After drinking last night, I was able to wake up at 7:00 am, but felt hungover and couldn’t convince myself to get out of bed (it didn’t help that is was a Sunday). I wound up getting out of bed around 8:45 a.m. still feeling groggy and tired. Hopefully this doesn’t mess up my day too much.
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A great nap! It was a bit noisy upstairs at the office and I thought I wouldn’t get any sleep at all, but it turns out after 5 minutes, I was long gone. Also, I accidentally set my nap alarm for the AM instead of the PM, but I woke up on my own just 1 min after it should have gone off. My body learns!
My next two naps also went extremely well. I felt 100% refreshed after my afternoon nap.
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I am now ready to transition to a 3 hr core, 3x 20 min schedule - netting 4 hrs instead of 5.5 hrs. I decided to wake up at 6:00 a.m. instead of 7:00 so I can make it to the office earlier. The only downside is it will be darker outside when I get up so the morning sun will be less effective at helping me wake.
2 Responses to “Everyman Sleep Schedule - Day 6”
Andrew,
What is your diet like? Do you drink any energy drinks/coffee/soda/tea (caffinee)? Have you been drunk on this schedule, and were you still able to only sleep 3-4.5 hours?
If once a week or so you slept for say 8 hours do you think it would mess with your abilty to keep to the schedule the rest of the week?
By Mitch on May 5, 2008
My diet hasn’t changed that much since starting the schedule. Before I started, I hadn’t been on a very good meal schedule, and ate when I had time or when I was hungry. Now, it is pretty much the same, but if I had to break it down, it would be:
- breakfast right when I get up
- lunch early afternoon (after first nap)
- snack afternoon
- small early dinner or late snack (around 6-7 pm)
- meal around 10 pm
- snack around 12 midnight
I have avoided energy drinks on purpose so to not mess up nap times, however I can have a couple diet pepsi’s and be just fine. This is going to depend on the person - if you think it will keep you from napping, be careful.
I have drank (alcohol) a couple times while on this schedule and it does make things more challenging. For one, if you aren’t fully adapted to the schedule, you will be tired in the evenings as it gets closer to bed time. If you introduce drinking, it will make it much harder to force yourself to stay awake as it gets late. While this isn’t disastrous, I suspect it will extend the adaptation time. And yes, it is hard to make sure to get up at the right time, unless you have external commitments to help.
But if you do sleep in, don’t worry. Both from what I’ve read and my own experiences, getting a full night’s sleep once a week will not hinder the schedule and can possibly help. When I have gone to bed early/ slept in, the following day I skipped my morning nap, but made sure to lie down for my next two naps regardless of whether I thought I’d actually fall asleep or not (I hear this is good to keep your body ready to go back on the schedule).
By Andrew on May 7, 2008