Here we go again - Jan 26

After approx 2 months of relatively successful uberman sleeping, a series of events caused me to gradually backslide into monophasic sleep mode: Several bouts of sickness, including 2 cases of pneumonia in a months period, and several multiday periods of intense personal development training where there was no opportunity to take naps. Over December the naps became more erratic with several periods of monophasic sleeping (although I was still averaging 4-5 hours of sleep). All of my efforts to resume the naps kept failing. I made all kinds of changes to make it easier to adapt: Increased nap times from 20 to 30 minutes, and 10 minutes of reading before hand to wind down. Attempted a change to Everyman 3 without any luck whatsoever. For most of Jan, I found myself doing at least one 4-6 hour sleep a day instead of the 3 I set my alarm for.

So here I am again...

My trainings are over for the next few months, so I have ample time to get back into the groove of things. I hate hate hate not having all of the time I had earlier to do my stuff. I NEED uberman so I can live my life the way I want. I decided to do a few things differently this time around, which I'm hoping will make things more bearable. Firstly, I'm switching to Sleepwarrior.com mp3 powernap tracks from Placebo sleep tracks. The fact is, I always hated the white noise, and I think it made things more difficult for me to sleep to. I seem to be falling asleep much more easily to the Sleepwarrior tracks. Second, I'm going back to the 20min naps from 30 that I eventually found myself doing. (I'm giving myself 4 minutes to fall asleep, which is what the tracks provide for). I seem to be waking up a little bit easier this way versus the 30min. Perhaps I was going into deep sleep with the longer naps and therefore more groggy. The 20minute naps so far feel like I didn't even sleep at all, although I know that will begin to change in a few more days. Lastly, I'm bringing a little bit of caffeine back during the periods where I'm really hurting. One thing I did earlier was start drinking a cup of caffeinated coffee right before my nap (based on some suggestions of other fellow nappers, who claim that the caffeine doesn't take effect for about 20 minutes). I found that the caffeine seems to work almost instantaneously with me, with a noticeable increase in heart rate, and made the naps much more difficult. So what I'm doing now is placing a covered cup of hot coffee next to me to drink upon awaking. So far I like that. We'll see if my theory holds over the next week.

Yesterday (Jan 25th) at 11am I completed my first full 24 hours with proper napping. I was forced to skip my 5:30pm nap, so I was quite exhausted for my 9:30pm nap, which of course flew by like it didn't even happen. I've been really tired after that nap. I just took my dogs out for a long walk in the cold night air, and now I'm typing the blog. My intent with the blog is to hold myself accountable and track my progress. It's quite interesting that my circadian rhythm has changed so dramatically. 10pm to about 3am has always been my most productive period in the past, and I was never tired. Now, I'm exausted and counting the minutes until my next nap. 10 more hours till 11am and day 2 is complete.