wezm.net/v1/content/personal/2011/02/polyphasic-sleep-schedule-weeks-4-5.markdown

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The end of week five on my [sleep schedule][schedule] marks the completion of
one month on the schedule and one week with only a single minor sleep in.
[schedule]: /personal/2011/01/polyphasic-sleep-schedule/
The fourth week was much like those prior to it. On schedule for a while then
a big sleep in. [Matt] suggested that it was time to make a change otherwise
this pattern would continue forever. The proposed solution was a second alarm
device out of reach, thus forcing me to get up. This had the added
psychological hack of not wanting to disturb Amanda and therefore providing
more motivation to get up and stop the second alarm before it goes off.
[Matt]: http://twitter.com/#!/matthewfallshaw
As mentioned earlier the out-of-reach alarm has been a success. I've been up
at 2am everyday since I started using it. The only sleep-in encountered since
adding the second alarm was after my first morning nap one day. I now use the
out-of-reach alarm for that nap as well.
I certainly feel like I'm adapting to the schedule. The last two days haven't
taken long at all to shake off the tiredness at 2am. During the day I'm
usually only tired as a nap approaches. There are still some extreme tired
moments though. The train continues to see me fighting to stay awake,
particularly the morning trip. In general my body feels physically tired. Its
one thing to be able to stay awake and be functional at work but another to
feel energetic riding my bike to the station.
Around the middle of this week I was very close to giving up the schedule.
Partially because of how I felt and also because of a planned night out on
Sat, in which my core sleep was right in the middle. Working the schedule
around late nights or the odd party is going to be one of the trickiest
things. This particular night has been cancelled so I'm remaining on the
schedule for now. I hope to see further improvements in tiredness and energy
levels in the coming week. Having been in a state of tiredness for the past
month there are times when I just want to have a nice long sleep and feel
fully normal again. However then I think about the huge amount of extra time
I'm getting and don't feel like giving that up.
The aim for the coming week is to continue to stay on-schedule and to
hopefully see further improvements to my adaptation.