Today I am starting to feel the zombie affect. I’ve failed to adapt at this before, mostly because of scheduling. Right now I’m trying a 3-hour core with 3 twenty-minute naps. In my other attempts it took me several days before I could actually sleep during my naps. Well, I am already starting to sleep during my naps now. Why? I think it’s because in the first 2 days I didn’t do any naps, only the core sleeps, so my body decided that I really need any extra sleep I could get. I’m on day four and I feel like I did after a week of the last attempts. I’m getting the muscle fatigue, distractedness, and zoning out that I started to in the last attempts. Actually, I didn’t get the zoning out quite this bad until after a week had already passed in the other two attempts. So this is kind of interesting.

I decided to try again after speaking with a sleep specialist (physician). He thinks that it may be useful, but isn’t sure. Partially he told me that was because there hasn’t been enough research into polyphasic sleep. And he thinks that while I might benefit from being able to function on less sleep than I am now, it may not stop my drowsiness that I always have on monophasic sleep. And the only way to know, he said, was to try. And he warned me that it’s extremely hard to adapt to! He has also said that it can take over a month for some people to adapt. And that as far as he knows polyphasic sleep should not be done for more than a two to three months at a time, switching back and forth from polyphasic to monophasic or biphasic sleep. That last bit seems odd to me, since there are several people I know of who have adapted long term, some for years. But he did mention Leonardo da Vinci as someone who did it for years, and he thinks that da Vinci was bipolar, and that’s why he was able to sleep the way that he did. And that the polyphasic sleep may have helped control that. Isn’t that interesting?

One thing I am noticing already is that while I don’t feel particularly tired, I tend to nod off if I am sitting too still and not being active. It might be necessary for me to get an exercise ball to sit on at the office, since the chair is too comfortable and easy to nod off in, thanks to complete body support. Oh, and I get distracted really easily. And I’m getting hungry quicker than I used to. All this after only four days!

I am being stricter with the naps, though. And it was nice to be able to actually sleep during my morning nap today. The noon one is the one that I’ve always had the hardest time falling asleep on, though. We’ll see how that goes over the next few days.

Well, the polyphasic sleep attempt has officially failed. I slept monophasic pretty much from the 4th of September to today. The big issue is that it`s very hard to schedule naps around any normal social and business life. Our society and the expectations of others are directly affected by our sleep lifestyle. I suppose I could have tried harder - partially by letting others know what I was doing. I really kept my mouth shut about that to everyone around me. I am thinking of trying it again soon, though. I wonder if changing my diet to a completely natural food diet might help. When I reflect back to when I was successful at this (back when I was in university) I realize that my eating habits were quite different then.

I really did eat almost completely natural foods at that time. Chocolate was, of course, the exception. And when I ate at my mom's house. I wonder how long it would take for my body to feel the full advantages of such a diet? Of course that would mean no processed pasta (and I love pasta!), nothing from a can, no breaded meats, only whole grain flour (and home-baked, at that), and no processed juices, either. It would have to be a more primitive kind of diet, like something that would have been eaten a couple thousand years ago (but with better cleanliness habits, such as pasteurization and proper cooking of foods).

There are those who advocate a raw food diet. Personally, I think that is a bit of hooey. There is nothing wrong with eating cooked foods. In fact science has shown that for certain foods, such as eggs, we are better able to process and digest the nutrients therein if the food is cooked beforehand. And you're never going to see me eating raw basa (it's a type of fish), although sashimi grade salmon and tuna might be okay. But most raw food advocates are vegans, which I know I could never be. I like fish way too much! So, I am goign to change my diet, gradually of course (I'm not throwing out any groceries I currently have), to be more of a natural food diet.

And then I'll try polyphasic sleep once again!