Week three stats for your viewing pleasure:

Day - Core Sleep - Nap Total

• Day 15 (4/22/08) - 4 hrs - 1.25 hrs
• Day 16 (4/23/08)* - 3.75 hrs - 2.75 hrs
• Day 17 (4/24/08) - 4.75 hrs - 0.75 hrs
• Day 18 (4/25/08) - 3.75 hrs - 0.67 hrs
• Day 19 (4/26/08)** - 5.5 hrs - 1 hrs
• Day 20 (4/27/08)** - 5 hrs - 0.75 hrs
• Day 21 (4/28/08) - 4 hrs - 1.33 hrs

Average core = 4.4 hrs / day

Average nap total = 1.2 hr / day

4.4 hrs + 1.2 hrs = 5.6 hrs sleep / day

Skipped naps = 3 / 21

*On the late nap I set my alarm for the wrong time - slept for 2 hrs before waking.
**Went to bed 90 min early to make up for a missed nap earlier that day

Snoozing issue and alarm setting mistakes and recovery sleep (see **) have accounted for the excess time this week ( 4.4 hrs core / day rather than the target 3 hrs). I’m pretty happy with 5.6 total hours however. Hopefully it gets easier in the following weeks.

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To give you a quick summary of how my second week of the sleep schedule went, I have collected the following data:

Day - Core Sleep - Nap Total

• Day 8 (4/15/08) - 5 hrs - 1.25 hrs
• Day 9 (4/16/08) - 5 hrs - 1.25 hrs
• Day 10 (4/17/08) - 3 hrs - 1 hrs
• Day 11 (4/18/08) - 3.75 hrs - 1.25 hrs
• Day 12 (4/19/08)* - 4.5 hrs - 1.5 hrs
• Day 13 (4/20/08)* - 3.5 hrs - 3.5 hrs
• Day 14 (4/21/08) - 4.75 hrs - 1.25 hrs

Average core = 4.2 hrs / day

Average nap total = 1.6 hr / day

4.2 hrs + 1.6 hrs = 5.8 hrs sleep / day

Skipped naps = 2 / 21

*The two worst days of poison oak (I couldn’t stay asleep for longer than a couple hrs, but still tried to get as much rest as possible)

At this point, I’m still getting used to napping, but have been constantly improving the amount of time to fall asleep and the amount of actual sleep per nap. The poison oak was a pain (both literally, and in terms of the schedule), however I quickly got back into a routine. Another thing to note is the ease at which I was able to shift around my schedule to make sure I was fully rested for a conflicting trip to the airport.

I wasn’t able to bring down my sleep per day average, but that was mostly due to the poison oak - and an extra 2 hours a day ain’t too shabby. We’ll see how I do the next couple weeks.

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It has been quite a while since my last blog entry, and for that I apologize.

But in the mean time, I have been hard at work on two business trips - one to DC and one to Denver - both of which fully utilized (and depended on) the sleep discipline I have developed over the previous weeks.

As for things that might matter to you, I have kept track of every nap and core sleep since Day 1 and have been compiling week-by-week summaries of my sleep discipline history for further analysis and public scrutiny. I have finally gotten them in an organized format, so remember to check back in as I will be posting all of this soon - you won’t want to miss it!

Till then, happy napping!

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I hate wasting time, and I hate not falling asleep when I want to. I’d like to believe I’m in control of my body. I can generally move the muscles I intend to, I can usually silence my belches, and I never rarely soil myself anymore, but every so often when I desperately need to fall asleep, as if just to spite my achievements, my body will say in revolt “‘F’ you, you’re not the boss of me!” and I’ll wind up lying in bed for 4 hours and not sleep a wink.

Because of this, I’ve read up on and employed some tactics which have allowed me to consistently fall asleep quickly, regardless of how tired I am. Here are the some of the best ones for your viewing pleasure:

1. Create the right environment. If there are noise distractions, use earplugs. If it’s not dark, use an eye blind. Make sure you will not be interrupted by passers-by, phone calls, or other inquiries. Have a nice surface to sleep on. I like to use my sleeping bag for warmth when its cool, or just because it’s a soft clean surface to lie.
2. Clear your mind. Clearing your mind of any stressful or exciting thoughts is key to falling asleep quickly. If there is something especially interesting going on in your life you will need to make a conscious effort to do this. I like to go over everything I’m thinking of, acknowledge each one individually, and then move on to the next thing. If I need to, I write things down so I don’t worry that I’ll forget about them afterwards.
3. Deep breaths. I like to take 3 or 4 deep breaths after I’ve gotten settled to reduce my heart rate, relax my body, and help clear my mind in preparation for sleep.

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Building a Sleep Discipline schedule can be easy and fun. It involves balancing many factors including the amount of extra time you would like to have, how many naps you can fit in per day, how strict you expect to be with the schedule, and how much sleep deprivation you’re willing to deal with in the beginning. Below you will find a chart of these factors and a step-by-step guide to developing a Sleep Discipline schedule that is right for you.

Review this chart to help you determine the best Sleep Discipline for you. Notice that the more naps you take during the day, the less sleep you will need at night. Conversely, the shorter your core sleep, the more strictly you will need to follow your schedule. The less Total Sleep you get, the more severe the sleep deprivation in the adjustment phase will be, however the more sever the sleep dep., the quicker your body will adjust to the Discipline.

How to make a Sleep Discipline schedule:

1. Find 30 minute time blocks where you can quietly slip away and take a 20 minute nap every day. Ideally space the naps 3-6 hrs apart.
   • (What worked for me: My job allows for a flexible schedule so I can take naps at work whenever I’m not too busy to do so. I target - 11:30 a.m., 5:30 p.m., and 11:00 p.m.)

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So after a very busy Monday and Tuesday at work, there was a lull in the action today. I successfully made my first nap at the target time, however because today was a bit slower and I didn’t specify a length constraint of my naps, I convince myself to continue sleeping and elongated the nap to 45 minutes. Once I got myself up and was coherent, I corrected this mistake and in the spirit of my experiment amended my rules to not only limit the start times, but also limit the length of my naps to 25 minutes or less.

Successful naps for the rest of the day (on time and correct length). Ready for tomorrow.

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I was ridiculously tired on my drive in to work today - so much so that I took my first nap at 7:30 a.m. An interesting side effect was I didn’t feel the need to take another nap until well into the afternoon. 4 or 5 p.m. would have been ideal, however I was busy with work and the Sharks playoff game so I didn’t take my nap until 6:30. It was kind of an unexpexted nap - during the 20 minute intermission I just laid down on my mat with the TV was still on. With out a pillow or even my trusty sleeping bag, I just lay there expecting to be awake indefinately. To my surprise, within minutes, I was asleep with my face planted into the sleeping pad.

Waking up was facinating. I had worried that the sound of the television would keep me up. When I first woke up, I heard nothing and the first thought I had was “thats strange, someone came in and turned the sound off.” I then had the experience of having all sound slowly come to my ears. I had never known that my body/mind had the ability to literally block out sound while sleeping.

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Today went well.  I overslept by an hour because I had forgotten to set my alarm back to 6:00 a.m. after waking up later over the weekend. The good news is when I woke up I was wide awake within 10 minutes.

My naps went without a hitch for the most part.  I felt good all day, however I had an unusually difficult time getting up from my first two naps (on my last one I snoozed for an extra 15 min).  Up until now, I have been giving myself 23-25 minutes for my naps.  Since I’ve been getting better at falling asleep quickly, I am wondering if I a now sleeping too long which is leaving me grogy when  wake up.  So for my thrid nap, I set my timer for 19 minutes.  The result? … I woke up much more awake and alert compared to my longer naps.  From now on I will try to keep my naps to 20 minutes and see if it continues to have a positive effect.

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Notes:

One of the greatest benefits of this schedule is never wasting time lying in bed trying to sleep when I’m not tired. You know the nights when you desperately want to be totally rested for a big event the next day but just can’t seem to fall asleep? Never again! I expect the worst case to be

Not only have I learned to use certain tactics and tools to fall asleep quickly, but my body and mind have gotten very good at winding down with out thinking about it.

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Woke up at 7:00 am again, after 5 hours of sleep and Felt great all day!

I took my first nap at 11:00 a.m. and my second nap at 6:40 p.m. I settled down to take my thrid nap at11:30 p.m. but unfortunately I was absolutely wide awake. I didn’t sleep a wink.  That’s the 1st nap I’ve gone through w/o sleeping. I don’t expect i will be a problem as I feel fine at the time of writing (12:30 am) and plan on just staying up until my usual bedtime (3:00 am). Interestingly, I noticed I mind was extremely active (the reason I couldn’t sleep) I actually felt my mind was working more creatively than I could ever remember it being.

——

Before starting the schedule, I thought it would be weird if it actually worked, but now, 3 weeks into it, the transition has been so easy that I sometimes forget I’m doing anything unusual.

I am more convinced than ever that an extra 4 hrs / day is attainable by anyone as long as you have the desire to get more done.

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Woke up at 7:00 am after 5.5 hrs of sleep. Took my first nap on time (11:30 - 12:00), but had to delay my second as I was busy until 6:30.

I went to my parents hous for dinner and lay down for my second nap at 6:50 p.m. after being told I would be woken up for dinner in 15 minutes.  Since I knew dinner would be ready shortly and my mom is usually accurate about these sort of things, I didn’t bother to set an alarm. 30 minutes later I find Ashley [g/f] making her 3rd attemt to wake me.  No alarm and 30 minute nap = fail dog.  Lesson learned.

Since I had a late nap and was planning on going to bed a little earlier than usual, I decided to skip my 3rd nap and power through.

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