Sleep and Depression

I recently read that sleep deprivation can be a treatment for depression.

"Recent studies show sleep deprivation has some potential in the treatment of depression. About 60% of patients, when sleep-deprived, show immediate recovery, with most relapsing the following night. It has been shown that chronotype is related to the effect of sleep deprivation on mood in normal people; those with morningness circadian preference show an increase in depression-dejection scores while those with eveningness preference show a significant decrease." -Wikipedia

Apparently many depression medications actually inhibit REM sleep. I always thought that sleep deprivation could make you depressed, but I guess I was confusing it with irritability.

Uberman - Willpower

Well, I guess you probably figured out that I failed at my polyphasic sleep attempt. I think it was day 4 that I ended up on an unexpected campout and I really had a hard time coming up with things to do to keep me awake in the wilderness in the middle of the night and keeping the fire going got really boring. I ended sleeping for 90 minutes extra. I did the same the next night at home, and then the next day I sleep for 6 hours and gave up. It was completely motivational/willpower. I didn't feel particularly tired, but I couldn't remember why I wanted to stay awake. There wasn't anything that seemed important enough anymore. Thinking back, this was why I failed in my previous attempt.

So I guess I need to work on my willpower before I can go any further. Maybe I should record myself giving motivational speeches to myself. Maybe I need to come up with a better dietary plan. I also remember watching a news clip about a sleep study where only 10% of the subjects were able to go on almost no sleep without significant changes in their brainwave patterns. Maybe I am not one of those 10%. Maybe I am not cut out for polyphasic. I am not ready to give up yet.

Uberman - Day 3

Today there has been significant zombi-ness. At 2am I really wanted to take an extra nap, since Steve Pavlina did while adapting, but I finally overcame the temptation. Around 3am when I noticed myself starting to fall asleep, I pulled out the Nap Zapper from my list of ideas for keeping myself awake. It woke me up 3 times before I gave up trying to work on the computer. (My wife was disappointed that I didn't do a burpee each of those times, and I should have)

I spent a lot of the rest of the day out of the house or at least away from my computer chair. My wife suggested I come sit with the family for breakfast, but after nodding off a couple times I gave up on that. I am still only eating after my noon and 4pm naps. I sure get hungry in the mornings. I don't feel like I have low energy levels because of not eating, but I could be wrong. I just feel... like a zombie. Do zombies eat? Do they cease to be zombies for a while after they have eaten someone?

Anyway, I didn't oversleep at all today, but I had some significant sleep inertia after a few of my naps. In other words I was really groggy for a few minutes right after a few naps. Thankfully, my wife reminded me that I had a conference call at 8:30pm or I would have been even later for it. I didn't even understand what she was talking about for a while. But I have been feeling pretty good since then. I should be able to get rid of the grogginess by reducing my nap duration a bit, but I don't want to do that until I am less of a zombie.

At the end of Day 3 the nap score is Uberman: 16, Hibernator: 2. Over the past 3 days I have spent only about 8 hours lying down. That's around 16 extra hours I have gained so far. Unfortunately much of that time was spent as a zombie.

Uberman - Day 2

Right after my midnight nap I was feeling very tired and wondering why I was doing polyphasic. I wanted to lie down again, but I somehow found it in me to resist the urge to give up already. Doing some programming on the computer got me through it after about 30 minutes. I got back to feeling like I can do this. My wife woke me up from my 8am nap at about 8:45. Eventually I figured out what happened. The finger motion to unlock my ipod touch (which I usually have to do to silence an alarm) is the same motion for turning off an alarm if I am on the alarms page. In my sleepy attempts to silence an earlier alarm, I had turned my 8:30am wakeup call off. I overslept about as long on my 8pm nap also, but I can't blame that one on the ipod touch. I must have silenced the alarm and gone back to sleep. In the end the score was Uberman:10, Hibernator:2. Not the score I would like, but I think I can do better.

Uberman - Day 1

I got up at 12:30 this morning to start Day 1 of another attempt at adapting to polyphasic sleep (Uberman schedule). I have been so busy using up the extra time that I haven't taken the time blog about how it is going. I haven't been too worried about the first day because one day without any sleep isn't very hard, and with naps it is easy. I had forgotten how good a nap of less than 30 minutes can feel. Most of them have left me feeling great, but one or two left me a little groggy for a few minutes. My daughters were scared by a thunderstorm outside and I was feeling so good about how well my naps have been going that I decided to sleep on the floor in their room so they wouldn't be afraid. I didn't sleep very well, but I did get some rest. That time in the evening has always been my most difficult nap anyway. I am leaving myself no flexibility in terms of wake-up times from my naps. I have alarms at 12:30, 4:30, and 8:30 to wake me up and I don't plan to change them. I also have reminder alarms at 12:00, 4:00, and 8:00 to take my nap, but I take a little flexibility in how soon I lie down. Less than 30 minutes for a nap is probably better than the full 30 minutes anyway. Most people doing polyphasic seem to focus on nap duration, but I am hoping regular, precise wake-up times will be as or more effective. I will have to skip a few naps each week because of scheduling conflicts, but hopefully they will be very spread out. Anyway, I am excited to be doing polyphasic again and I am feeling good so far.

Book Of Questions - Sleating - Another Day

So I ended up going to Utah for some meetings. I decided that it wouldn't be a good time to start polyphasic. My new plan is to start on Monday June 1st. My Nap schedule will be 12:00-12:30, 4:00-4:30, and 8:00-8:30. I will do it for a month and go from there. Here are some of the things I plan to do to stay awake.

Only eat 12:30pm-3:00pm and 4:30pm-7:00pm. This way I will be on basically an empty stomach during the times I struggled with polyphasic on my last attempt. During the experimenting I have done over the last few weeks I seem to be more alert when I haven't eaten for a while. Oh and take a vitamin supplement.

Chew on ice. This is where I plan to get the commonly suggested 8 glasses a day of water. I am guessing that is a lot of ice, but I have never tried it before.

Bright light. I borrowed some powerful full spectrum photography lights that I will use to help control my melatonin levels among other things. I will try to keep 10,000 lumens from the lights or sun shining on me until one hour before each nap.

Wear a nap zapper when the sun is down and spray water on my face, sniff natural (non ammonia) smelling salts, break my personal record for holding my breath, do 5 minutes of accupressure, lick a 9v battery, do yoga alternate breathing, or do a burpee every time it beeps.

Stay standing. I haven't got to the point yet where I can fall asleep standing up. Sitting just invites sleep, and despite the fact that my body may tell me that I can stay awake if I just lie down for a minute, it is usually not true.

Listen to random sounds. When I was in a hotel lobby during one of my polyphasic attempts they had a big fountain that would change patterns occasionally. Quite a few times when I was nodding off, I was awakened by a surge of noise from the fountain. I need to do some work figuring out the best way to do this. It should include recordings of me reminding myself why I am doing this and encouraging me to keep it up a little longer.

Keep busy. My wife has been preparing a honey-do list of jobs inside and outside of the house. Some of them may require temporary removal of the nap zapper. Doing things on the computer might work as long as I am doing the other things on the list, especially standing.

Exercise. Jogging, biking, walking, jumping jacks, burpees, weight lifting, but nothing that involves lying down. Maybe EA Sports Active for the Wii?

Any ideas on other ways to stay awake?

Any other ideas?

Book of Questions - Sleating - Day 12+

My wife did a very good job of reminding me to blog on the days I forgot. On day 12, we both forgot. Sorry "Maker", thanks for the reminders.

So I never did say much about my attempt to adapt to polyphasic sleep. It actually went really well for about a week. I was trying to get a website working for a genealogy conference, so I had lots of motivation to stay up and do something. It was really interesting. I got to the point where I could fall asleep in minutes, at home, in the car, or most anywhere. Shortly after I layed down, I could feel myself "falling" asleep and was aware enough that I could choose to get up right then, or go right to sleep. I would feel great immediately afterwards too. Almost no sleep inertia at all.

Well, one night on the way to the conference, I couldn't figure out what to do without keeping our kids awake at a hotel, so I slept. I kept trying for about a year and a half or something, but I never did as well as I did that first week. I got to the point where I would crash and sleep through every other night. I guess like my blogging and spiritual things, once you skip it for a day, the next is that much easier to skip.

Anyway, at the suggestion of someone in the polyphasic community, I decided to give my body a break for a few months before I tried again. I can usually make it through the day without a nap now and am thinking of making another attempt on Sunday or Monday. Anyone want to try with me? We can call each other up in the middle of the night to make sure the other is awake. I have a week with no scheduled comittments, so it is good for me. If someone else wants to try it with me, but a later date would be better for them, let me know. Having a "polyphasic buddy" would be more important to me than an open schedule.

More details soon to come.