Biphasic Sleeping

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

I'm hungry

I wrote yesterday how I seemed to be less hungry. It's not true today, it's 12.14 and I'm starving. Yesterday I only ate 2 eggs on toast for dinner because I didn't feel hungry, I went to bed at 12.30 and woke up at 6.45 (I allocated 15mins to fall asleep) Maybe I didn't eat enough last night? I'm so hungry now. I can't wait to head out for lunch!

Monday, October 30, 2006

London - I can't seem to sleep in the first nap

So far the sleeping is going well, actually it's probably more appropriate to say the awake part is going well, but I'm experiencing two problems.
  1. I don't seem to be able to fall asleep during my first 90 minute nap. I'm not sure if this is a sound thing, or it just takes me quite a while to drift off, I find it takes me at least 1hr to fall asleep meaning I only sleep for about 30 mins. I'll have to try ear plugs for this nap and see if it makes a difference. I'm often grumpy when I first get up from this, and I think it must be down to the fact that I've not slept enough
  2. The second thing I've found is funny given one of the reasons I started sleeping like this is to give myself more time to do things. I run out of time when I'm awake!! It's 11.30pm now and I'm due back in bed at 12.30 already, but I really want to wash my hair, organise my wedding invites into countries to start sending and paint my nails. I'm easing my way into it. I will move to 4.5hrs in my second sleep this weekend and I'm really looking forward to the extra time already!!

This week is going to be interesting, I'm definately seeing the benefits already, but I worry about how this is going to work in reality. It's been fine til now, I've not had anything social on, but this week will be a test, I've got 2 nights out this week, so there will be no napping. I'll try to stick to 6 hr blocks, but I'll miss my nap... We'll see how it goes.

Anna

A New Blog is Fun!

Well, I'm in about week three of my biphasic sleeping trial, and I would say it is going very well. I had a little involuntary hiatus, and last night was my first night back. I took 3 days off, and I really missed my biphasic sleeping! I felt pretty tired when I didn't get up in the middle of the night. Weird, huh?
Last night, I went to bed around 11:00; woke up at 12:30; went to bed at 2:30 and got up at 6:30. I was supposed to get up at 6:00, but my husband was cuddling me, so I had to be cuddled-oh the sacrifices we married women make... It was the first night that I went with only 3 hours as my second phase of sleeping rather than 4 1/2. I really enjoyed my time awake! I really could have gotten up at 6:00 without any problem, and I really feel refreshed today! One difference I did notice was that I had a harder time falling asleep the second time than usual. When I say harder time, I mean it took maybe 20 minutes. I usually fall asleep within minutes, and I felt like I needed longer to wind down last night/this morning. I read my book but still didn't quite fall asleep. Then Keira (12 month old) decided to wake up around 3:00, right as I fell asleep, so that kind of put a kink into things, but all was fine!
What did I do during my awake time?
Dishes, laundry (3 cycles!), blog, e-mail, print off pictures and frame them(about 10 pics),pilates, make and drink coffee (I drink about 5 okay: 10 cups a day: it has nothing to do with biphasic sleeping. I just love coffee) ate breakfast, ironed my scrubs, read my book, and watched the news.
Josh didn't stay awake with me after my nap; I think part of the reason was I was mean to him. I was a bit grumpy at the beginning of my return to my sleep schedule. I should be better tonight, so maybe he will stay up and watch a movie or play a game with me. We'll see!


Mari (in Nashville, Tennessee, USA)

London Sleeper

I've just started biphasically sleeping (is that a word?) and have been quite suprised at how little information I've found on the net about it. There is plenty of information available on polyphasic sleeping, but that just seems to impractical.

So, I thought Mari and I could record our sleeping patterns, we can compare each others, and if others are looking for examples, our records might be useful.

I started biphasic sleeping about 5 days ago, basically I was fed up with never feeling like I got enough sleep, it seemed that no matter how many hours I slept for, I always hated getting up, felt really lethargic for ages and quite honestly was a bit of a morning bitch.

So far so good, I'm feeling refreshed, wake up alert and happy (my fiance loves this benefit) and really enjoying having time to be productive. A brilliant effect has also been that I'm less hungry. Mari do you find that too?

The principles are not that far fetched when you think of the Spanish and their siesta's. They siesta during the day, then socialise into the evenings, and are still able to start work at 9am like everyone else. We are very conditioned to having 8 hours sleep every night, but it just doesn't seem needed.

The basic principles of biphasic sleeping is to take a 90 minute nap, get straight up and then sleep for a 2nd phase for a period of either 3, 4.5 or 6 hrs. The point is, it must be in 9o minute blocks.