Averaging 5.0 hours/night.

I have been tracking my hours using "Sleep Tracker". The interface is easy and quick. The gap in the data is from my 5 night white-water canoe trip, and the following 2 days where I had switched to a (semi) monophasic pattern. Overall, since April 5th, I have averaged 5.0 hours a night. 

A little inconsistant, but getting there.

You might notice that on the 22nd of April, I shifted my morning nap from 5:30 to 4:30. That is because, with the lengthening day light it was starting to get too bright, and had concerns about my circadian rhythm being reset by the morning sun. 

I also notice from looking at this chart, that there is a clear penalty for inconsistency. For example on May 7th, I did not get home from a party until 1:00am. I functioned fine throughout the day, but paid for it last evening, sleeping 2 1/2 hours even though I went to bed at my usual time. On April 24th, I did not get my afternoon nap until 5:30pm, and slept through the night on the 25th. A short afternoon nap on April 19th is followed by a long evening nap.

I would likely have stronger gains (shorter overall sleep times) if I stayed more consistant. On the other hand, the inconsistencies arise from a desire to not let my schedule completely dictate my social life. In general, I am apparently willing to pay the average 10 days/year (.5 hrs/day) penalty to have an active social life. 

It will be interesting to see whether I can make my sleep schedule more consistant in the future through better planning, or whether these inconsistencies are going to naturally arise from my priorities of interfacing with the real world.

I am not good at monophasic sleeping anymore.

Just got back from a 5 night white-water canoe-camping trip with some friends. It would have inconvenienced the group to work around my afternoon nap and there is not much to do during the night, so I synced my schedule with the others and switched to monophasic sleeping. I was surprised to find that I had some real trouble moving back to a monophasic pattern. Although I was dead tired each night from a combination of hard paddling, very cold water (there was still snow on the ground in places), and several days of grey drizzle - I did not sleep through the night. I would go to sleep early (about 9:30 or 10:00) I would wake up at about 2:30 or 3:00 am and lightly drowze or read for about two hours, falling asleep in the early pre-dawn. I would wake up again, well after everyone else, around 7:00 am. So I was sleeping for a total of about 7 or 8 hours per day.


When I got back home, I tried to take my afternoon nap, but did not really sleep. I set my alarm that evening to go back to tri-phasic sleep. I awoke at my regular time of 12:30 am, but had a hard time waking all the way up. My vivid dream of navigating white-water conditions continued even as I was turning of my alarm and getting dressed. This half-awake, half-dream state was intense and bizarre. After 5 or so minutes of this I made the assumption that my mind was not done processing muscle memory of the trip, I went back to sleep, and slept soundly through the night waking at about 8:00 am.


I took a full 90 minute nap yesterday afternoon, and had no problem waking from my evening nap.


It looks like I am back into my normal triphasic schedule again.