Evening 28th:
Throughout the day I was a bit confused about my physical condition. Mentally I felt fully alert and awake, physically I felt a bit tired. And I kept thinking if could be the Lemsip Max still mixed with the refreshing dose of Vicks Cough syrup (has a little alcohol too) or it could be my changed sleeping pattern.
I did have the tiniest tiny bit of caffeine in the afternoon, but I think it was too small to affect anything. Here's how I know it was the tiniest.
You see, I have figured out how to get just milk from the coffee machine. When I punch the code for Latte, it goes through the following process,
1. The cup falls down into the slot
2. It pours hot milk into the cup
3. It pours hot water into the cup
4. It pours a liquid mix of coffee into the cup
5. It beeps to let you know your drink is ready.
What I do is, to pull the cup out right after step two and there I have myself a cup of hot, sweet milk to enjoy with my mid-morning snack. Today I didn't want pure milk because of my cough, so I stuck the cup back in, at step 4 just for a fraction of a second.
And then too, I didn't finish it, I had only a few sips of it to finish my snack.
And that's how I am sure that my alertness was not aided by the caffeine. Good thing though, is that I am able to report that caffeine withdrawal symptoms were much less pronounced today. I had a slight headache around 10:00 or so when I usually used to have a Latte but it went away on its own within about an hour.
I had a short day today, so I was back home by 1600. But keeping my discipline about the schedule, did not go down for my nap until almost 18:00.
But something went wrong today with the nap. I went to bed at about 17:50 and I had the alarm set for 19.45, allowing me time to fall asleep and also a little time after the 90 minutes to see if I'd wake up before the alarm went off.
I think I woke up about 19:00 or before and thought I was supposed to be up. I looked at the alarm time, but as I might have mentioned I am useless at time arithmetic when I am half-asleep. From then I was between sleep and waking state until the alarm actually did go off. At that time I woke up and sat up.
One guess is that I might be getting to that stage where I don't really need a nap as long as 90 minutes. Esp. considering the psychological effect of reading so much about Uberman, Everyman and the fact that 20 minutes is the most effective time for napping.
At any rate, it's 21:22 and I am fully awake now, but a bit of sleep dep feeling is there. I would get more alert and less sleep dep in about an hour as I am most alert around that time of evening.
For this weekend, I am considering various options. One is to concede one morning's sleep for the sickness (just the cough/cold) and sleep as long as it feels good to sleep. Another option is to reduce the evening nap on the weekend and add another short 20 nap somewhere just to see how it feels.
And another option, of course is not to monkey with the experiment and just continue on strictly biphasic routine as usual. I am considering this the strongest option but we'll see how I feel tomorrow morning and might consider it prudent to sleep a couple of extra hours in the morning.
29th Morning
It was not a good night. Part of the problem for sure is the cough. It wakes me up if I get too much cough and that just messes with my mind.
Last night I forgot the time and it was 00:30 before I noticed. So, finally ended up on bed about 01:10. Set the alarm for 0600. and tried to sleep.
I woke up at 0150.
And I remembered very definitely that I had been dreaming. I even remembered part of the dream. It was most definitely not hypnogogic imagery. Even in my just awake mind I was happy about that dream as that meant that my body is adapting to the biphasic way and entered REM state in less than 40 minutes!
Then I went back to sleep.
In the morning, I decided to sleep a couple more hours since I had had a slightly disturbed night even after 0150 and had been coughing.
So I finally woke up about 0810.
Conclusion and planning. I think I made the right decision about sleeping extra this morning as I have been coughing much less today and feel healthier and more alert. I didn't need a shower to fully wake me up.
I am quite happy that my body is adapting and after another week I will think about either stopping with this log or reduce frequency.
I am already thinking about trying some different combinations to reduce the amount of sleep I need per day, but reason says that I should live on biphasic for at least a month before doing anything fancy.
Since I had things to do today, it is now at 1518 that I am writing this and still I am out and about. The 18:00 nap time seems very near and I am thinking "Where did the day go?" I suspect it's the effect of having slept till 0800 today.
Tomorrow I plan to follow the program as usual. Same for the nap this evening.
Throughout the day I was a bit confused about my physical condition. Mentally I felt fully alert and awake, physically I felt a bit tired. And I kept thinking if could be the Lemsip Max still mixed with the refreshing dose of Vicks Cough syrup (has a little alcohol too) or it could be my changed sleeping pattern.
I did have the tiniest tiny bit of caffeine in the afternoon, but I think it was too small to affect anything. Here's how I know it was the tiniest.
You see, I have figured out how to get just milk from the coffee machine. When I punch the code for Latte, it goes through the following process,
1. The cup falls down into the slot
2. It pours hot milk into the cup
3. It pours hot water into the cup
4. It pours a liquid mix of coffee into the cup
5. It beeps to let you know your drink is ready.
What I do is, to pull the cup out right after step two and there I have myself a cup of hot, sweet milk to enjoy with my mid-morning snack. Today I didn't want pure milk because of my cough, so I stuck the cup back in, at step 4 just for a fraction of a second.
And then too, I didn't finish it, I had only a few sips of it to finish my snack.
And that's how I am sure that my alertness was not aided by the caffeine. Good thing though, is that I am able to report that caffeine withdrawal symptoms were much less pronounced today. I had a slight headache around 10:00 or so when I usually used to have a Latte but it went away on its own within about an hour.
I had a short day today, so I was back home by 1600. But keeping my discipline about the schedule, did not go down for my nap until almost 18:00.
But something went wrong today with the nap. I went to bed at about 17:50 and I had the alarm set for 19.45, allowing me time to fall asleep and also a little time after the 90 minutes to see if I'd wake up before the alarm went off.
I think I woke up about 19:00 or before and thought I was supposed to be up. I looked at the alarm time, but as I might have mentioned I am useless at time arithmetic when I am half-asleep. From then I was between sleep and waking state until the alarm actually did go off. At that time I woke up and sat up.
One guess is that I might be getting to that stage where I don't really need a nap as long as 90 minutes. Esp. considering the psychological effect of reading so much about Uberman, Everyman and the fact that 20 minutes is the most effective time for napping.
At any rate, it's 21:22 and I am fully awake now, but a bit of sleep dep feeling is there. I would get more alert and less sleep dep in about an hour as I am most alert around that time of evening.
For this weekend, I am considering various options. One is to concede one morning's sleep for the sickness (just the cough/cold) and sleep as long as it feels good to sleep. Another option is to reduce the evening nap on the weekend and add another short 20 nap somewhere just to see how it feels.
And another option, of course is not to monkey with the experiment and just continue on strictly biphasic routine as usual. I am considering this the strongest option but we'll see how I feel tomorrow morning and might consider it prudent to sleep a couple of extra hours in the morning.
29th Morning
It was not a good night. Part of the problem for sure is the cough. It wakes me up if I get too much cough and that just messes with my mind.
Last night I forgot the time and it was 00:30 before I noticed. So, finally ended up on bed about 01:10. Set the alarm for 0600. and tried to sleep.
I woke up at 0150.
And I remembered very definitely that I had been dreaming. I even remembered part of the dream. It was most definitely not hypnogogic imagery. Even in my just awake mind I was happy about that dream as that meant that my body is adapting to the biphasic way and entered REM state in less than 40 minutes!
Then I went back to sleep.
In the morning, I decided to sleep a couple more hours since I had had a slightly disturbed night even after 0150 and had been coughing.
So I finally woke up about 0810.
Conclusion and planning. I think I made the right decision about sleeping extra this morning as I have been coughing much less today and feel healthier and more alert. I didn't need a shower to fully wake me up.
I am quite happy that my body is adapting and after another week I will think about either stopping with this log or reduce frequency.
I am already thinking about trying some different combinations to reduce the amount of sleep I need per day, but reason says that I should live on biphasic for at least a month before doing anything fancy.
Since I had things to do today, it is now at 1518 that I am writing this and still I am out and about. The 18:00 nap time seems very near and I am thinking "Where did the day go?" I suspect it's the effect of having slept till 0800 today.
Tomorrow I plan to follow the program as usual. Same for the nap this evening.
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