Thread: Starting the Everyman Sleep Schedule

I'm starting the Everyman Sleep Schedule on Monday, 12-21-09. (I had a failed attempt at Dymaxion over the summer, so I have some idea what to expect as far as difficulties with the adjustment period). I'll have a three-hour core sleep from 12:00-3:00 and three 20 minute naps at 8:00, 14:30, and 19:00. I'm doing some basic research on sleep deprivation, to find out what the symptoms are and to know when I should be worried and stop; the adjustment period by definition involves sleep deprivation, but I want to know when it's going to far or if it's getting better. Also, it'll be interesting to have some statistics after the adjustment period, to see if I'm doing better than on monophasic.

Effects:
-Decreased problem solving abilities
-Hallucinations
-depression
-heart disease
-hypertension
-irritability
-slower reaction times
-slurred speech
-tremors
-weight gain
Source: http://www.sleep-deprivation.com/art...tion/index.php

Hypertension (or high blood pressure); I can measure this one! I have a unit for measuring blood pressure levels. I'll take my blood pressure twice a day, starting the evening of 12-19-09. I found charts for what's considered normal vs. high blood pressure (based on age, etc.)
Source: http://www.disabled-world.com/artman...urechart.shtml

Weight gain; Another measurable effect, but maybe slightly more long term. I'll weigh myself once a day and record that as well. In the meantime, the site clarified that a sleep deprived person may feel hungrier without being satisfied with what they eat. This I'll pay attention to, though in the same way that I'm paying attention to depression or irritability. (Note: during my last attempt, I generally had cravings for healthier foods. Also, I was eating more often, though smaller portions. Change of diet will have to be taken into account, as well).

Slower reaction time; This should be interesting. I found some tests for determining reaction time, which I've never actually done before. There's an virtual one here; http://getyourwebsitehere.com/jswb/rttest01.html I'll test this twice a day and record the score (which is the average of 5 tries). I don't know how accurate this is going to be. I guess it's assuming my internet connection stays at about the same speed...but it'll be good to get a general idea. If anyone knows of another type of reaction test (like maybe not virtual), let me know

Hallucinations & tremors; I should be able to tell if I get these. I decided to stop my last attempt when I started to have hallucinations (it was more than two weeks into the adjustment; I figured I shouldn't be seeing the effects of sleep deprivation that late in the game). Slurred speech might be a little harder to detect (I bumble over words anyways), but if it's a strong enough effect, I'll know.

Depression & irritability; These might not be scientifically measurable, but I'll note if my mood starts to be significantly different from usual.

I'm getting one last full night's sleep, then starting in on the schedule tomorrow. I've stopped my caffine intake, started an activities list, did some more research, and found a polyphasic Google group: http://groups.google.com/group/Polyphasic . I'll join that soon, I think.

Also, I took some stats. These were taken today, while I'm still on monophasic, so it'll give me something to compare future stats against. Weight: 118.8 lbs (body fat 18.1, if that matters). Reaction time (average from the virtual test): 0.3446 seconds this morning and 0.355 this evening. Blood pressure: 123/68 & pulse 75 this morning, and 119/62 & pulse 65 this evening.

And now to sleep.

12-21-09
Slept in this morning, as planned. Then I took my first nap.

Morning stats:
weight-118.4
BF (body fat)-18.0
blood pressure-109/70
pulse-60
reaction time-0.3426

Evening stats:
blood pressure-110/59
pulse-60
reaction time-0.3452

14:30-14:50
I actually started to fall asleep in the last two or three minutes! I know because I was surprised by that sudden "back to waking reality" feeling when my alarm went off, and I'd been seeing/hearing random stuff. This is already better than my last polyphasic attempt over the summer, where I couldn't seem to take very good naps for the first day or two.

19:00-19:20
Drifted in and out of sleep kind of. Don't remember any dreams, but it felt like rest, at least.

12-22-09
Morning stats:
weight-118.6
BF-17.9
blood pressure-113/68
pulse-63
reaction time-0.3376

Evening stats:
blood pressure-118/57
pulse-67
reaction time- 0.3354

0:00-3:00
Just finished my first core sleep. Definitely slept and definitely had dreams, though I don't remember them right now. I managed to fully wake up in five or ten minutes, which is a lot better than I usually do in the morning Overall, I'm feeling pretty normal so far.

8:00-8:20
Good nap; fell asleep for the first ten minutes, which seemed to last a long time, then the second half of the nap went by really quickly. I was pretty tired right after waking up, but I just jumped out of bed and took a shower, so now I'm even more awake than I was before the nap.

14:30-14:50
Pretty non-descript nap; eventually fell asleep, but I don't remember any dreams. I was starting to feel tired between the 8:00 and 14:30 naps, but I kept myself occupied and didn't notice all that much.

19:00-19:20
Fell asleep for the first 15 minutes, woke up briefly and checked the time to make sure the alarm hadn't gone off yet, then went into a light sleep for the last 5 minutes. I have a slight headache, which generally means I'm tired and/or hungry. I'll see if it goes away after I have dinner.

12-23-09
Morning stats:
weight-118.8
BF-17.9
blood pressure- 103/63
pulse-61
reaction time-0.2654 (I did this test on the computer at the library because my internet connection at home is down, so this probably isn't an accurate comparison to other times I took the test).

Evening stats:
blood pressure-115/60
pulse-69
reaction time-0.3332

0:00-3:00
Hard to wake up, at first. Strangely enough, just the act of doing something, even though it was just cutting paper for a craft project, kept me alert. It's like it was just enough to make me forget being tired.

8:00-8:20
Slept for the first 10 minutes with light dreams, then woke up briefly and checked the time (I'm starting to notice a pattern here). Went back to sleep for the rest of the nap, almost as asleep as the first half of the nap.

14:30-14:50
Fell asleep fairly easily. Woke up to my alarm right away, but didn't hear it as distinctly as I did during my previous naps (where it seemed louder than usual).

19:00-19:20
Really tired about 40 minutes before the nap, but I actually felt perfectly normal just after it.

Cool, I've done the everyman before while I was doing nightwatch on a tour boat. I had a good three or four hours to sleep every night then 20 minute naps throughout the day. I felt great.

It's great that you're starting it now, I'm going to try it out again starting tonight, but I haven't really planned it out very well. I'll just try jumping in.

Thanks for recording your experiences in such detail. It should be interesting if you keep it up for awhile to see how things go. I was doing some reading, and there are many people who report that they get a lot out of this sleep cycle and are putting themselves up as candidates for research. They believe more studies should be done and so do I.

So anyway! I think you should be getting up soon! Best of luck

-Braeden

Hi there,

Firstly, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. As awkward as that might sound, I've been thinking of doing so for a couple days now but didn't find the time... Since I'm back at school, I've spent a quite some time working and the rest of it wandering on the Internet.
Anyways, as I said in my previous post, the schedule during vacation is difficult to support. The biggest problem is finding things to do, and even then you must find the motivation to do them.
Another problem I encountered during vacation is that I organized two parties in a row (the 31st and the 1st). In addition, the day before a good friend arrived and, as most people, she isn't on Everyman. Long story short, from the 30th to the 1st, I didn't have time to take naps. To compensate, I woke up at around 10a.m. (after going to bed at around 4:30) the 1st and the 2nd.
Needless to say, I was tired after that three-day episode! So the two next days I tried to have a full night sleep to recuperate, and that not possible. Anyways, I continued Everyman and decided to do a quick "reboot" from Saturday to Sunday: I slept (or tried to at least) from 6 p.m. to 10 a.m. I felt better afterwards and since then, it's been much easier to stay on Everyman.

Thanks for all

Ah...I thought I posted an update here a while back, but I guess I forgot I apologize to anyone who was wondering about the status of the attempt. Anyways, a couple weeks after my last post, I got a particularly nasty cold and could hardly sleep at all, let alone on schedule... which is how it usually goes when I get sick. I was off the sleep schedule for long enough that I decided not to try getting back into it until after finals. Now that the Spring semester's over and I've had a bit of a break, I'm getting ready for my next Everyman attempt! I'll make a new thread soon with my plans and I'll try to be more consistent with the updates.

One more post for this thread: I kept my stats in a spreadsheet, so it was easy to make some tables for the data. Attached is the visual representation of the data from 12-20-09 through 2-10-10 (with a few small gaps). My data collection kinda went downhill after that... oh well. At least I got the main adjustment period captured.

As you can see, my reaction time got generally faster. While this could have been because I got used to the test, it's a good sign that it didn't get worse. The weight and body fat...well it might have been the sleep schedule that made it go up or it might have been all the bad food I was eating. (I expected to get cravings for healthier foods like I did when attempting Dymaxion, but I didn't notice as big a difference on Everyman, maybe because it wasn't as harsh an adjustment). As for the blood pressure and pulse, I'm not sure exactly how to interpret it, except that it seemed to vary more later on and was steadier during the initial adjustment.

Cool data, thanks for posting it. I'm impressed that you recorded all that stuff. I wouldn't have thought to.