Polyphasic Sleep, Day 7; on napping

Up at 413 this morning.

On napping.  Some polyphasic sleep resources list careful schedules, with recommended times for naps.  I have not found many of them to be useful, except in pointing out the utility of spreading out short naps instead of taking one large nap.  For sleep with a core night period, the so-called "Everyman Cycle," sleep is suggested between 1-4am, with naps at 9am, 2pm, and 9pm.  I do not find this effective.

In my first polyphasic period in 2009, I tried to follow a similar plan, but found that the late night naps were extremely ineffective.  I often woke tired, and it would take 15-30 minutes of grogginess to regain alertness.  I did better simply skipping the late nap altogether, or trying to fit three in closer together earlier and then a long chunk awake before the core period.  Prior to starting that polyphasic experiment, I was going to bed at 10pm.  My first order guess would be that taking a nap too close to a time that your body associates with "bedtime" leads the body to think you are going to bed, and getting up 20 minutes later is a bit of a shock.

I also do not like the idea of having the naps rigorously scheduled.  Of course, it helps to have an idea of when you plan to take them so you can plan meetings and outings, but that should only be done when necessary.  Reading other blogs of people who attempt this, it is not uncommon to see them complaining of trying to stay awake.  Some say it is consistently after lunch for them, some say around 11pm at night.  If you cannot stay alert and functional, is that extra time doing you any good?  Why not take a nap?  The whole point of polyphasic sleep is the claim that a short nap can be as re-energizing as long sleep.

Today I was up at 0413, and I was at work before 0630.  By 0700, however, I was getting pretty sleepy.  So I took a nap.  I took another at 0940.  All of my naps are done with my cell phone as a timer, and last twenty minutes unless I wake up early, which is not uncommon.  I expect I will probably take another nap around 2pm, and be done with naps for the day, going to bed between midnight and 1am.  If I get tired in the evening, though, I can always nap.

If you sleep 3-4 hours at night and take 3 twenty minute naps during the day, you are running one 4-5 hours of sleep compared the the average 8-9.  Does 20 more minutes of a nap as needed make that much of a difference? Isn't it worth it if you can actually be alert for those awake hours instead of just sitting there nodding your head?

The goal of polyphasic sleep is not to only sleep 30 minutes every four hours, or every six.  The goal is to maximize alert awake time.  If you can't do anything while you are awake, you might as well give up and go back to normal sleeping.  If you want to be productive, accept the fundamental premise and Take A Nap!.