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Sunday, January 30, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 9 - 29th Jan

Evening 29th:
I was quite fine in the day but my business in the town took much longer than expected, then after coming back home and having something to eat I could get into bed at exactly 18:00.

I set two alarms today one for 1845 and one for 1945. I had been feeling a crunch of time, Saturday already gone and I had so much stuff to do that I hadn't even started on yet, so why not push this sleep thing further.

After last night's evidence of quick start of REM I was thinking let's try one of those 20 minute things. Plus, if I messed it up a bit and woke up really tired tomorrow from core sleep I had my Sunday to take a small or big nap in the day.

But it didn't work out like that. I hadn't even properly fallen asleep when the first alarm rang. I blame the cold bed which was just getting properly warm and comfortable. Since I had been out in the town, my hands and feet had been freezing cold.

So, I did what I had planned to do if I felt that I'd need more sleep. I turned the alarm off and went to sleep.

Then I woke up at 1955. My alarm was ringing, but it was the safe alarm. I had a vague recollection that the first alarm which plays an MP3 playlist, had played a song and I had easily slept through it even though I heard the song in my sleep.

No harm done. I had still slept less than 90 minutes so no oversleep issue. And I felt awake now, I just got up.

Conclusion: Let's continue biphasic strictly until it becomes the default mode for my body and then try to squeeze more time out of my day.

Morning 30th:
I am realizing something - there's a lot more to following biphasic than just going to bed at a certain time.

Had another bad night last night. It was my fault. Being busy in stuff, I didn't realize the time again and ate very late about midnight. Then even though I went to bed before 0100, I wasn't ready to sleep. So, I took another half an hour and then lay down to sleep, at 0130.

I didn't have so much cough tonight, but because of the late eating, I couldn't sleep. I saw 3 AM on the clock. Then after a while I did fall asleep. In the morning, although I woke up by the alarm, I didn't want to get up.

Part of it was the weekend feeling and part of it was the effect, psychological as well as physiological, of less sleep in the night. I woke up again about 0700 I think, and then again drifted off before I realized it. Finally about 0800, I decided to get up.

So, considering I slept after 3, it was not a long sleep, 5 hours or less. But lying awake in bed, in-between sleep and awake, that can't be good while training your body to enter REM state immediately.

So here's the plan. To keep following the schedule, but pay greater attention to eating times. Caffeine is already controlled with only tea with meals. Ah yes, I bet that was a big part of the problem last night. Hopefully, I'll have better results to report soon.

P.S. I did have long, vivid dreams, with very good recall in the morning. 

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