Add polyphasic-sleep-schedule-week-1

content/personal/2011/01/polyphasic-sleep-schedule-week-1.html

@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+A week ago I started a [polyphasic sleep schedule][schedule]. Its been a tough
+week, I feel like I'm am adapting but I'm still very tired part of the time. I
+tweaked my schedule early on to shift all the naps later by half an hour so as
+to better fit them in with work and my hour long train trips to and from work.
+The revised schedule looks like:
+
+[schedule]: /personal/2011/01/polyphasic-sleep-schedule/
+
+<table class="left_headers">
+  <tr>
+    <th>Core Sleep</th><td>11pm -- 2am</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>Nap 1</th><td>7:30am</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>Nap 2</th><td>12:30pm</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>Nap 3</th><td>5:30pm</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+The three hardest parts of the day are the 2am wakeup and the train trips. I've
+managed to get up right on 2am only 3 out of the 7 days. I now have three
+alarms for that time: 1:59, 2:00 and 2:01. Its still necessary to force myself
+out of bed when they go off and any delay results in sleeping in. Fortunately I
+don't sleep in for all that long, with the extra time ranging from 20 minutes to
+90 minutes.
+
+The train trips are hard because they are both at the tail end of a 5 hour
+awake period and sitting down initiates almost uncontrollable nodding off. I
+tried taking the naps on the train on two occasions. Whilst it would fit my
+schedule well to take the naps at this time they weren't of good enough
+quality. Plus there's the possibility of interruptions from the conductor
+checking tickets and I got a sore neck.
+
+I'm adapting to the naps in general though. Initially I felt I wasn't really
+sleeping during them whereas now I feel like I'm asleep for about 15 minutes
+out 20. The naps themselves feel extremely long. For the first few days I
+would keep waking up around the 15 minute mark thinking that I'd overslept. At
+this point I get tired about and hour and half before each nap and feel quite
+rejuvenated afterwards.
+
+The first day was very difficult. I think I was already tired when I started.
+During the day I felt dizzy, light-headed and "sqinty". In the afternoon I
+ended up quite uncomfortable as I was dealing with the urge to fall asleep, a
+headache and the feeling I was going to be sick. Fortunately the nausea passed
+around 5pm and that made me feel a lot better.
+
+I have tried not to change my day-to-day activities to cope with the tiredness.
+As a result I'm still riding my bike to and from the station each day, mowed
+the laws on Saturday, took [Ruby] for a long walk on Wednesday and attended a
+Australia Day get together.
+
+[Ruby]: /personal/2010/12/border-terrier-puppy-ruby/
+
+Appetite
+--------
+
+Being awake more has certainly increased my appetite and not just during the
+time I wouldn't normally be awake. Across the whole day I feel I'm eating more
+and getting hungry more often.  I have also switched to decaf for my morning
+coffee.
+
+What I'm Doing With the Time
+----------------------------
+
+One of the questions that people ask me when I tell them about the schedule is,
+"what do you do with the time?". This is a question that didn't even cross my
+mind when considering starting the plan. To me its just obvious that having
+more time means more time to work on all the things that I don't have enough
+time to do. Some of the things I've done so far:
+
+* Watched screencasts about [CouchDB] and [Padrino].
+* Started a CouchDB backed [Rails] application to learn more about that.
+* Released a [node.js XML generation module][genx].
+* Written five blog posts (a record for one week).
+* Kept our expense tracking software up-to-date.
+* Processed and uploaded [photos].
+* Played with [Bella].
+* Caught up on RSS.
+* Made the Radiopaedia iPad app run as a universal app.
+
+[genx]: https://github.com/wezm/node-genx
+[CouchDB]: http://couchdb.apache.org/
+[Padrino]: http://www.padrinorb.com/
+[Rails]: http://rubyonrails.org/
+[Bella]: /personal/2011/01/russian-blue-kitten-bella/
+[photos]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/sets/72157625906833852/
+
+The 2am -- 6am stint has been my most productive. Once I shake off the
+tiredness after waking, which takes 15 -- 45 minutes I'm able to remain
+focussed and busy until about 6. Although on week days I have to stop around 5
+to get ready for work.
+
+Socialising
+-----------
+
+I've only attended one social event in the past week, which was a
+birthday/Australia Day catchup with friends at a pub. I took my midday nap 30
+minutes early and then the afternoon one in the car when we left at 5, prior to
+driving home. For this particular event the naps fitted in pretty well.
+
+Today I have a 30th birthday to attend. It starts with dinner and will likely
+kick on after that. I'll be taking my 5:30 nap at work and then plan to take
+naps about every 4 hours after that until I'm home and can resume the normal
+schedule. Its not ideal that I have to mess with the schedule during the
+adaptation phase but this is the reality of the situation.
+
+The Coming Week
+---------------
+
+For the coming week I want to focus on awaking on time at 2am and making the
+train trips more bearable. I'm going to try having a small amount of chocolate
+on the train as that has seemed to help shake off the nodding off feeling a
+couple of other times. Hopefully the naps continue to become more refreshing
+and the tiredness between them decreases.
+

content/personal/2011/01/polyphasic-sleep-schedule-week-1.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+--- 
+title: Polyphasic Sleep Schedule - Week 1
+extra: A summary of my first week on a polyphasic sleep schedule.
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2011-01-28 03:50:00
+keywords: 
+- sleep
+- polyphasic
+- schedule
+short_url: http://bit.ly/eVEmwi