So, one thing I hadn't really thought about until just now when it is getting a bit late in the day for it is how will my new schedule affect my Jewish observance. There are several ways in which is may be relevant, some of which I have sorted out, the others, still not sure about.
1) there are halachos about whether or not a person who has not slept in the past 24 hours is obligated/permitted to recite the "morning" blessings which are part of Shacharis. To the best of my knowledge there is no paticular psak halacha as to how much sleep qualifies as sleep. Fortunately, being sephardic, my minhag is that I say those brachos once every 24 hours in the morning, sleep or lack thereof not withstanding. Another question though, do I need to wash my hands upon waking up from every 20 minute nap? I suspect that perhaps I do. I will need to check and see what the shulchan aruch says regarding such things.
2) Shabbos starts in several hours. Normally, my shabbat outine is: go to shul, go to dinner, hang out until about midnight, or stay up reading, fall asleep whenever I fall asleep sleep until about noon, then daven, have lunch, go for a walk, take a nap, harass the cats until tzeis. On a good shabbos, I likely sleep 10 out of the 25 hours. Last night, i put my extra waking hours to very good use: I watched a movie, started my blog, did some chores, wrote some articles, did some work for a client, practiced violin until my fingers were numb... This mornign I went and bought some ingredients that I needed for making cat food (one of my boys needs a very particular diet and going through the trouble of grinding chicken necks beats cleaning up his accidents that come from eating standard kibble any day) thinking, oh great, here is a pjoect that will take a good 2.5 hours, requires no other people around, is quiet and other than grinding the meat grinder requires very little active effot on my part. Perfect for that 2am-6am block! Unfortunately, grinding food ( as well as cooking the quinoa) and almost all my other on my own night time activities involve activities that are prohibited on Shabbat. Tonight may prove to be a challenge, as I'm going to need to find some things to do with my time and, worst of all, I have scarcely any books here as they are all still in my lift and the book stores have already closed for the day! I may take a walk or two, maybe down to the kotel and see what is going on there? Going to need to be creative.
Other than these two particular concerns though, things are for the most part going well. I've had company for much of the day (my friend that came by last night only went to run her own errands while I was napping). I've certainly felt groggy for much of the day, with a sort of nagging feeling in the back of my head that really I should be getting some sleep. Also, it's rather a bizarre thought, still taking some wrapping my head around it, I sleep for very short stretches. normally I think of sleep as something that makes time go by faster. Not so much anymore. 20 minutes later just isn't a huge stretch of time. In some ways sleep is becoming one of the least significant things that I do anymore. Steve P. at one point discusses the urge to nap as take on a similar sense as that of going to the bathroom. The simile works here as well: much in teh same way that very few of us really think of going to the bathroom as a part of our waking schedule, it's something that the need comes we take care f it and keep going, similarly, sleep is taking on the status of just one more bodily function.
During the morning, as I posted earlier I was definately feeling groggy, now I feel a calm sense of peace. I know I'll be getting a nap in two hours, it will be short but it will help and then I'll get back to doing whatever I had been doing before. Yes, I'm tired but it's not an urgent tiredness. Incidentally, it sturck me that when I began napping I was having very vivid dreams during my naps, today though, none at all. in fact it hasn't been even all that clear to me that I've been actually asleep during my naps at all. The only reason I suspect that I have been is that if I hadn't been I jsut don't think I'd be anywhere near as functioning as I appear to be. Part II will follow tomorrow evening after shabbat is over.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Day 1
I first became interested in alternative sleep patterns based on a strip from xkcd.com regarding a 28-hour day sleep schedule. That got me looking at various other alternatives and eventually I stumbled upon the uberman sleep schedule, which theoretically allows a person to sleep for only two hours in every 24 by napping for 20 minutes out of every 4 hours. I got curious—part of me wonders, is it really possible? Various people claim it is both from their own experiences and from anecdotes of famous people that have done it. It appealed to my natural attraction to extremes, and furthermore struck me in several ways as a real personal challenge. The fact is, I love sleep, and love being asleep. Given the choice i will often and easily get about 9-10 hours of sleep. Furthermore, at some point in my life I developed a very low tolerance to sleep deprivation. All-nighters would cause me to have incredible migaines and stomach upset. In college, I *never* stayed up all night to work, because invariably if I tried, I would end up falling asleep sometime around 4am and would sleep through whatever had seemed so important the night before. As such, it has at times really felt like a liability to be so attached to sleep. Also, I've often felt like my day is so short that I scarcely have time to get anything done. I have a lot of interests: writing, Irish fiddle, reading, traveling, annoying my cats, socializing, that it just never really felt like there was enough time in the day. An extra 7 hours per day...well there's a lot I could do with that.
Toying with the idea for several days, including one thoroughly botched attempt (My first nap time rolled around and I just turned of my alarm and proceeded to sleep for 8 hours), I decided yesterday morning to give it a go. I had woken up from a ver satisfying sleep and proceeded to set my nap schedule. I would be napping at 2:00, 6:00 and 10:00 (note, that because this fits in a twelve-hour cycle, the times are the same AM and PM). Duing the daytime hours, It was hard to say if I was really napping or just lying there with my eyes closed, but there was something that felt truly delightful about taking 3 naps in one afternoon. My day was very productive, despite the fact that I was actually reducing my number of hours at the moment by 1 hour, what with all the napping. Nonetheless, particularly with less pleasant chorse (such as cleaning up after cats that had been somewhat neglected over the past couple of days) it was far easier to motivate myself to get things done when I knew that no matter where I was in the task, I'd be getting a nap in a couple of hours. I may have found my ultimate motivational tool!
Later in the evening, thigns got a bit more challenging. I was feeling great when my 10pm nap rolled around, and i excused myself fom some IM conversations with fiends back in the states to hit the hay. Duing the following block howeve, I began to notice fatigue setting in. I practiced fiddle for about an hour and noticed myself having difficulty with some tunes that previously I'd played a good 20-30% faster. I was, however, able to focus well enough to continue learning a new tune and make some fairly significant progress in figuring out the left hand fo the tune. I got an added energy boost when a close fiend stopped in (she was coming in from town and staying at my apartment) around midnight and volunteered to stay awake with me until my 2am nap. One particularly surreal moment came at 2am, when I went to sleep around the same time she was getting into the shower and ready for bed. When I woke up...she still hadn't gone to sleep!
The 2-6am block was more difficult. I watched a movie (mean girls) and also followed Steve P.'s reasoning and took an additional 20 minute nap halfway through the shift. Since the idea is not sleep deprivation but rather to rain the body/mind to get maximum rest in twenty-minute blocks, during the early stages it may not be a problem to add additional 20 minute naps in order to ease the transition. He seems to have had success with it, so I decided to adopt a similar pattern.
It is now 7:20am, and I am feeling decidedly groggy, but in good spirits. I'd been eating fairly often during the night (perhaps out of wanting something to do, as much as anything else) and now am feeling my usual sleep deprivation nausea and a mild headache (3/10). I may take another 20 minute nap at 8:00, though now that it is morning and places are opening here in J'lem, I can perhaps garner some extra energy or at least momentum by going out and running some errands that need to be taken care of. As far as how tired I feel: if I were driving a car right now, I wold most surely be looking for a place to pull over and get some sleep, but if I were hanging out with a good friend I hadn't seen in years, I'd cetainly be ale to stay awake and keep talking.
Toying with the idea for several days, including one thoroughly botched attempt (My first nap time rolled around and I just turned of my alarm and proceeded to sleep for 8 hours), I decided yesterday morning to give it a go. I had woken up from a ver satisfying sleep and proceeded to set my nap schedule. I would be napping at 2:00, 6:00 and 10:00 (note, that because this fits in a twelve-hour cycle, the times are the same AM and PM). Duing the daytime hours, It was hard to say if I was really napping or just lying there with my eyes closed, but there was something that felt truly delightful about taking 3 naps in one afternoon. My day was very productive, despite the fact that I was actually reducing my number of hours at the moment by 1 hour, what with all the napping. Nonetheless, particularly with less pleasant chorse (such as cleaning up after cats that had been somewhat neglected over the past couple of days) it was far easier to motivate myself to get things done when I knew that no matter where I was in the task, I'd be getting a nap in a couple of hours. I may have found my ultimate motivational tool!
Later in the evening, thigns got a bit more challenging. I was feeling great when my 10pm nap rolled around, and i excused myself fom some IM conversations with fiends back in the states to hit the hay. Duing the following block howeve, I began to notice fatigue setting in. I practiced fiddle for about an hour and noticed myself having difficulty with some tunes that previously I'd played a good 20-30% faster. I was, however, able to focus well enough to continue learning a new tune and make some fairly significant progress in figuring out the left hand fo the tune. I got an added energy boost when a close fiend stopped in (she was coming in from town and staying at my apartment) around midnight and volunteered to stay awake with me until my 2am nap. One particularly surreal moment came at 2am, when I went to sleep around the same time she was getting into the shower and ready for bed. When I woke up...she still hadn't gone to sleep!
The 2-6am block was more difficult. I watched a movie (mean girls) and also followed Steve P.'s reasoning and took an additional 20 minute nap halfway through the shift. Since the idea is not sleep deprivation but rather to rain the body/mind to get maximum rest in twenty-minute blocks, during the early stages it may not be a problem to add additional 20 minute naps in order to ease the transition. He seems to have had success with it, so I decided to adopt a similar pattern.
It is now 7:20am, and I am feeling decidedly groggy, but in good spirits. I'd been eating fairly often during the night (perhaps out of wanting something to do, as much as anything else) and now am feeling my usual sleep deprivation nausea and a mild headache (3/10). I may take another 20 minute nap at 8:00, though now that it is morning and places are opening here in J'lem, I can perhaps garner some extra energy or at least momentum by going out and running some errands that need to be taken care of. As far as how tired I feel: if I were driving a car right now, I wold most surely be looking for a place to pull over and get some sleep, but if I were hanging out with a good friend I hadn't seen in years, I'd cetainly be ale to stay awake and keep talking.
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