Scientist's sleep experiment

Day 18

2006-07-09T16:32:00.000+03:00

Even though I managed to find a polyphaisc sleep schedule which suited me well I was not fully satisfied.

Last four days I have been doing monophasic sleep from 6am - 11am which is 5 hours of sleep and I am fully satisfied. With monophasic sleep I have 2-2.5 hours less than when doing polyphasic sleep but I manage to do much more.

I don't think I will do polyphasic sleep schedule this summer any more.

If I do, I will update here.

Thanks for reading!

Day 13

2006-07-04T13:41:00.000+03:00

Was working on new web page for Free Science Online yesterday and did not want to interrupt the work so I did not have any naps. Instead had one long sleep from 2am to 10am.

Today I am going to have naps when I feel a little tired.

Day 11

2006-07-02T12:12:00.000+03:00

To answer the question I asked myself before starting the experiment "Is 20 minutes of sleep every four hours enough for a scientist?", the answer is NO!
Twenty minutes of sleep every 4 hours is not enough for a scientist!

Main reason is that going to sleep every four hours interrupts the work I was doing and after 20 minute sleep I have to put the ideas back together again. Also I found hard to concentrate right after I wake up from the nap. So it took more like 30-40 minutes to get back on track where I left off.

The method of sleeping 3 hours a day is better and I am overall satisfied with it.

Today I have slept just 1 hour (in two 30 minute naps) and it's 12pm. I am soon going to have one 1.5 hour nap and then maybe another 30 minute nap.

Day 10

2006-07-01T12:05:00.000+03:00

I did not update the blog during the 10th day. Basically I slept around 3 hours in 4 naps.

After 10 days of experimenting I am convinced that the best method is sleeping when you get a little tired and not schedule definite time at which to have a nap.

Yesterday (this day, day 10) I felt I needed 4 naps and that's what I did.

Day 9

2006-06-30T09:09:00.000+03:00

Failed to sleep 1 hour at 4am, instead slept 4.5 hours until 8:30am. I did not hear the alarm clock. After waking up I noticed I had misset the alarm time.

Maybe it is not bad afterall to have one longer nap once or twice a week. I feel really great and read to continue studying.

Going to have next nap at 4pm.

4pm
Had only 30 minute nap cause it was just enough.

11pm
Had 1 hour nap. Feel great.

I am kind of getting bored writing this blog. I will probably not update it daily anymore.

Day 8

2006-06-29T10:54:00.000+03:00

I am going to change the schedule a little again and am still going to sleep 3 hours but will split these three hours into 3-one hour naps because I need my eyes to rest more.

6am
Had 1 hour nap. Feeling good and rested. Finished watching Guy Kawasaki's lecture (available here) and did some reading on C++ programming.

2pm
Had 1 hour nap. I feel it was a little too short but I have to keep up with this schedule to test it.

10pm
Had another 1 hour nap. I don't feel too good with this schedule.

Day 7

2006-06-28T10:00:00.000+03:00

Right. This is the correct method for minimizing sleep. Today again I have slept just 2 hours (from 5am to 7am) and I predict I will sleep one hour at around 5pm.

8pm
Hah. Haven't slept yet. My eyes are pretty damn tired but I am not tired myself.

11pm
Fell asleep over the keyboard while watching Guy Kawasaki's lecture on enterpreneurship. It's not that it was boring but it's just that I started feeling tired and my eyes were too irritated.

Slept 2 hours. That's total of 4 hours today. Not bad but worse than I want to be sleeping.

Day 6

2006-06-27T17:21:00.000+03:00

If I am correct, I have slept just 3 hours yesterday! One longer sleep of two hours and one one hour sleep. Wow! I am impressed. This is really good!

Today I have had one - one hour nap from 4pm to 5pm and one - two hour nap from 4 to 6am.
This means I have slept just 3 hours today as well and I have no plans of sleeping more today!
Both times I just kept adding 20 minutes to alarm clock until I felt ok to wake up.

I think I have found a good way of minimizing my sleep which is my yesterday's hypothesis of sleeping just when you get a little tired and not 20 minutes every 4 hours.

Day 5

2006-06-26T06:50:00.000+03:00

Today seems to be promising. It's 7am and I have slept just 1 hour today (that's 9 hours awake)

This night I overslept 1am nap just by 40 minutes and woke up at 2am. I got up at 1:20 am but felt that I needed a little more sleep to keep myself concentrated.

Before I went to sleep I watched 7th lecture of discrete math at ArsDigita university (read about free lectures at my other blog!).

I am feeling very well at the moment and I am going to take next nap when I feel tired. This seems to be the best method to minimize sleep. Take a 20 minute nap when you are tired and see how you feel when you wake up. If tired then take additional 20 minute nap, then evaluate your mood again and if necessary take another 20 minute nap.

This is just a hypothesis, I will see how it works today. I am taking next nap when I feel I have to.

9pm
After being up 15 hours I started feeling a little tired at 9pm so I decided to have 35 minute snooze. 35 minutes was not enough and I kept adding 20 minutes to alarm clock each time it went off until I was feeling so-so at 11pm.
Good supper made me feel super and I was ready to continue studying.

Again, I am taking the next nap when I feel tired.

Day 4

2006-06-25T07:23:00.000+03:00

I could not get myself out of bed at 1:20am this morning. Just couldn't. I felt extremely droopy and did not even decide to sleep until 6:40am, it happened automatically, my hand just turned off the alarm clock and thats it.

Summing it up I slept ~6.5 hours yesterday. Better than other days but still worse than doing just one long sleep each night.

Hope I slowly adjust to this schedule and I can go to 2-3 hours of sleep a day.

Going to take next nap at 1pm.

1pm
Skipped the nap. Did not feel tired at all.

5pm
Forgot about this nap and realized it only at 6:30pm, then I quickly went to have 20 minute nap which turned into 3 hour nap. Woke up only at 9:30pm. Next nap at 1am next day.

Day 3

2006-06-24T05:09:00.000+03:00

Okay, I failed again. 13 hours of sleep the previous day is unacceptable.

Today I am going to force myself to wake up, and not stay in bed or ignore the alarm clock.
As soon as I hear the alarm clock I will roll out of bed :)

Allright. Next nap at 1pm. (Not taking at 9am because I will not be tired).

1pm
Was not tired at all. No wonder after 13 hour sleep the previous night. Even though I wasnt tired I went to bed and indeed could not get asleep. Alarm clock went off and I rolled out of my bed.
Next nap at 5pm.

5pm
Still was not tired at all but went to bed anyway. Fell asleep after 10 minutes. When the alarm clock went off I really did not want to get up and almost decided to stay in bed for five more minutes. But the I remembered how much I want to adjust to this schedule and just got up and went to take shower. Now I am feeling great again. Next nap 9pm.

9pm
Got asleep very quickly, in a minute or two. 10 minutes into sleep I was woken up by a phone call. I quickly ended the conversation by telling I was sleeping and added extra 5 minutes to the alarm clock to compensate this distrubance. Waking up was easier than after the previous nap. J had supper before this nap and eating plays important role. Next doze at 1am.

Day 2

2006-06-23T06:27:00.000+03:00

It's 6:25am. I have no idea why I failed again. If doing monophasic sleep and not taking any naps throughout the day I can easily work for 18 to 19 hours a day at a computer and then sleep the rest of the time. As soon as I take a few naps I get tired and ignore the alarm clock.

I am not going to take 20 minute naps today. Instead I will try something different.
I will try taking 45 minute naps when I feel a little tired.

12am
Took 45 minute nap. Didn't want to wake up. Stayed 5 extra minutes in bed. Woke up pretty dizzy and could not later get myself to studying. Had a cup of coffee to revive. Forced myself to read two chapter of Stroustrup's Design and Evolution of C++.

4pm
Feeling tied, going to take another nap.
Update. Woke up just at 5am next day. 13 hours of sleep. Total 13 hours 50 minutes of sleep in day 2, that is 7 days of sleep on 20 minute schedule. Great.

Day 1

2006-06-22T16:47:00.000+03:00

Woke up at 8am, did not sleep the previous night (was up 23 hours) because was preparing for exam in numerical methods. Slept 7 hours this night. Should be enough to start the experiment fresh.

I have scheduled to watch Discrete Mathematics course for computer scientists from ArsDigita University (here is a link to the lectures) which will require constant concentration and attention.

Had two pork chops and five potatoes for dinner, two cups of green tea and ice cream.

4pm
Watched first four lectures. Boring. Knew 95% of the stuff covered. And the professor is not that great. (Update, he didn't seem too great at first 4 lectures, now I really like him)

Took 20 minute nap at 4:13 - 4:33. Feeling good. Did fall asleep for at least 5 minutes.
Ate a sandwitch before taking a nap and drank a cup of green tea. I drink only green tea. Some say it's good for your health. I somewhat agree. Based on my lifestyle (sitting at a computer 24 hours a day (when not going to university)) I have no problems with health whatsoever.

10pm
Watched lecture 5 of discrete math. Knew 99%. Updated my free science online blog.

Took 20 minute nap at 9:50 - 10:10. Feeling tired. Took five minutes to fall asleep, slept for 15 minutes. Before going to sleep ate a sandwitch. Now I am hungry again. Going to have supper in a few minutes.

12pm
Feeling very tired. Going to take 30 minute nap. Failed to wake up in time. Heard the alarm but ignored it. Next thing I know it's 6am, Day 2. Argh.

Repeating the experiment

2006-06-22T08:18:00.000+03:00

Allright. I have passed all the exams and have two months before the next term begins.
(I got As in the last two, btw)

It's 8:23am and I am starting the sleeping experiment again.
I have carefully thought over the schedule and and it is the following.

Since I will be spending all my time at a computer my eyes will get really tired. I felt this in previous experiment and to let them rest this time I will be taking two longer naps.
My sleeping schedule is going to be at 1, 5, 9 am and 1, 5, 9 pm. After both 9am/pm naps I will take 30 to 40 minute nap depending on how tired my eyes are.
As I mentioned before, eating is very important. I am going to eat as usual and whenever I feel hungry, plus I will eat a sandwitch 20 minutes before nap.

Day 4 (June 18)

2006-06-19T07:53:00.000+03:00

I really want to adjust to this schedule but it doesn't seem to work for me. At least last three days have been failure.

Today I am going to take only 6am morning nap.

6am
Slept for an hour at 6am morning nap. No good.

1pm nap
Had the next nap at 1pm and boy I overslept completely and woke up just at 7pm.

At this moment I am stopping the experiment because it either does not work for me or I am doing it wrong.

I will resume it on 22nd of June when I have passed all exams. Otherwise I will not have enough time to prepare for exams, sleeping 12 hours each day instead of 2 hours.
At the moment I am better off with 4-6 hours of monophasic sleep.

I noticed that eating plays important role. I will eat more when I resume. Also I am spending all the time at a computer and my eyes need to rest more so maybe I will have one longer nap in the middle.

Day 3 (June 17)

2006-06-19T07:49:00.000+03:00

2am nap
I felt a little more tired at 2am than usual so I set the alarm clock to go off at 2:27am which it did this time.
As I constantly have 3 computers on (when doing some CS research I have up to 6 computers on) it is pretty hard to get asleep because they make a lot of noise.

6am nap
6am nap went smooth and I decided to sleep 11 extra minutes and woke up at 6:40 (went to sleep 6:09).

10am nap
Totally failed at 10am nap. I got so drowsy that I went to bed at 9:15 am and woke up ONLY at 11pm. That's 14 hours of sleep!
I did not hear the alarm again. I am using my Nokia phone as an alarm.

Experiment is not going well at all. This is catastrophy. I have slept half a months sleep (planned for this schedule) in 3 days.

This probably happened because I had decided to eat after this nap not before it.

What I did:
Watched last 2 lectures of ArsDigita Applied Probability. Last two were lectured by some nice girl and she explained how probabalistic MRI Imaging is done.
Read Joel Spolsky's latest article on Bill Gates at http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html
Read ZorbaTHut's answers to questions about working at Google at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1892424

Day 2 (June 16)

2006-06-19T07:44:00.000+03:00

Basically yesterday does not count because I was tired from not sleeping on the day before.

Having slept 8 hours yesterday I am feeling great again and ready to start the polypasic sleep schedule anew.
I decided to change the schedule a little bit and shift the sleeps 2 hours so now they are at 2, 6, 10, 2, 6, 10 ...
This is because my parents wake up at around 8am and if I stay with the previous schedule I might not get a good sleep at 8am.

2am nap
First nap 2am. Lied in bed, did not get any sleep. Should not have had this snooze.
Next nap at 6am.
This is the second time I just lied in bed and did not get any sleep.
So a suggestion to everyone going to try this sleep schedule is not to go to bed for
a first few naps on the first day!

6am nap
At 6am drowse I managed to fall asleep for a few minutes and the alarm went off. Okay got up and watched some lectures.

10am nap
At 10am I fell asleep for more than 20 mins again and damn, I did not even hear the alarm clock. Either I forgot to set it up or I was just tired. Pretty strange :/
Woke up at 2pm. Feeling weird and disoriented. I usually sleep 4 hours and now I have slept, i dunno, 16 hours in two days.
It took a shower and good meal to readjust.

6pm nap
Did not take 6pm nap.

10pm nap
Nap at 10pm was also good and I fell asleep very quickly. I felt tired when the alarm clock went off but as I had read other people experiences with this sleeping schedule it is important to get up as the alarm goes off.

What I did:
Prepated for the exam, watched lectures 8 to 12 and reviewed lectures 1 to 7.
Watched first 3 of ArsDigita Applied Probability video lectures.
Also available free at: http://students.odl.qmul.ac.uk/aduni/index.php/11_probability
Basically these three lectures were complete crap because the instructor, whoever he was, had no talent for pedagogy. What he did was write everyting on top of previously written and just erase it again and say sorry and then do the same again.

Day 1 (June 15)

2006-06-19T07:40:00.000+03:00

(This was written on June 15th)
Today is my first day I am on polyphasic (Uberman's) sleep, sleeping 20 minutes every 4 hours, totalling 2 hours of sleep in 24 hour day period!
I have scheduled my sleeps at 4, 8, 12, 4, 8, 12 ...

Having slept 8 hours the previous night I feel really good and full of energy.
On the 14th of June I had an exam in Differential Equations and did not sleep that day at all
(was awake 24.5 hours, got an A+ in the exam)
I went to bed at 4pm June 14 and woke up 00:00 June 15.

4am and 8am naps
Could not get any sleep at 4am and 8am. Just lied in my bed for those 20 minutes.

12am nap
First failure at 12pm when I went to a nap having not set up the alarm clock.
Woke up at 8pm. Slept 8 HOURS!!! Grr. This is probably because I did not get any sleep
the previous day. Next nap at 12am, June 16.

What I did:
I have an exam on 20th of June in Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics so I started preparing for it.
I watched 7 Elementary Statistics video lectures from De Anza College. They are available free at http://sofia.fhda.edu/gallery/statistics/resources.html
The material is pretty very easy to understand and extremely boring because it is meant for students with no prior knowle knowledge of calculus :(

About me and Uberman's sleep (Polyphasic sleep)

2006-06-19T06:35:00.000+03:00

(This was written on 15th of June)
Starting today I have decided sleeping 20 minutes every 4 hours and continue this until September. This is called Uberman's sleep schedule (or Polyphasic sleep schedule).

I got inspired by this article at huro5hin:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720

and another person's experiment:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

About me:
My name is Peter and I am 21 years old.

Officially I study physics at University of Latvia but I am more interested in computer science and mathematics which I study on my own. I have done lots of programming for living but currently I am only studying.

I call myself a scientist because I spend all my time studying these three subjects in depth.

Uberman's sleeping schedule can be tough for me because my profession requires lots of concentration.

I am physically fit and healthy.

My regular sleep schedule:
I am used to sleeping 4 to 6 hours a day during working days and up to 6-7 hours on holidays.
I usually work until 3 am and wake up at 7:15am to go to university.

Why am I trying Uberman's schedule?
Basically to have more free time. I have several video lecture courses to watch from
AdUni and MIT OCW and I want to create a few cool open source programs and libraries.
(Check out my other blog about free video lectures online: Free Science and Video Lectures Online)

What am I doing at the moment?
At the moment I am studying for the exams (I have 2 left: probability theory and numerical methods and stability of partial differential equation).

What do I eat?
I eat regular food. I don't eat junkfood.
For example yesterday I had fried potatoes, pork chop, strawberry desert and green tea for supper. I eat stuff like this.