Quixotic Quandry

Tiredness Flip

Much to my surprise my tiredness trend has almost completely reversed. I’ve included the graph below but basically I have now been feeling more tired after the earlier naps and feeling less and less tired after the later nap. It is very strange and not what I expected. Perhaps my body is experiencing some sort of sleep deprivation see-saw and it is trying to balance itself out.

The nice thing though that is coinciding with this flip is that I have actually been able to fall asleep more quickly, especially during those earlier naps which I had felt completely awake for. Though, nearly all the naps I have felt some level of awareness. It is akin to meditation when I have to empty my brain for the naps. I was never much of a napper before this experiment and it appears as though my body typically needs a cool down as I fall asleep. So when I try to dive into a nap with no cool down beforehand, it is a little more difficult to empty my brain of thoughts and just sleep. That said it looks as if I am adjusting and it will likely even out soon.

Projected Projects

One of the primary reasons for switching to this sleep pattern was to pursue my many projects. This is my focus during every very long day and it is starting to feel a little daunting but I’m still so excited by what I can do in a day that I have been powering through any second guessing of my personal drive. I still am very happy with how this is going. I am still shocked but I have eased right into this as though it were meant to be my natural state. Of course, this weekend should be more interesting because my awkward nap times will probably end up making it more difficult to make plans but other than that, life is good. I shall keep on working on things. Aside from the initial transition, I’m finding less and less significant events to post about already. I know I said I would try to post every night, but at this point, it’s honestly been pretty smooth sailing. I think I’m going to make the switch to a weekly post which will go up on Monday mornings starting now. It’s a better use of my oh-so-precious time, right?

Triage

That brings me to Triage. I want to translate the concept of Triage to how I decide what to use my time for through my awake phases. Triage, for those who are unfamiliar, is the medical term describing the process of determining the priority of patients’ treatments based on the severity of their conditions. Real world triage is much more serious than me deciding what to do each day, but it is an interesting concept to have in your mind when trying to prioritize in your own life. When it comes to various intriguing events or taking in new forms of entertainment I have learned that I really need to evaluate how much value these things are actually adding. Yes, there is a small chance that by doing A I will gain some insight into something new. But if I do B, perhaps I will have more time and energy to dedicate to something that is ultimately more important to me. This is a concept that is worth exploring whether you are changing your sleeping patterns or not.

Final thoughts

Perhaps I am unrealistically optimistic about how perfect this situation is right now. I have a feeling I will reach a point at which many of my friends and family will want to extricate me out of this way of living and I will be stubborn and frustrated. I will inevitably question why everyone has to fit into the standard way of sleeping.

It is funny how accepting we are of many very different cultures and intellectual concepts but when it comes to something so primal and instinctual as sleep, people get very upset and defensive not for their own sake but for sleep itself, as though it were some living and breathing best friend. It is intriguing to me that people hold it with such high regard. Whenever I’ve brought up this experiment, there are some people who are downright insulted. How could you do that to SLEEP? And it is not as much a lack of open-mindedness as it is a pure and simple love for sleep. I really do enjoy sleeping. Every once in a while (specifically back in my monophasic days) I would oversleep for way too long. And I loved and embraced it for what it was. However, that is not the norm for me. I usually can pop right out of bed, especially when I have something exciting to do. That was really the turning point for my relationship with sleep. When I had a horrible job, of course I didn’t want to wake up. Sleep was this amazing world that kept me away from that. But then I realized that when there is either an exciting job or you add a greater level of excitement to your daily life, you have more reason to get out of bed and do fun things, regardless of how tired you think you are.