), (18:30, 8, “going to movies”), (22:30, 7, “tired”), (23:00, 6, “need sleep”)]
As suggested by Nic, I might do some awareness testing here http://www.cogolog.com ocasionally. But I won’t have the time to track that every few hours.
- hypnogram of polyphasic everyman schedule on March 14th
