So the first couple of days were pretty much what I expected. A constant feeling of tiredness, as if I had stayed up all night. I did not have any problems with going to sleep, although I did give myself an extra 5 minutes to go to sleep prior to the official 20 minute nap.
I decided it would be in my best interest to quit caffeine/energy drinks during my adjustment. This in itself is a major feat, as I have a serious addiction to both, drinking at least a pot and a half a day of French Roast (bold) coffee. I would say for the first 3 days I suffered many headaches which I suspect were more from caffeine withdrawals rather than sleep withdrawals. It certainly does not make it easier. I have substituted decaf for regular, however, as the hot drink does help to keep me awake still (I never thought I would ever find myself drinking decaf!)
One of my biggest worries has turned out to be not so bad for me...waking up. With normal sleep, I am the snooze button king, often times finding myself pressing it until the alarm doesn't even go off anymore. I came across Steve Pavlina's wake up fast method, and decided to do wake up drills prior to my actual sleep, and I really do think that that helped. For the first 4 days, for about 10 minutes prior to going to bed, I did mock wake ups by setting the alarm for 2 minutes and then practicing getting up. I would actually doze off during those 2 minutes, but I was still clear enough to go through the drill.
Day 3 - my first oversleep. Yep, it was bad too - around 12 hours. Even after waking up after several hours and realizing that I had overslept, I still decided to keep sleeping. I knew it would throw the whole thing out of whack, but I didn't care at the moment. I felt great and well rested for the rest of the day. Of course, afterwards I felt guilty and immediately resumed the nap taking. Even though the next nap was just a couple of hours away, I still managed to fall asleep immediately. That was nice. I do wonder how much this has set me back. I guess I am probably starting from scratch, although I will continue to count it from when I originally started. I am sure, however that I will be about 2-3 days behind the normal adaptation process.
Day 4 was the easiest so far. This may have simply been because of the great sleep I had gotten the day before. There was a bit of zombie mode in the morning, but that quickly went away. I remember thinking about how excited I was that I was probably past the hump because I felt remarkably good. In the afternoon I had another oversleeping episode, although this one was only about 3 hours. I slept through my alarms. I set 3 alarms on my cell phone to go off in 15 minute increments. The alarm is pretty loud and annoying, and I set the phone far enough away so that you have to get up to turn it off. I don't think I sleepwalked to turn them off, but I had no memory of the alarms going off. I immediately added two more alarms to my repertoire...a vibrating pillow alarm, and a computer alarm that will play some energy inducing music.
Day 5 just sucked. At least parts of it did. Morning I was just a vegetable. Ok, so this is zombie mode. All I could think about was keeping awake and when my next nap was. I realized I couldn't sit at the computer without beginning to nod off, and then later realized ANY sitting will cause me to start nodding. So I've spent pretty much the whole day today standing. My feet and legs are sore by the end of the day. Pretty much the rest of my body is starting to get sore as well - definitetly noticing it in my back. The dogs are just loving the super long walks. I'm getting tired of walking though. I started ironing my shirts while watching movies to pass the time. That seems to do the trick for me. After the movies, I seem to be ok. It seems that morning was the worst of it, as afternoon and evening were actually fine. In fact, there were several points where I was completely wide awake and energized and in a terribly good mood, so that was nice.
Uuugghhh, Day 6 morning made yesterdays morning look like a walk in the park. I wanted to go back to sleep so bad this morning, but forced myself up. From 5:50 - 9:30 I was in zombie hell. I don't know how many walks I went out for, but I was definitely microsleeping during the walks. I kept walking into things. Or just stopping on the sidewalk and staring. Once I found myself in front of the dumpster not having a clue how I got there. I was completely dissoriented and didn't have a clue where I was. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that I was at the dumpster right next to my house. My body and legs were soooo sore from all the walking and standing. Sitting was definitely out of the question. The next nap seemed to take forever to get here, and when it did come, it seemed like it was never even there, and I needed to go through it all over again. Fortunately, I slowly went from zombie to just very tired. I was able to sit on the couch to watch movies in the afternoon. I found that if I sit on the edge of the couch, I am not as likely to start dosing as I would if I completely relaxed on the couch. By evening, I was completely fine. In fact, my 1:30am nap I had trouble falling asleep for, so I just laid in bed. I suspect that eating a few crackers about 10 minutes prior to bedtime had something to do with that, so no more eating an hour before bedtime (didn't mom teach me that??) Also, the power supply in my computer started making noise, so I found myself getting up a few times to get it to shut up...to the point of actually opening it up. So much for that nap, huh?
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