You might also like...

Monday, February 28, 2011

Religious songs

I am not religious any more. I don't believe in the hocus-pocus and the myths that are fed to the unsuspected sheeple. I still believe in some kind of a superconsciousness but I don't care to name it or go to the temple to offer it bribes for my puny, worldly gains. I think that's absurd.

But I still like religious songs - well, some of them. You can't really expect me to like the jagran songs that they fashion out of Bollywood movies songs! More often than not they are based on frivolous and even vulgar film songs. It's ludicrous.

However, over the years there have been very good, fiilmy and non-filmy religious songs that I do enjoy listening to or singing along. I seriously don't believe that it's the goddess Saraswati impacting my mind, but I do like the music, the poetry and the vibe I get from singing along just because I like the song.

Here are some examples, not an exhaustive list, but I probably won't have too many to add to it. These are not in any particular order.

Ramchandra keh gaye siya - from Gopi. (Love it.)
Mere rom rom mein basne waale ram (Always liked it. Sagar also mentioned it in his comment. It's a great song but I have no idea which movie it comes from.)
Shirdi wale sai baba - Amar Akbar Anthony (I like watching the video of this too.)
Madeene wale se mera salaam kehna - Coolie (Amitabh's performance in this song..bas gajabay kar diye!)
Jingle Bells - (Yes this is a religious song. All Christmas carols)
Deck the halls - (My favourite Christmas carol)
Guni jano hey bhakt jano - (More comedy than reglious. Kishore Kumar is awesome in this.)
Darbar mein oopar wale ke - Hera Pheri (Also comedy but great song.)

As you can see, I don't care what religion they belong to as long as I enjoy the song.

Biphasic sleep log - Day 38 - 27th Feb

Evening 27th:
Sunday evening and I was up to my usual tricks, but at 1800 I had to disengage from the rest of the world and take downtime. So, it was a little late and I took the nap from 1810 to 1840. 10 minutes are usually quite sufficient to fall asleep now.

At 1842, I woke up by mobile alarm and felt like I could go for some more sleep. But at the same time I could also feel that that would be just pure indulgence as my mind was already fresh, I didn't need any strong will-power to get up and I felt rested. So I just got up and resumed my mischief that I had suspended for my nap.

I find that it's hard to just put everything on hold only for a nap, but I am managing to do it so far because I follow it religiously. Also, I AM enjoying the benefits of biphasic already so I find it easy to justify (to myself) my devotion and dedication to the formula.

Morning 28th:
I am happy to say that after 2 days of 1 hour delay in going to bed last night I went to bed on time, at 0100. I set the alarms, perhaps foolishly, for 0430 and 0500. I wanted to wake up at 0430 and see if I felt like getting up.

I did wake up by it, but didn't feel like getting up, so went on to sleep another half an hour. This part maybe more psychological - feeling that more sleep means more rest, as we know it's true.

I do feel a little bit tired but not seriously sleep dep. And we all know what Monday mornings are like. So, I am expecting to feel better by late morning.

The 4 hour thing doesn't feel like working so far, so I am considering 3 options:
1. Go back to 4.5 hours core.
2. Try 3 hours core and see if that works.
3. Continue with this and treat it as another thing to get used.

I am leaning towards option 3 as I want to reduce my sleep gradually to allow for that psychological factor.

Biphasic sleep log - Day 37 - 26th Feb

Evening 26th:
I had a busy day and realized about 1600 with a shock that I had a nap coming on soon. Owing to the fact that I had a late lunch between 1600-1700 and that I was in an important discussion with Sagar on voice, I didn't go down for my nap until 1840.

And then overslept. My alarms did disturb me, but I did something to them, I don't fully recall what, and finally woke up at 2102. This oversleeping I did regret. If I oversleep on my naps and core sleep, I don't feel like I am gaining as much time in my day. And that's important to me otherwise I feel overwhelmed with all the projects I have on my hands.

Now, I am not sure what time to start core sleep. I am thinking of starting at 0100 just to keep it consistent.

Morning 27th:
Again I got stuck in SL and finally slept about 0200 with an alarm for 0600. Woke up at 0312, back to sleep and then at 0611 by the alarm. Didn't need a lot of will-power to get up. Did feel a little tired at first but then it got better.
Mind was very fresh even from the beginning. But I think report this usually that my mind is clear even when sometimes I am tired physically. I think the reason for that is that I don't soak my brain in alcohol every weekend and don't do any kind of drugs. Hence, my mind is usually clear and operates on full capacity. My mind is NOT clear when I am sick with fever, have a headache from cafeine withdrawal or have serious sleep deprivation.
I can report already that I didn't need the noon nap which was backup plan in case I felt too tired from just 4 hours of sleep.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

AH's internet connection

You should read this post by AH (I wish she'd give me her proper name, I don't really like calling a pretty girl AH like she's some kind of an android..but we digress!)

Read it only if you know Hindi as this is her bilingual poem on her loss of internet connection.
http://dilkibaatblogkesaath.blogspot.com/2011/02/fultu-bakwaas-kaha-gaya-mera-interenet.html

While my heart goes out to her in her distress (losing your internet connection can be very traumatic for a 21st century person), I am also impressed that she channelled her pain into this creative process and came out with a nice poem. Well done!

Remember when I did that post on my poem that was the result of a toothache? Of course you do. Well, this reminds me of that. According to an old quote we admire in others when see something of our own in them. Maybe that's why I like this post? But still, she did good.

Biphasic super powers

Remember I said that unlike polyphasic you don't get any super powers in Biphasic? Well, I noticed something cool today.

I was sitting in my office feeling so bored that I felt sleepy. Yeah, I need to be constantly challenged otherwise I get bored very easily. And these days I have no challenging work. It frustrates me, though it does get more blog posts done, I have to admit but....anyway, we digress!

As I was so bored that my brain was slowing down, and none of my roommates were in their seats so I could't start a conversation, I decided to lean back and close my eyes.

And then opened them with a jerk. Only a couple of seconds had passed but I realized with surprise that I was coming out of a dream. And no, this was no Rip Van Vinkle story, I had only closed my eyes only for a couple of seconds!

So, I tried again. Sure enough, I was in a dream. A different scene, but still a dream. I opened my eyes. Awake. Still empty room.

Being a scientist at heart, I decided to experiment again to see if the results were consistent. Close eyes. Dream scene. Yet another one! Open eyes. No problem.

I found that I could go into a dream as quickly as closing my eyes and I had enough volition (almost 100%) that I could open my eyes and just come out of it. The quickness of the dream images would suggest hypnogogic imagery but the images were stable, moving scenes with a theme like a normal dream. Since I opened my eyes quickly every time there was no development of a story in any of them, but the scenes all had the potential to develop into a full story and I did remember the scenes every time after I opened my eyes.

Just to clarify, it was not like sitting there with eyes closed and dreaming, it was more like nodding off for 2 seconds and entering dream state immediately. But being able to open my eyes almost entirely at will, that's what made it like a super power!

Make of it what you will, but if you try this, I suggest you remember this one important rule - "With great power, comes great responsibility!"

Biphasic sleep log - Day 36 - 25th Feb

Evening 25th:
The day was fine in terms of energy levels and I was home early at 1730. But when it came time to nap, at 1800, I could easily fall asleep. I think the nap was about 10 minutes longer today. I find it hard to do the time arithmetic before and after the nap unless I write stuff down somewhere.

Other than that mood and energy levels as usual great. I made one change today, that I had some tea. The choice was not based on temptation. I had had to reconsider my 100% abolition of caffeine from my diet for tea. Here's my reason.
1. It was brought to my attention tea also has some health benefit. I won't go into details but I don't remember all the detail.
2. I have known for a long while that tea (any warm liquid) helps to clean the throat after you have something oily. So, when I have a fried egg, it's better to have tea after it than any cold liquid including water.
3. The alternative to tea is milk which also disturbs the energy waveform but in a negative way as it makes me sleepy.

So, I decided to include tea back in my diet with the following provisos:
1. Only use it rarely, and only after oily food. No exceptions.
2. Keep it very light, just strong to not be milk any more.
3. Keep the quantity small.
4. Consumption must be several hours before next sleep time. Like today it was 5 hours before next planned sleep time.

Morning 26:
Last night I was busy doing stuff in Second Life and didn't get to bed until almost 0200. Actually, SL was freezing and crashing so much that what should have taken 10 minutes took an hour. Energy levels were really good till the end.

But I was able to fall asleep easily when I did go to bed. I had set two alarms with the intention to sleep either 4 hours or 4.5 hours. But I woke up at 0711, after 5 hours. Snooze gremlins at work again, I suspect. But mood was fresh and energy levels good, so didn't feel too bad about oversleeping. On weekends, I somehow feel justified in sleeping a little longer anyway.

I am glad I decided to keep the sleep log on. It will help track deviations and take corrective action if necessary.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Songs in a loop

The funny thing is..that music is very much an input to as well as output from, a person's mood.

Sometimes you listen to particular song or piece of music and changes your mood, drastically even. Then it's input.

Sometimes you are in a certain mood and create a song, a poem, a ghazal...or play an already created song on your guitar, harmonica, keyboard, piano or flute. Or maybe on your stereo. Then it's an output.

Sometimes without you realizing what's happening, it's both an input and an output!

Following are some of the songs that I have put in a loop at one time or another in my life. And I am talking about a single-song loop, not a playlist that I would play indefinitely..which I do. A lot.

Teri Ore from Singh is King

I have already posted before about the Goa to Poona journey when we played this in a loop. Even since then I have listened to this song in loop many times. Sometime to absorb it for the guitar learning at other times, just to enjoy it!

Jab dard nahin tha seene mein

Kishore Kumar's singing in this song is just superlative. I can't get enough of this. Incidently this is the song I was watching on my Tablet this morning that inspired this post.

Mujhko yaqeeN hai sach kehti thiiN jo bhi Ammi kehti thiiN

An amazingly beautiful ghazal sung by Jagjit Singh. Everything about this ghazal is awesome, including the fact that I can sing it without sounding horrible since it doesn't have any high notes.

several Laila Majnu songs

These I put in an exclusive playlist usually, but I have played each one of them also in a loop, sometimes by pressing the "Previous" button repeatedly for a long time!

- Tere Dar Pe Aaya Hoon


- Likh kar tera naam zameen par


- Yeh Dawa aaj duniya bhar se


Koi Chaudwi raat ka chaand bankar

A beautiful ghazal from Jagjit Singh's album. I looked for it for a long time before I found it and then ...you know..in the loop!

Haule haule - Rab ne bana di jodi

I heard it the first time when I was in my hotel in South Africa, and I got so taken with it, I downloaded the song, the video, and made the MP3 my ringtone. And then listened to it non-stop. Still love it.

Mozart's Symphony no. 25
I went crazy the day I heard that the first time. Still love it so much!
I probably have a few more, but I can't remember them offhand. Maybe I'll add later.

But I am sure it's a common thing. Don't you have some songs you just don't want to stop listening to?

P.S. Adding to the list:
Jaate ho jaane jaana - Parvarish

Biphasic sleep log - Day 35 - 24th Feb

Evening 24th:
I had a bad sleep-ridden today, enough to distract from anything I wanted to do. I didn't give in to the temptation of coffee to fix it. Eating helped though.

I was home early today, about 1720. But I stayed up till nap time.

Nap from 1800-1830, using 10 minutes to fall asleep. It was a good SOLID nap as in I was dead to the world for 20 minutes.

Felt great after the nap, fully refreshed and hungry enough to eat a horse (a horse made of vegetables, of course).

Morning 25th:
Felt a drop in energy after 2300 last night though nothing like the night before. Stayed up and did what I needed to do (I am so happy to remember that part of it was guitar practice.)

Core sleep from 0100 to 0522 by alarm beeping. I had set two alarms - mobile for 0500 (4 hours of sleep) and video on laptop for 0530 (4.5 hours of sleep). Since I really got up at almost 0530 (with no recollection of hitting snooze on mobile), I guess the 90 minute cycle might still apply to me.

Energy levels and freshness both very good. When I don't feel like washing face or shower is essential for waking up, I know I am well awake.

Another thing I am realizing is that ambient light is important to actually waking up. So I need to devise a means of creating a "light-alarm". Of course, there are lamps in the market that exploit this exact principle for a natural wake up, but they cost about £150 and I have 2 laptops and a big (26") LCD TV in my bedroom. My nerd community will condemn me if wasted money on a light lamp instead of making one. I will of course, update my readers about what I do and if I manage to create a software solution, I'll upload it for others to use. Stay tuned!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The only annoying thing about HTC Desire HD is..

that people ask you if it's the iPhone 4!

Now, granted that these are ignorant, mass-hypnotised-by-Apple-marketing, no-idea-what-the-world-is-doing type people who can't tell a huge 4.3 inch screen from a tiny 3.5 inch screen, but still it insults me and it insults my phone.

That's the only thing that irks me about the Desire HD. Still, it's not bad happens only once in a while.

Biphasic sleep log - Day 34 - 23rd Feb

Evening 23rd:


I had a nice nap from 1800 to 1830 all as per plan. Also felt as great as I usually do after the nap. Had my guitar lesson and energy, mood, creativity was all great!

About 2300 started feeling very sleep. I think that was because of the warm milk I had in dinner. Warm milk may be considered the opposite of caffeine in this regard. But I am not going to give it up. I might avoid it in the evening hours though. Decided to sleep from 12 to 4 instead of 1 to 5 because of this.

Morning 24th:

Oh, I feel sleepy today. Last night slept at 0000 and set 2 alarms. First alarm would play a video of me playing guitar on my laptop. Second alarm would play the beeps on my mobile.

I didn't wake up in the night, I think.

The first alarm started the playback at 0400. I woke up and paused it. That's the good/bad thing about VLC you can pause the playback so easily with just pressing spacebar.

And I went back to sleep without evening thinking about it.

Second alarm went off at 0500. I woke up and exerted considerable amount of will-power to actually get up.

Good thing today was that after shower and breakfast, instead of playing SL I played my guitar. It's good!

I still feel sleepy and I don't know what I did wrong - sleeping too little or too much? I suspect it's the latter.

I am really tempted to have some caffeine today, but I am not going to. Instead I'll have lots of water.

One idea is to Develop my own video player that cannot be paused or stopped without using task manager etc. Another idea is to make that voice alarm MP3 track.

One more idea is to set up what tasks I am going to do in the morning, before I go to bed.

I'll figure something out.



Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Biphasic Sleep Experiment- 30 day summary


In effect, it's a 30+ day summary now but the findings still apply.

So far I have written the log entries just willy-nilly, for this summary post I am planning to have a little bit of structure. I will list out the pros and cons and then the side-effects of biphasic as I observed them.

Some of this material will be duplicated from what other biphasic bloggers have mentioned in their findings, but then, I didn't exactly invent Biphasic sleep so that was kind of expected.

I will give a list of links to the 30 day logs to make them easier to find.

Let's start.

Pro's

1. Most obvious one is time. You get more time to do your stuff, and after a week or so you start feeling it as well. Even when I was doing 1.5+4.5 hours of sleep, I still felt like I had more time.

2. Stress relief. Because you have more time to get things done, you don't feel harassed and stressed by everything.

3. The quality of sleep improves after you get used to it. You enter REM fast, have nice, vivid dreams and you feel like you had a good sleep!

4. Waking time is more refreshed. This shows more if you stick to the schedule strictly. You feel more energy, mood is usually positive and creative. You WILL get new ideas!

5. Flexibility. I varied the schedule quite a bit during the 30 days, sometimes from necessity other times of laziness, but biphasic didn't kill me or make me feel like a zombie. When I deviated a lot I had maybe a hard day but after next nap or core sleep all was usually forgiven.

6. Adaptability. This is more like flexibility, but I want to stress the point that you can adapt the biphasic schedule to suit your own requirements. Unlike Uberman it's doesn't need every-4-hours-exactly-on-the-dot kind of religious adherence and you can create the schedule that fits your day. I started with 1.5 hours nap at 1800, moved it as late as 1900 sometimes, had 2 hours some times, later reduced it to 20 minutes, even replaced it with noon or late morning nap once or twice, it still worked great! The core sleep also I have moved around a little between 0000 and 0200 but it never made me feel horrible for that.

Con's

1. Adaptation period. It doesn't have a long and brutal adaptation period like Uberman but still for the first week or so you can expect to have some sleep deprivation and fatigue. You can still function normally though.

2. Social life. By far the worst problem with ongoing biphasic schedule is that you need a nap in the evening hours which is usually the time to go out and visit friends. Other than a couple of exceptions, whatever limited social life I had I put it on hold during this. Most of the time though, taking 20 minutes out in early evening or even late afternoon shouldn't be a problem. I mean who goes to a club before 10 PM anyway?

3. Discipline. You need lots of it during the first couple of weeks esp. in the morning when it's time to get up as per schedule but you want to roll over and sleep more. This is still worse during weekends when there's no pressing need to get ready for work.

I have two tips about that. For the weekdays, schedule your waking time for that point after which you absolutely can't sleep or you'd be late for work. So, stay up later in the night rather than making time in the morning, in the beginning. You can change that later once you get used to having only 4.5 hours of sleep.

For weekends, make sure you have your last meal (of the day :) ) a few hours before you go to bed. Then when you wake up on Saturday/Sunday morning, you'll be very hungry. That'll get you out of bed faster than any motivational speech.

Still, on the topic of discipline, I think it'd help if you recorded a message for yourself and used that for your alarm (with beeps or rings as a backup alarm), I think that'd work well. I haven't tried it, but I am thinking of using it, something like, "I must wake up now if I want this schedule to work. It is my own decision and I am strong enough to adhere to it." Kind of like affirmations.

Osho mentioned in one of his discourses that we are never of one mind, the person who sets the alarm at night, is not the same person who hits Snooze in the morning. For that reason, I think this kind of message would put your morning-self in touch with the night-self. Worth a try. I might create one myself and upload it somewhere where everybody can download it for their use. If I did it, I'd use my guitar to provide the background so the same MP3 can be used for the alarm without worrying that you'd ignore the voice-only alarm in your sleep in the morning.

4. I don't think it is a real con but I mention it here just to be fair. I have noticed recently a case of..umm..bed-ear. You know when you sleep in one position for long, the pattern of the bedsheet texture is engraved in your skin? That's called bed-face. I sleep on my side and when I wake up I feel like my right ear is kind of ...well, not achy, but kinda wrinkled, if that makes sense. It makes me pull on my earlobe when I wash my face.

I suspect that since I am going into deep REM sleep right away, I am not moving at all once I fall asleep. As such, it'd be a good sign. Anyway, it's not gonna stop me from being biphasic.

Side-effects (both good and bad)

Diet. This is both good and bad depending on how you take it. Let me talk about the body-cycle or the circadian clock first.

Disclaimer: This following information comes from common sense, my own reading into the matter and my observations. I am not a qualified dietician or sleep scientist. Please don't just take my word for it, find out more on your own before you try anything. And even when you do experiment take all common-sense precautions. As Chandler says in Friends, "You've got to stop the Q-Tip when there's resistance!"

The way I understand the body clock is that our energy levels (and temperature) are like a wave form, which starts from the time you wake up, goes up, peaks somewhere in the middle, and then comes down as the night approaches.

What you are trying to do with the biphasic routine is to make these two waves, from morning to your nap, from after the nap to core sleep. Among other things, this is what you are trying to train your body to do.

Caffeine. Caffeine gives you a temporary jolt of energy, thus creating a spike in your otherwise uniform wave. Also, as reported by one blogger, as the effects of caffeine wear off, the energy levels decline hard, creating what I'd call a negative spike. So, this would of course interfere with your body training, in addition to the most obvious problem of keeping you up if you had caffeine too soon before going for a nap or core sleep.

In my case, I had several sources of caffeine in my diet and I had to cut all of them out one by one. They were all hard in their own right. Having pizza without Diet Coke is never the same but I did it and enjoyed it. In the mornings, I missed the caffeine kick when starting the work day but I persevered and now I don't have a "kick" but I have a natural, consistent, refreshing energy right from the morning.

Alcohol. Alcohol is the reverse of caffeine in that it'd make you oversleep the next morning.

That was never a big issue for me but it was harder in the sense that now my drink became instead of Diet Coke, a pineapple juice (for reasons known only to me ;) lol).

I think these would be 2 very strong reasons stopping general public from becoming biphasic. In my case, I have an extremely strong will-power and it gets better as I get older.

I don't know what effect Nicotine would have, since I have never had that filthy habit, but I can't imagine it having a good effect!

This reminds me of Yoga or Yog as it's really called in Hindi. Not a lot of people are aware that Yog is not the name for twisting your body into strange shapes. It has 8 steps, hence known as Ashtang Yog, the first steps are Yam, and Niyam. The last step is Samadhi - meaning enlightenment!

So, something that great starts with you regulating your body, your diet, your thoughts and shaping your character. Without that, you cannot reap the final, ultimate reward.

Biphasic is kind of like that. If you cannot regulate and control your diet just changing your sleeping time is most probably not going to do it for you.

Although, I think I'd keep the option open to having a drink once in a long while, but I would never make any of these a part of regular diet again.

I didn't mean to lecture but..once a teacher, always a teacher :)

Self-improvement. Doing biphasic puts me in a mindset where I naturally want to improve myself further. All kinds of thoughts and plans are in my mind. And yes, I will get to that workout routine soon :)

Confidence. This is hardly something that could be measured by modern science, but I have been feeling pretty good about myself, more sociable than normal, capable of handling anything that comes my way.

No superpowers. Unlike Uberman, I don't feel like superman nor do I see time slowing down. Just for that reason, I do want to try Uberman some time in the near future.

Creativity. I have been called creative quite a few times even before starting biphasic and I think biphasic has aided in it and put me in a more creative mood on a more consistent basis.

My creativity manifests itself in various ways. Too many to count, to be honest, so I'll just confine my narrative to the ones that I engaged in during these 30-odd days.

Photoshop. I launched my Second Life magazine this Monday and most of its work was done during this month of biphasic experiment. I felt great doing it, and based on the initial reviews the output is "Nice", "Wonderful" and "Awesome!". :)

Music. I have felt a marked increase in the creativity there. I created some new rhythms and riffs where I used to be stuck in the past. I really think my current mood is responsible for the new work.

Writing. I haven't written anything new during this period, except for some small things for the magazine articles, but I have had the urge to write a lot more. I'd probably start another story soon.

On second thought, writing long, descriptive blog posts for a whole month should count towards writing, no? :)

Work. I work in test automation field and my work also requires a certain level of creativity in problem-solving. Aced any assignments I got during this period.

Health. Generally good as it is usually. I did start getting a cold at one point which I fought with vitamin C, Vicks Vaporub and cough syrup. And it worked. I could get rid of it before it could get bad. That is also normal, so no change in my immunity.

Overall I feel relaxed and content. My worst day during this was much better than my worst day on monophasic, closer to my normal days on monophasic after 7-7.5 hours of sleep and my best days on biphasic have been amazing! I expect it to still get much better.

I have made this report long on purpose. When I have read other bloggers' reports on the same topic, I have always enjoyed them and wanted them to be detailed. If you find it too long you can always skip over stuff.

I welcome your comments and questions in this regard. As I disclaimed, I am not an authority on this stuff, but if I can help you from my personal experience, believe me, nothing would please me more!

P.S. I forgot to mention one con. Other than using sleep as a restorative, regenerative agent, I also see it as a pleasant activity. I have always loved my sleep. My usual sleeping patten lately (before biphasic) had been to stay awake as long as I possibly could and then fall asleep like a kid who's so tired he can't move a single muscle.
But when I did go to sleep, I enjoyed it. It can be argued that it the duration of sleep for pleasure purposes is irrelevant since when I am out I can't possibly "enjoy" anything as I am not "aware" of it. Logically true. But when you are only going to bed for 3 or 4 hours, you don't look forward to it with as much relish as a 7-8 hour stretch of sleep, even if you know that they will both relax and restore you the same.

Having said that, it might be just a matter of strengthening the habit. My evening nap is only 20 minutes (usually), but I still look forward to it. 

Biphasic sleep log - Day 33 - 22nd Feb

Evening 22nd:
Another textbook nap except that I woke up before the alarm and stayed up. Time if you are interested was from 1800-1825 with about 5-10 minutes for falling asleep. I had actually lain down about 1750 in order to slow down the brain activity and get into the napping mood. It worked too.

It's surprising how I have adapted to getting into bed 10 minutes after getting home. I used to start with my personal emails and other stuff at that time. But now that I know I have a long second innings in stock, I don't mind leaving everything on hold and taking the downtime first.

Mind and energy levels after the nap were very good. No tiredness or anything at all considering the short duration of the nap. Didn't feel any fatigue till about 0040-0045. Then started feeling like I was ready for some sleep. It was not tiredness, just my body changing gears and getting ready for rest.


Morning 23rd:
Went to bed at 0100 last night with an alarm set for 0500. Fell asleep easily in about 10 minutes. I didn't see 0110 rolling up on the clock.

Woke up about 0300. You know, it feels kinda great how fine I feel even after 2 hours of sleep and knowing I have 2 more hours to enjoy. Feeling as I did, I could have gotten up even at 3 and felt fine. Not sure how the day would go after that though.

Woke up once again some time around 0400 and then finally at 0502 by alarm.

If you remember this was the problem that I wanted to avoid by going biphasic, getting up in the night. Well, it was one of the factors. But even though I do that still, I don't mind it any more! For one thing, even though I wake up in the middle of my already short sleep, I don't have that drugged-mind, somebody's-gotta-die-for-this kind of mood. For another, I feel like it's an indication that I could effectively reduce my core sleep further without detrimental effects on my energy levels.

It occurs to me that maybe my REM cycles are so long and strong that as I come out of them, I just wake up naturally. But believe me, one of the great joys of life is to be able to roll over and go back to sleep. It feels like a weekend morning.

Since I get up an hour before I have to get ready for work, it feels great! I am energetic and cheerful when I leave as opposed to the monophasic days after 7 hours of sleep when I felt like somebody killed me while I slept and through my dead body into the taxi.

Good sleep. Awesome!
Early morning mood. Great!
Getting breakfast before leaving for office. Priceless!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 32 - 21st Feb

Evening 21st:
It was a textbook nap. Down at 1800, 10 minutes to fall asleep, up at 1830 by alarm. Felt fresh and fully capable afterwards. Right up to core sleep time. No issues.

I am beginning to love this nap. I am down for so little time and yet it recharges me fully. It's a win-win situation.

Morning 22nd:
Went to bed at 0100 last night and set the alarm for 0500. Woke up at 0300. Felt fine, but still went back to bed. Next at 0400. Still time to wake up, back to bed.

Then finally woke up at 0438 and stayed up. It wasn't hard to stay up today.

I like the fact that I seem to have no set duration of sleep cycle any more. My body is so well-trained that it goes into REM easily in a short duration. Every time I wake up I remember some dream which is evidence of having had some REM sleep.

No caffeine as is the routine now. Still, didn't feel sleepy or anything. Some yawning in the day, but didn't feel any sleep dep in the eyes.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 31 - 20th Feb

Evening 20th Feb:
I didn't get a nap this evening as I had a social engagement today so I got home about 2100. Although I am pretty sure I could have taken a nap at 1800 if I were home, I didn't feel any tiredness or sleep dep. I was my witty, charming self. ;)

After I got home I was still quite energetic and fresh. In fact, it was with shocked surprise that I saw the time was approaching midnight and I must go down for my core sleep.

I think the credit goes to that late morning nap I had for the energy.
Morning 21st Feb:

Went to bed about 0015 last night and set the alarm for 0445.

woke up at 0330 from a sleep cycle. I felt it would be easy to get up. Except that I didn't want to mess up my working day on Monday, and also the warm, seductive powers of sleep really work on me.

Next wake up was 0416. I looked at the time and thought this must be because I had programmed myself to wake up before the alarm.

I could have gotten up then, but I didn't want to. My reason (justification) was that I needed to give my body some time to rest after last evening's sporting activities esp. as I hadn't done that in a long time or any other kind of exercise, despite promising myself and my readers to start soon.

Finally I woke up about 0600. At first I felt bad that I had wasted the morning hours when I could have used 2 hours of sunshine (just an expression, I live in England), but then after a while feeling how my shoulder felt I was glad that I had made the right decision.

Other than the shoulder etc. I feel perfectly fine and fresh. The longer sleep had no negative impact.

I have decided to continue this log, maybe for another 30 days. Even if nobody else needs it, I still want to monitor my progress and it helps me stay focused.

Biphasic sleep log - Day 30 - 19th Feb

Well, this is kind of a milestone - finishing 30 days on biphasic. I'll try and do a summary after the core sleep.

Evening 19th:
Even though a Saturday, my day was quite busy and as a result I was up and active right up to 1830. So finally I went down for my evening nap at about 1845, setting the alarm for 1920.

It was a textbook nap. I did need 15 minutes to fall asleep having been physically and mentally active right up to the laying down time. My subconscious programming using the 100-1 countdown was very effective though it took longer, I was around 40's when I entered the hypnogogic phase.

Woke up at 1922 by the alarm. It was easy to get up and I did feel quite refreshed. The 20 minute nap works so well that I didn't try to mix it up by doing any LD stuff at this time.


Morning
Morning 20th:


I know I am updating this late, but I had a busy Sunday and I made notes on my sleeping times at the time so I still have accurate data.

Last night's core sleep was from 0130 till 0800 this morning. One reason for extra sleep was for the LD stuff but I think I enjoy rolling over and going back to sleep a lot on the weekends.

Then I had another nap from 1100-1200, even though this was specifically for the LD practice, it still counts towards sleep as I did sleep and did have dreams.
Felt great both times, after waking up in the morning and after waking up at noon.
Since I am writing this on Monday, I'll create a separate post for the 30 day summary after Monday's post.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 29 - 18th Feb

Evening 18th:
Umm, kind of a mess. Went down for nap about 1820 and finally woke up about 2112. In-between woke up multiple times, changed alarms, tried different things for LD.

Fresh and cheerful after waking up finally, no tiredness or irritation, not hard to get up either. Even though feeling energetic, I'd go down for core soon, (it's 0100 now). Then we'll see how the morning goes. It'd most likely be a repetition of this evening's mess.

Even though I am messing things up by mixing LD experiments with biphasic, I am pretty sure it's the biphasic routine that gives me this flexibility to try a nap anytime and try the LD stuff in any nap/sleep without feeling ill effects if I oversleep.

Morning 19th:
The night sleep was much longer than I should have had on biphasic - about 7 hours in total. But because of the lucid dreaming attempts I needed to do it. Still felt fantastic when I woke up about 0800.


Morning 19th: 
The night sleep was much longer than I should have had on biphasic - about 7 hours in total. But because of the lucid dreaming attempts I needed to do it. Still felt fantastic when I woke up about 0800. 

But I did feel like I had lost the morning, the same kind of feeling I used to get when I used to get up about 1100 on monophasic mornings. 

While I would continue my efforts for lucidity in dreams I would still try to make an effort to 1) keep it biphasic with a short nap, and 2) keep the core sleep short and sticking to 90 minute increments as much as possible. 

Friday, February 18, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 28 - 17th Feb

Evening 17th: As I mentioned before now that I am mucking about with lucid dreams, my biphasic sleep won't be as straightforward as before.

I am hesitant to detail that stuff here for one reason. Even though my blog is not super-popular it is still quite searchable. And in the future, any girl that I date, and any employer where I apply for a job can search my name and find it. I am sure people are gonna think I am slightly off-centre just from reading my biphasic experiment, but it makes some kind of sense. If I start talking about lucid dreams and astral projection, people will definitely think I am a freak. Especially if they don't have any information on the topic.

Still, I might end up posting about it, once I have any kind of success in it. But I'd still want to keep it separate from the biphasic even though they would be tangled....ummm, I will decide on that later.

For this evening, the plan was to nap 20 minutes, then wake up, stay awake for 20 minutes, then nap another 20 minutes. I went down at 1800 as per plan. Took about 15 minutes to fall asleep. But somehow woke up at 1853 by alarm. I don't know if the alarm went wrong or it had been ringing for 23 minutes.

Staying up was fine. Second nap was for the other stuff, and I didn't fall asleep. I was just feeling too fresh.

I am writing this at 2308 and still feeling quite fresh and energetic. I think that's the whole difference with biphasic, this is why I don't feel pressed for time any more and feel inspired and motivated to do good stuff. On monophasic, a normal evening resembles a clockwork toy running down. I get more and more tired, physically.

Psychologically, I feel like I have worked hard and I am entitled to some entertainment. That's when I do SL and other crap like surfing the web aimlessly etc.

On biphasic, after the evening nap, I feel so fresh and invigorated that I feel like going out to some jungle and fighting a couple of tigers and lions. Since Africa is so far away, I settle for playing guitar, working in photoshop and doing other creative stuff that makes me happy! Hmm, indirectly, biphasic leads to more happiness...interesting!

Morning 18th Feb:
It was a mess as predicted, but a planned mess. Slept from midnight to 0430. Then woke up by alarm and stayed up for about half an hour. Then slept again for the "other" purpose, with 2 alarms at 0630 and 0700. Woke up at 0630, turned the alarm off then slept till 0700. Woke up by alarm and got out of bed.


It wasn't hard to get out of bed even at 0430, perhaps because I knew I was going to go bed again very soon. When I went back to sleep at 0500 though, it took me a long time to fall asleep again but that was because of the "other" reason.

One good effect of biphasic I find is that I am not restricted to particular cycle. I slept in a whole mess of a schedule last night but I feel absolutely great this morning, fresh and well-rested.

This weekend will continue to be a messed up schedule but the same kind of planned mess. I will update the log as I want to continue until 30th day at least.

Another effect is that I don't feel pressed for time and that's a good feeling. Last night I played guitar for half an hour and I didn't feel to "quickly finish practice and do something else". It's awesome!


Thursday, February 17, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 27 - 16th Feb

Evening 16th:
I was ready for the nap by the time I got home. I took the nap from 1800-1830, in that about 10 minutes to fall asleep. I felt much fresher than after yesterday 2.5 hours nap. It still amazes me even though I have read all the explanations and research etc.

I had my guitar lesson which was great. I was on top of my game.

However, I started feeling very sleepy around 2300. So, I just decided to sleep.

Morning 17th:
So I went to bed about midnight, with the intention to wake up at 0430 and do some lucid dreaming stuff. And I did wake up at 0430 by the alarm. It was not too hard to get out of bed. Then after a few minutes, I got back into bed and tried my lucid dreaming technique. I did fall asleep, did have dreams (not lucid) and then woke up at 0626.

I had set the alarm for 0600 as a safeguard, I don't know what happened to that but I was in too much of a panic to get ready as I have to leave by 0640. With my Superman-mode of getting ready, I managed that and wondered why I take longer everyday, since I did everything I do usually.

Anyway, I do feel fresh, better than yesterday, but then I had 6.5 hours sleep and the nap last evening.

Now, I am afraid we'll get into this kind of mess more from now on.I will avoid the late-rising panic stuff by setting another alarm somewhere but now that I am completely obsessed with lucid dreams it'll mess up with my biphasic schedule. I will try to segregate them, of course, but..we'll see!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 26 - 15th Feb

Evening 15th:
Took a longer nap today. My agenda today was different for this nap. I am back on my lucid dreams kick, so I took a nap without alarms to try that. Did have dreams and recalled some stuff about them, but no lucidity yet.

It was a long nap 2.5 hours, from 1800 to 2028. Did feel fresh after it for a while, but after midnight started feeling sleepy. Not sure what time or how long to sleep tonight for core sleep.

Morning 16th: I am feeling like I am ruining the experiment by being too complacent and indisciplined at this stage.


Last night I delayed going to bed till 0130 because I knew I wouldn't get up too early in the morning.

Then in the morning, woke up about 0430 but went back to sleep until woken by the alarm at 0500. It took a LOT of willpower to get up and that wasted some time. Didn't feel really refreshed or anything.

Felt better after the shower though. Used the time to play guitar and have breakfast. Guitar worked well, progress with practice and everything.

Then while reading a book on the tablet in the train felt so very sleepy that I had to stop reading.

The problem I have at this stage is that I want to experiment with lucid dreams and related stuff, and most of the documentation and research in that field says that a long sleep it useful. But they are mostly talking about monophasic sleep, not much documentation exists on biphasic sleep vis a vis the lucid dreams.

I thought I had already trained my body to enter REM quickly and that my sleep cycles were much shorter than 90 minutes now, but apparently not. After having 3.5 hours sleep last night, (6 hours total) I feel sleep dep today. About the same as I would in monophasic after waking up the wrong stage of sleep.

My plan for today is do a 20 minute evening nap and 4.5 hours of core sleep as per original plan.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

E-books - Why not?

I think it's not new information to the readers of my blog that I have always loved books ever since I was so high. Quite a few times I have read books on the screen also. But whenever it came to buying e-books, I would also look for free versions to download. And while there is a huge number of free (legally) books available on the net to download and read, I don't always get the ones I want. (Thankfully, I have all the Robert Heinlein once now, courtesy of a friend.)

But yesterday I had an epiphany. I thought, "Why am I being so stupid?" Here's how I reasoned:

* When I need a book, I do search on Amazon.co.uk and buy a copy. It costs me money and I get a paper book.
* But an e-book is still a real book. As an IT professional, I should be very much in sync with that fact.
* The e-book is usually a couple of quid cheaper than the print version.
* Now that I have a tablet I can read the e-book using Kindle for Android easily, in a booksize page format.
* I can read the same book on my phone, or tablet, or the laptop, without losing my bookmark even if I switched between books.
* It gives me almost 100% access to the book without having to carry it. ("Almost" I still can't read in the shower.)
* With the huge 48GB storage on my tablet, (16GB on my phone) I can carry literally thousands of books. No more need to select which book to carry in my bag for that particular journey.
* with the 7 hour battery life on my tablet, I can even pack only my tablet for the journey to India, reducing the weight and need for space that books occupy. Yes, I pack about 4-5 books when I travel to India, for the airport, for the flight and to read while I am there as well.
* Since I'd have more choice and more access, it'd probably motivate me to read more.
* If I read more, maybe I will be more smart and intelligenter!
* I have always been able to read on a screen, even on a small 2 inch mobile screen! So, working with a 4.3" phone screen or 7" table screen would be so much easier!
* I am running out, no, I HAVE run out, of bookshelf space in my room.Even my window-sill has books resting on it. Don't even talk about my nightstand!
* But I have loads of digital space and I can buy more without filling up my room.
* I wouldn't have to part with my e-books because I moved a different country! Still one of my big regrets is that I can't bring all my books from my room in India to here. Airline baggage limits and space limitations in my room.
* Digital books will last longer than paper books.
* Although not usually a problem with me, but when you read a digital book, your fellow-passengers cannot see the title page.

So, as I say...why not?

Biphasic sleep log - Day 25 - 14th Feb

Evening 14th:
I did feel some sleep dep during the day, but not enough that I couldn't work at full capacity.
Got home at 1738 and was in bed at 1800. Took about 10 minutes to fall asleep.

And woke up at 1900. I don't recall turning off the alarm that was supposed to go off at 1830. This is annoying me now. I must guard against this tendency.

I had a headache when I went to bed and still had a heavy head when I woke up. How are headache and oversleep and heavy head are related, I won't try to decipher (well I have a heavy head!).

Morning 15th:


This was a weird night. I went to bed faithfully at 00:45 so I could fall asleep by 0100 and get up at 0530.

Using my own trick of counting down from 100 I did fall asleep within a few minutes.

I woke up and felt like it was time to get up. But time on the ceiling was only 0328. So, I went back to sleep.

Another time. Woke up and it felt natural. But I still was very sleepy even though the waking up felt very natural. Time - 0443. Back to sleep.

Then woke up at around 0530 but before the alarm. This was the same, the wake-up felt very natural but my eyes were like heavily-laden with sleep. But this time I made a big effort and stayed up.

The only explanation I can think of is that my sleep cycles are changing, maybe getting shorter and I woke up after two of them. That's why it felt easy to open my eyes. But then, why did I feel so sleepy? Maybe because I expected to?

I will need to find something to pull me out of bed in the mornings. Since I am planning to wake up before it's time to get ready for work, the pressure of work is not going to do it. It used to be Second Life, but these days I am not into its fun aspect so much, mostly just creative and productive aspects. That's not gonna do it.

The guitar might work for that purpose, or maybe music, I'll experiment and see.

I think I should plan more entertainment and enjoyment in my waking hours so as to create an incentive to wake up.

I had a few minutes so played guitar and could see myself making progress even in those few minutes. Just mentioning that here to illustrate that creative faculties are not affected by sleep dep or anything like that during the adaptation period.

I am thinking of discontinuing the log after day 30.



Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!

No, I am not going to go into a tirade about the phoniness of this "festival" or the conspiracy of the retailers, the mood I am in, I'd just say, life is but a fleeting moment, grasp any happiness that you can, by any excuse available to you.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Biphasic sleep log - Day 24 - 13th Feb

Evening 13th: I forgot to take the noon nap today. I wasn't feeling sleepy and also just ate around that time. But that didn't have any effect on my energy levels - I was fresh, I was productive, I was enjoying life! So much so that I even thought of going to watch a movie at the cinema. Because the pressure of the work was no longer there, it's well within control now. My car didn't cooperate so I didn't go but still watched a movie at home.

"No Reservations" featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart and Abigail Breslin. Remember Abigail from "Definitely Maybe"? She's awesome!

Morning 14th Feb:
As per plan I went to bed at midnight last night. Nowadays, in addition to the alarm in my phone I also use the "inner clock" meaning the subconscious, both for the morning alarm as well as falling asleep. I instruct my subconscious that I am now going to count down from 100 to 1 and I want be asleep by the time I reach 1. Usually I am having hypnogogic illusions by the time I reach 80! I have never reached 50 on it yet.
Woke up this morning at 0445, before the alarm I think. And I felt nice and fresh, but then somehow I closed my eyes and slid back very smoothly into sleep without knowing it.
Funny thing is that the dream I had been having before waking up continued this time as well, so I did reach REM quickly it appears.
This time I woke up at 0533. There was no alarm any more. This time I felt even fresher and more rested (of course). But this time I didn't make the mistake of closing my eyes. It took some willpower but I got up.
As I said I was very fresh even without having to wash my face (but I did anyway!)
At the station, I had hot chocolate and I was quite aware of the fact that I was fresh, my mind was alert and active, I didn't miss the caffeine kick at all.
This continued till about 1030 when I went into a meeting. Then I really had to struggle to keep my eyes open. But that was the meeting, not me.

At this point I'd like to take the opportunity to summarize the weekend.
My sleeping times were not clock-punctual as you know from the log. Yet, I didn't suffer any consequences. So, biphasic is more forgiving than anything else. Even more so than monophasic, I'd say.
I have by now acquired the capability to take a short, 20-minute nap any time I need. I can fall asleep quickly and wake up absolutely refreshed.
I reach REM stage quickly and all my sleep including sildebacks and oversleep has been very good in quality.
My waking time has been amazingly refreshed and alert.
I am quickly losing the need for alarms.

But most of all, it's the use that I have put my time to. I have had periods of free-time when I have had weeks at my disposal and achieved nothing. So, just having the time does not translate into productivity. It's more to do with the mood and the state of mind that you are in.
On biphasic, I have been on like a superman (for want of a better word) all weekend. I have been on top of everything!
I have done creative work, in Photoshop mostly.
I have played my guitar, much more than I have done in weeks. I did both practice and improvising. Again creative work.
I have done chores and didn't get bogged by them.
I have had new ideas.
I have taken courageous decision that was pending.
I have been decisive, bold and generally on top of the world.
I have spent very, very little amount of time in just playing around. And didn't need to exercise willpower for it either.
The one thing I have not done is physical workout. It has been on my mind most of the time, but the sleep-eat-workout timing didn't work out. Every time I remembered I wanted to work out, I had either just eaten or was starving. Both wrong times for exercise. So, I need to set a reminder for it, but I feel motivated enough!
So, in short, biphasic, so far, has improved my life dramatically, including getting rid of the stress of things unfinished. I plan to do MUCH more with this.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 23 - 12th Feb

I am definitely figuring out the pattern now and I am happy to say that it's working.

Evening 12th: The evening nap was longer, for 2 reasons, I didn't fall asleep quickly, and I think I didn't set the alarm right. It was still quite refreshing and useful.

Morning 13th: Stayed up till 0100 last night and still set the alarm for 3 hours. Again didn't work. At that time my mind doesn't understand the importance of anything over sleep. I am thinking of continuing with 4.5 core sleep for a while. With 20 minute evening nap, I do have loads of time at my disposal.

I have noticed that this extra time is "quality" time. The thoughts that come to my fresh mind are very positive, productive and motivating. I have started playing guitar more and I have done other work that had been pending for a while. Plus I have been motivated to try other things, new and old.

This will be good!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 22 - Feb 11th

Evening 11th:
The day was kind of off and on. Sometimes I'd feel the sleep dep and back ache other times I felt very alert, awake, healthy and no pain. I think when I was doing something interesting or talking to people, I felt fine. When I was just watching my script run on the computer, I felt bored and sleepy.

Being Friday,  I had a shorter day today and got home about 1600. I had to take care of some business then had a good meal. I had a sorts of appointment around 1800 so I thought I'd nap from 1730 to 1800. It turned out to be a mistake.

I had trouble falling asleep even though I was tired and sleepy. I think the main factor was having that meal less than an hour ago, even though I had determinedly avoided any caffeine with it. Also, I had some interruptions.

Finally, I woke up about 1900. Not sure how much I really slept but it was between 30 and 60 minutes, I'd guess. Waking up was not very hard. So, I think the longer I sleep the harder it is to wake up, at least during the nap.

Feeling just as fresh as usual 90 minute nap which is fine, but a little less than how I felt yesterday after a 20 minute nap.

This being the weekend and with my need for time, I might do more naps and less core sleep but I am not yet sure. I have got a pretty good handle on the work I need to do during this weekend so I might not need to be that aggressive with the sleep.

Thinking of starting some sort of exercise program this weekend, maybe just start with some workout on the Nintendo Wii.

Morning 12th:

Wow, this must be the latest I am reporting to the log. But I have been busy. Let's get right down to it. 

Did wake up at 0400 by alarm, but didn't feel like getting up at all. The feeling I had was that this is overkill to wake up so early on weekend. But actually it was my sleep-seduced mind rationalizing. Anyhow, I rolled over and went back to sleep. 

But at 0545 when my usual alarm went off, I didn't rationalize just got up. Felt pretty much as I do every morning on biphasic- no fully awake but not tired or anything. Felt fresh after a little while. Also, I didn't get to sleep very quickly last night. Perhaps because I had some Diet Coke last night with my Pizza. Even though it was about 4 hours before I went to bed, I think it still messed up my sleep cycle a bit. Looks like I'll have to cut down on it even more. 

The morning felt great! I felt like I had so much time! I used to wake up between 10 am and noon on Saturdays and then in a couple of hours I used to feel like the day was all gone. Now I looked up at the clock after hours of playing and working and it was not even 10 am! So amazing!

Started to get a lot of magazine work out of the way right away and it worked fine as well. I was operating on all cylinders. 

But then around 11 I started feeling a little sleepy. Not tired, just sleepy. So about noon I decided to take a short nap. 

I went down shortly after Noon, like 1207 I think. And I woke up at 1227, 3 minutes before my alarm and feeling like I was ready to take on the world. There was not a slightest temptation to carry on sleeping. I did feel like I was coming out of sleep but that's all! 

After about 2 minutes I felt so refreshes, so awake, that I could not help noticing it. I have never, ever, felt more fresh even after hours and hours of monophasic sleep. Both mentally and physically, I was on top of the world! That moment I wished I could do this kind of short nap around noon every day. It doesn't seem viable right now, but I'll look for a solution for sure. 

Btw, I have been practicing guitar also, my practice time has been increasing after weeks of slacking off. 

So, conclusion:
1. The brain is very clear and capable of doing all kinds of creative or challenging work.
2. The motivation to do new or good stuff is automatically there. 
3. Caffeine needs to be avoided like the very enemy. 
4. Heavy meals or food that'd make you thirsty needs to be avoided for last 2 hours before sleep (nap or core).
5. Biphasic is awesome!


Friday, February 11, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 21 - 10th Feb - Tweaking


I had a plan to change things a bit today. I know it's soon as the habit is just forming, seeing how it's my 21st day on biphasic.

The reasons for this tweaking/messing come from two sides - one, my own experience and reflections, and two, from the blogs that I have read on biphasic/polyphasic and one that I read today on triphasic.

The major facts are:
1. The best period to nap is 20 minutes, not longer.
2. If you sleep more than 2 hours at a stretch you are not really traning your body to enter REM sleep quickly.

Add to this my need for more time, the proximity to the weekend etc. etc. and I thought this would be the right time to tweak things up a bit.

How did it turn out? Read on!

Evening 10th Feb:
I was home by 1741 and in bed by 1800 but I set the alarm for 1830 this time. I woke up at 1832 by the alarm and felt really fresh. I have never woken up this easy from the 90 minute nap and never felt this refreshed after it.
 I did the usual things like cooking and eating but also, I played a little guitar today. Just a few minutes, I admit, but I was refreshed enough and in the mood enough that I played. I was happy about that.
I felt my lower back aching later like I was tired, even though I felt fresh mentally and otherwise. So far, I am convinced that the 20 minute nap works better but I will continue to use it and observe further effects.


Morning 11th:
I was planning to break last night's sleep into 2 parts, making them both 90 minutes so they'd be under 2 hours. To that end, I went to bed at midnight instead of following my 0100 to 0545 schedule.
I was able to sleep quickly at midnight, but waking up at 0145 (by the alarm) was very hard. I went to the bathroom to see if walking about and washing my face would help but I felt like shit, heavy sleep dep, back ache and hard to keep my eyes open.
Even if it was Friday, I didn't want to go to work feeling like that. So, I decided to do my normal (biphasic) 4.5 hours instead.
Having gone to bed at midnight I woke up at 0430. Difficulty in waking up was the same and I felt the same as I do on biphasic mornings.
I think not having caffeine in the morning is extra hard on the body and I take longer to start feeling very alert and awake.

I did play some guitar in the morning also, and loved it! Both the fact that I was practicing and the actual playing. Enjoyed it very much!

By the time I left home I was quite alert though. Having stayed awake since 0430 was much better than getting up around 0600, getting ready in a hurry and going to work.
So, to recap this is one schedule that I think will work:
Nap: 1800-1830 (20 minute nap)
Core sleep: Midnight to 0445. (4.5 hours sleep)

I will of course try variations to see if I can make it triphasic and feel better or squeeze more waking time out of it, but even at a total of 5 hours spent in sleeping daily is quite a good deal over my usual monophasic.
I do understand the challenge in trying to devise a triphasic routine that avoids the workday and commute completely but I am going to try anyway. I figure I have 12 hours between 6 PM and 6 AM that I can play around with. During that I need to grab one short nap and two relatively longer periods of sleep. Total of these cannot exceed 5 hours or it'd be useless.
If I could devise a schedule that worked, it would be a "giant leap for mankind!"
I have no idea what I'd do this weekend as I have a LOT to do and need all the waking hours I can grab.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 20 - 9th Feb

Evening 9th:

As I mentioned in the previous day's log I was going to have to modify my nap today which I did with no differences.

But first about the day, the feeling of tiredness and sleep dep that I was feeling in the morning kind of wore off for a while but then I got tired towards the late afternoon. But as I said before, I was able to function

I was home at 1734, and took the nap from 1800-1830, also gave myself about 10 minutes fall asleep when setting the alarm. I fell asleep quickly and woke up only by the alarm.

Waking up was just as easy or difficult as after a 90 minute nap, no difference. Also no difference in the feeling afterward. I was devilishly hungry but since I wasted some time in actually persuading myself to wake up and get out of bed I didn't have time to cook a proper dinner before my guitar class.

I was worried that I might be too groggy to drive myself to the class having had only a short nap so close before driving. But it was absolutely fine, I felt fully awake and alert. No issues with driving.

No issues with guitar lesson either. Based on my teacher's feedback, I was making my usual progress. No complain about lack of focus etc. He taught me a new concept and I was able to grasp it and start learning it. My teacher was happy with my progress.

Once I got home I did some more creative work in Photoshop after dinner. No lethargy, grogginess or clouding of mind. No sign of any sleep dep.



Morning 10th Feb:

Went to bed at 0100 last night and was able to fall asleep in about 10 minutes this time. I find that once I am comfortable mentally, in terms of stop thinking other stuff to do on computer and physically in terms of the bed being warm enough, finding my perfect posture for lying etc. it doesn't take me more than a few minutes to drift into sleep.

I never had that kind of issues where I'd toss and turn waiting to sleep for hours, (except the usual times when I was too excited or anxious about next day or had messed up my sleep cycle), but now it's getting even better.

Before biphasic there used to be times, usually, when I'd lay down to sleep, go into hypnogogic stage then suddenly jump and wake up from something in the hypnogogic imagery/sensations, then I'd try and sleep again and would be able to. Sometimes the thing repeated a couple of times befor I'd finally fall asleep properly.

Now, it's an easy, slippery slope into dreamworld as soon as I get comfortable in bed. Feels awesome!

Woke up at 0545 by the alarm. Waking up difficulty about the same as usual. Felt slight sleepy/sleep dep during the morning even after I got to office. But felt much better after a good breakfast on a hot panini with water. No caffeine this morning and still fully alert and awake. There is some sleep dep at the back of my mind but could also be because I expect to have sleep dep after only 5 hours of sleep last evening/night.

Oh, did you notice that I didn't wake up half an hour after falling asleep last night? Also, I felt in the morning that the quality of sleep last night was awesome!

Today's plan is to keep the nap to 30 minutes and core sleep to 4.5 hours.

Tomorrow or maybe even tonight, I want to try reducing core sleep to 3 hours using the upcoming weekend as a buffer to fix any problems encountered. I know I am being impatient, but I can't help it, I have got a LOT to do this weekend, and I am loving this new sleep system so much I want to make the best of it. I love both the sleeping and awake periods on this new schedule.

That extra 1 hour I got from the shorter nap last night, felt great. At least that I am not changing back.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Told you so!

http://blogs.computerworld.com/16671/wow_android_now_sells_more_than_iphone_4_and_3gs_and_bizarre_email

Do read the comments below, they are hilarious, Apple fanboys coming out of the woodwork. :D

Biphasic sleep log - Day 19 - 8th Feb

Evening 8th:
Today, tiredness increased throug the day and felt some sleep dep. Nothing big and I was able to continue with my work at full capacity but just didn't feel the same great energy levels as I have lately since I started biphasic. I don't know if this was because of waking up half an hour after I went to bed last night or from re-sleeping at 0512 this morning.

I was feeling quite sleepy on the train home and thought I should try and see if I can take a nap on the train and then just go ahead and stay awake till 0100. It didn't work. It's hard for me to sleep on the train now though I remember when I was a kid I used to fall asleep as soon as the train left the station. But then those were Indian trains, for longer journeys. And they have a very relaxing, sleep-inducing rhythm to them that the English trains somehow lack.

Still, being able to nap on the train is part of my future strategy, so I will try this again soon.

As I got home, at 1734, I observed that the biphasic routine has increased my efficiency in some things. For example, I got home at 1734 and by 1738 I was fully changed and in home clothes, at 1740, on the bed. At 1800, I was in the bed, ready to nap.

Another efficiency improvement is in falling asleep time. It has reduced from about 15-20 minutes to well under 10 minutes. So, I set the alarm for 1930 instead of 1945.

Again I woke up about half an hour after sleeping. And went back to sleep. Then woke up by the alarm at 1932 and got up. Felt quite refreshed, as if there was no sleep dep from last night.
Another change that I have been wanting to bring is reducing my caffeine intake. Given my tastes, it's going to be very hard to give it up entirely. But I know it messes with the body clock so I must give up or reduce it to minimal if I want to succeed with this biphasic experiment or, more importantly, optimize it further.

I have replaced the workplace coffee with hot chocolate or milk but at home, I have either tea or Diet Coke with my meals and that's hard to change. I still had tea tonight, but I made sure it was extremely light, taking out the tea bag much quicker. It tasted almost like milk. I am also going to explore the herbal tea option.

Morning 9th:
Energy levels last night till 0100 were great. Still, I was in bed by 0100 as per plan. Again being aggressive, I set the alarm for 0530 instead of 0545.

Fell asleep very quickly. But woke up a half hour later. Went back to sleep easily.

Woke up at 0532 by the alarm and stayed up. Difficulty in waking up was same as every day nothing more or less.

Energy levels fine but slight feeling of sleep dep, like yesterday. Today it might be aided by the fact that I ditched my regular tea at the station and opted for hot chocolate instead. It was tasty but didn't have that caffeine kick. Well, I am just gonna have to deal with that.

I am not happy with the last 2 night's sleep. That's the kind of stuff I was trying to get rid of when I started biphasic. I will see what I can change to try and make it better.

It suggests to me that maybe I should have my sleep in 30 minute increments. But since I can't (as of now) accomodate a nap during my work day, I don't want to get into that yet.

Still, I will have to deviate from normal biphasic schedule tonight as I have my guitar class this evening. Since one of my main reasons to try this schedule was to make more time for my guitar, I am not going to give up the guitar class. But instead of missing the nap entirely I am going to make the evening nap 30 minutes and see how things feel based on that.

If tonight's 30 minute nap works well, (the real test will be tomorrow) then I may try only 30 minute naps on the next 2 days as well, using the proximity to the weekend for a fall-back plan if things go horribly wrong somehow.

I will do a proper summary after completing 21 days, but even as of now I feel like I have gained more time but not enough. I no longer feel like I have no time for anything and my life is being spent chasing the hands of the clock. I feel like I have enough time for "playing" now but still need more to be able to do some more useful stuff. (Or just more discipline in using the time I have now.) But even getting an hour from the reduced nap time may help.

I will, of course, update you.

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 18 - 7th Feb


Evening 7th:
I felt sleep dep today. Not horrible and not worse than what I have felt on monophasic as I mentioned before but still noticeable. I got home about 17.30 and was more than ready for my nap.

The nap however, completely refreshed me. I woke up about 1930 as planned.


Morning 8th:
Went to bed right on schedule at 0100. Felt like I had gone to sleep and then woke up maybe about 0130. But was able to go back to sleep within a few minutes.

Then I woke up in the night at least once. Had several dreams in the night so I know I did have REM sleep. In the morning, I woke up without the alarm. I was ready to get up and start the day when I noticed that the time was 05:12. I felt that I shouldn't cut corners on my sleeping time like yesterday and went back to sleep. Was back in sleep within a minute or two then woke up by the alarm at 0547 which is like on the dot every day.

Now I am wondering if I should have gotten up at 05:12 since it was a natural waking up. But so was the one at 01:30. That time also I felt like I could have gotten up and worked or a few hours. Anyway, we'll see how the days goes. For now, I feel fine, much like a usual biphasic morning.

Monday, February 07, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 17 - 6th Feb

Evening 6th:

This is the pattern this weekend, I get late for the sleeping time. Same for this nap, but not by much.

I was in bed at 18:18 and set the alarm for 20:00 giving myself only 12 minutes to fall asleep. I am happy to report that I feel I fell asleep even faster than that.

Woke up and looked at the time 19:57. That was close enough so I woke up. Though the temptation to go back to sleep is still there for each sleep. But waking up naturally rather than alamr is preferable so I didn't utilize the last 3 minutes.

Energy levels fine through this period. So much so that I got late for sleeping again.

Morning 7th:
Finally, was able to get to bed at about 0145. Since I needed to go to office this morning, I left the alarm set for 0545.

Woke up a few minutes before the alarm and felt good about it. Got up then as I had to get ready, even though the same feeling of wanting to stay in bed was still there. This feeling may be the result of, or least helped by the feeling of being in a warm bed in a cold weather. We will see when summer rolls around. Or IF. This is England, after all. :)

On a general note, I do feel a bit "achy" all over but that feels like the result of spending a whole weekend hunched over the laptop in various very un-ergonomic positions. I think it's safe to assume that my slight variations in sleeping times haven't affected the biphasic routine.

I am yawning a bit but it's early morning yet, not even 9 am, and this is nothing compared to what I have felt on monophasic after 6 hours of sleep before.

This was my first full weekend on Biphasic without any major variations, esp. in sleeping durations, and I am feeling like it works. I felt like I had a big chunk of time to work with as opposed to the "fleeting" weekend that I have usually. Even if I don't go out at all.

In view of the more frequent "natural" wake-ups and the slight, natural shrinkage in sleep times AND in view of my sore need for more time in my day, I am very much tempted to try and reduce my total sleep duration but I am keeping a tight rein on it until I can complete at least 30 days on biphasic. Still, if I am too tempted I will try to reduce my nap time next weekend. That way if I feel horrible sleep dep, I will have time to sleep a couple of extra hours and make up for it.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 16 - 5th Feb


Evening 5th:

Nap time came around before I realized it. I was talking to my nephew Sagar on gtalk voice (about biphasic and polyphasic sleep) when I suddenly realized it was 1742. So, I wrapped that up then prepared to sleep. Was able to get into bed about 1815. Set the alarm for 20:00.

I woke up on my own and the time was 19:53. Felt like I could get up easily, but still closed my eyes, seeing that I had time. Alarm went off at 20:00 and I must have been in light sleep as I heard it right as it started the very low-volume fade-in beeps.

Now for some fun until 0100.

Morning 6th:
Last night I got delayed in SL again. I had work to do so I decided to delay core sleep instead of postponing the work. The work needs coordination with other people, and I have a deadline approaching fast.

So, finally I went to bed at 0145 and set the alarm accordingly for 45 minutes later in the morning, i.e. 0630.

But this morning, I woke up before 0600, kind of around the time when I usually wake up, soon after 0545. That time after opening my eyes and looking at the time, and actually waking up is my weakest time. Any excuse to sleep more is fine. This morning the excuse was already there, I hadn't finished my 4.5 hours of core sleep.

I went back to sleep and woke up by the alarm at 0630. It was the same difficulty in getting as every day, but I got up at that time. Didn't feel any bad effects of the variations in the core sleep, felt great in fact, all day.

Since I didn't use to wake up so early on weekends, I felt like I had extra hours today.




Saturday, February 05, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 15 - 4th Feb

Evening 4th:
Since I was working from home, I was feeling very sleepy in the afternoon after work, but then I got into something interesting in SL and got late for my nap. But not too late, just half an hour.

So, the nap was from 1830 till about 2000. Pretty uneventful. Feeling the same as every day. Quite alert and awake, able to do creative work.

Morning 5th:
Alarm went off normally at 0545. Waking up was hard, but not after once I made up my mind. Being Saturday, I could have slept much longer today but once I made the decision it was not all that bad. I did enjoy the extra hours today as I usually sleep till almost noon on weekend mornings (when I was monophasic) and getting up at 0600 felt like I had so many extra hours today, which I did and I used them.

Despite the difficulty in waking up, I did feel great. I was able to do creative work, the household chores in the afternoon and talked to people on phone. Nobody complained that I was talking gibberish so I was successflly communicating. :)





Friday, February 04, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 14 - 3rd Feb

So, as you may remember we were going to monitor today's sleep closely, and I did.

Evening 3rd Feb:
I felt sleep dep all day, not severe but enough to be a factor in things. By the time nap time came around I was quite ready for it. And this is the beauty of the new routine that even though I got home about 1740, I was in bed by 1800, ready for the nap, and fell asleep in just a few minutes.

The nap was restful and I felt much better after it. The same feeling of being in-between sleeps was still there but I was awake and alert enough to do whatever I wanted. A bit of caffeine was part of the meal as I like tea with some foods.

Morning 4th Feb:
There was something remarkable about the core sleep tonight.

By the time 0100 rolled around, I was not overly tired but still sleepy enough to be able to go to bed. I went to bed a few minutes after 0100, I think it 0104. It didn't take me long to fall asleep, you'd see why.

I had a couple of dreams, but not one after the other, rather one inside the other. I dreamt that I was on my bed trying to sleep, and then somehow I started to have an OBE. That scared me and I "woke up" but that was yet another dream, or what is known as the False Awakening. FA is quite often (from what I have read) is an indicator of Lucid Dreams and/or instrumental in OBE. In this second dream or false "awake" condition I tried to look at the project time on the clock (that part is true, courtesy of my ex-gf, I have a projection clock that I look at when I wake up in the night), and there was no projection. This usually is considered a good chance to realize that you are in a dream and take control of it. I, however, made an excuse that we must have lost power several hours ago for the clock to run out of back-up battery power also, hence no projection. (The real clock has no battery power, only mains.)

I woke up from this second dream also, coming back into reality, however real this is, and looked at the projected time on the roof. This time the projection was there and time was 01:27!

So, in about 25 minutes, I fell asleep, entered REM state, had a dream, had a False Awakening and woke up. This bides really well for the time to come. :-)

If my body is entering REM state so quickly this means that:
1. I may be able to successfully reduce the total sleeping time to 4.5 hours at a later stage,
2. I might have some Lucid Dreams in the near future, if I stick to biphasic.
Sweet!

This morning, woke up by the alarm at 0555. I don't know why 10 minutes late, maybe I had snoozed the alarm without remembering it later, or it had been ringing for 10 minutes. Still, 10 minutes oversleep is not a worrisome matter.

Since, I was going to work from home today, I could have slept at least another 2 hours, but staying faithful to my biphasic schedule, I exercised my willpower (needed a truckload of this today!) and got up.

It's 15:27,  I have felt some light desire to sleep or nap, but not a big deal. It could be an effect of the weather as well which is cloudy and windy. Next nap in 2 hours 32 minutes!

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 13 - 2nd Feb

This is an interesting log entry as this was a variation day. So, now we find out how biphasic handles deviation from plan within the first two weeks.

Last night I had a work thing after work so couldn't take my usual nap. I started back from London about 18:50 and was fine so far. I was thinking about doing a 20 minutes nap since my journey is too short for a 90 minute nap and anything in between 20 and 90 is not considered good. But I didn't get a good enough seat for a nap, plus the train was not one that ends at my station, it goes all the way to the coast. I was afraid I might oversleep and overshoot my station.

That would have been really bad because I would miss my guitar lesson.

During the guitar lesson I was fully awake, no struggling with sleep or sleep dep feeling.

At night, I had trouble staying up. Around 2200, I was started getting very hungry and also very sleepy. So, I did what any super-smart person would do. I had a couple of bananas and went to bed immediately so as to fall asleep before I could get hungry again. :-)

It was around 2245 that I actually went to bed and fell asleep very quickly. This is one good thing that I have got from biphasic, the ability to fall asleep quickly, both for the nap and the core sleep.

I had set the alarm for 0500, giving myself 6 hours to sleep, since I didn't have time to sleep for 7.5 hours which is advised for the deviation nights.

Waking up this morning was hard, but no more than yesterday. I do feel slightly tired, and more than a little sleepy but that could change during the day. I expect sleep dep today but what I really want to see is how long it takes for me to get back on track whether it would take only the next nap or the nap and core sleep or even more.

I plan to be sleep biphasic again today (and subsequent days) so observations will continue.


Look ma, no cables! - Android Web-based Market

Even before I get into the biphasic sleep log today, I MUST express my delight about the new web-based Android market.

I read about it on my Android tablet on the train, using a feed manager called Pulse. Google has launched it's web-based Android Market at http://market.android.com/ where Android users can buy application. I had been waiting for this to happen for a long time.

I just used it for a test app and wow! It's absolutely perfect! There are categorized apps, there is search, paid apps, free apps, games, reviews, related apps, basically everything a user could ask for. And unlike Apple, Google "does it right" the first time. As soon as I clicked Install on an app, it asked me to sign in first. Once I signed in, I was navigated back to the same page where I had to click Install again. The beautiful thing is, I own three Android devices and there was a drop-down list for me to choose where I wanted to install this app. With NO prior setup, it just had a list of all 3 of my devices!

I selected to install on my Desire HD and within a few seconds it was installed. Look ma, no cables!

This is going to be my new favourite website. Thank goodness there is a huge collection of free Android apps!

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 12 - 1st Feb

Evening 1st Feb:I am sensing a pattern. I start getting gradually sleepy as I approach my sleep (nap or core sleep) time. I almost fell asleep in the train home today.

Nap: From 1830 to 2015. Woke up by alarm and felt like I need a much longer sleep. Became awake and alert after washing face, but the feeling of being in between sleeps is still there.

Morning 2nd Feb:
Woke up by the alarm at 0547. So, still on the program. It was still hard to make the decision to wake up and get up. This is the one thing I am looking to get rid of.

Results so far: I am usually quite awake and alert in the day. There is no feeling of sleep deprivation or tiredness that I'd have after sleeping only 6 hours of monophasic for 2 weeks. So, even in adaptation period I can say that it's an improvement over monophasic. As soon as I am sure that I have formed this habit fully, I will try to reduce time in some way. I still need more time from my day. I've been trying to even think of some way I could try Uberman.


Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Biphasic sleep log - Day 11 - 31st Jan

Evening 31st:
I missed my first train and got home about 1744. So, went to bed for the nap at 1830 instead of 1800. Set the alarm for 1945. I fell asleep much faster than 15 minutes I think. I don't remember twisting and turning much. It felt like my body was ready to sleep the moment my head hit the pillow, though it took a few minutes for my mind to quiet down.

The alarm seemed like an enemy when it went off and I think I even snoozed it once, for 8 minutes. But finally got up slightly before 20:00 and felt like I could have slept through till the morning.

It's 23:11 now and I still feel like I have a disturbed sleep even though I am awake and alert. I guess, it'll take more time to get used to this than I thought.

1st Feb Morning:

Oh, it was hard to wake up this morning. The alarm went off as expected at 05:45 and annoying as the beeping alarm is, it is effective. I wanted to sleep another 6-7 hours, but I got up.

Caffeine routine the same, only Chai Latte, nothing else. Alertness level good, soon after getting out of bed. No tiredness or anything. Don't really feel any sleep dep even though it was mighty hard to get out of bed in the morning.

I am thinking of adding some workout routine to my day now. I haven't been doing anything since I stopped going for a run when it got too cold outside, and I didn't want to add antoher reason to be tired while I was observing this experiment. But now I think is time. My options are - gym at the office, doing some push-type stuff at home, or using the Wii and Balance board that are just gathering dust so far.

I'd start something either this weekend or next week. I am delaying because I have a deviation planned for tomorrow morning. I won't be able to take my evening nap, so in order to sleep monophasic one night, I'd have to add an extra 1.5 hours and not sure how I'd feel on Thursday morning.