Day 4

Last night was kind of a blur. Not quite sure what happened. Sometime around 2 or 3 I remembered I had a piece of cake downstairs and thought, hmmmm cake sounds really good right now. I brought the cake upstairs to my desk to eat, when all of the sudden it was almost time for my nap again, the cake still untouched.

Then I went to take my nap, and next thing I know it is 10 am, so about a 5 hour sleep. Shit! Then I realized I went to bed and didn't set any of my alarms...never even occurred to me.

Guess I'm starting over.

Jan 26th (Day 3)

Began day 3 with an oversleep...about 2 1/2 hours. I was really hurting last night.

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.

Update 1 month later

Still doing Uberman! I got sick a few weeks ago, and made the choice to sleep like a normal person for a few days till my body repaired itself (which it did). The next week or so, I had a very, very difficult time readapting...I found myself oversleeping by 1-3 hours at least once a day. While this is still better than normal sleep, I really wanted to get back on track. No matter what though, I kept convincing myself that hitting the snooze button for 5 extra minutes would be ok, and then 3 hours later...

Then, I found myself continually hitting the snooze button, for up to an hour (like the old days), until it stopped, and I'd just continue to sleep.

I finally remembered the oh so helpful wakeup drills from Steve Pavlina, and decided to start those up again. That was the magic button for me, and I've been going pretty much perfectly on schedule till last night. Last night I went to a Halloween Party. I still kept to my naps in a hotel room, but there were major distractions each time and I couldn't sleep (during the second nap, about 10 people raided the room about 5 minutes into the nap). I also danced pretty hard while I was partying. The aftereffects of this was that I crashed the next day, sleeping for around 10 or so hours (the most I've had if forever it seems like). Getting up afterwards was pretty miserable, but I managed, and I suspect it will be a couple of days of tiredness to get back into the groove.

Looking forward to it!!

Day 31

I've noticed the last several naps since yesterday have been very iffy (if that is a word). Frankly, I just haven't been tired when I need to go to sleep, and I've been lying awake (yes, I'm still going to bed at the scheduled times) until the alarm goes off. A couple of the naps were not in my normal resting place though, and that may have been part of the problem at least for those ones.

I finally got super tired around 12:30pm, and had the most wonderful nap. Feeling nice and refreshed again. Good thing, cause the phones have been off the hook this entire stinkin day!!

30 Days on Uberman!!!

Woo Hoo! I am feeling about 90% adapted. Yesterday was mostly awesome and extremely productive. I'm excited about today.

Just woke up from my 1:30am feeling refreshed and went straight to work afterwords. Nap felt a lot longer than 20 minutes!!

Day 29

Well, the first nap of the day (1:30am) I ended up laying awake the whole time. Wasn't tired in the least. I've also noticed that I have had problems before at this time going to sleep, although usually I still fall asleep at some point. I realized this might be why I have so many problems with my 5:30am. It's like I skipped a nap. I am planning on inserting a nap at 3:30am to see if this helps. Crossing my fingers.

UPDATE:
My theory worked! I slept like a baby at my 3:30am, and I just woke from my 5:30am feeling the most refreshed I ever have for a 5:30am nap. Feeling pretty darn good right now!!!

UPDATE2:
Almost a perfect day. The entire morning I was not tired in the least. I was extremely productive. In addition to getting a lot of regular work done, I also cleaned the kitchen and did a load of laundry. My 1:30pm nap gave me another nice long dream. Everything was perfect up until around 8:30pm, when I began to feel increasingly tired. This was a first, as I normally experience this in the morning and never at night. I had a hard time getting out of bed after my 9:30pm nap, and I was quite sleepy (also a first). I went back to work, and I had a series of micronaps from around 10:30pm - 12:30pm. I don't remember struggling to keep awake at this time, I think I just caught myself several times waking up. All of this very wierd, as this is usually one of my most productive times. I suspect that this might stem from the fact that I had a rather large dinner earlier this evening. Much larger than I normally eat. It is possible that this had something to do with it. Let's hope so at least!!