“If you don’t create change, change will create you”

What happend to me since I started out?

1st week: After 6 tough days switching to uberman, I was more or less used to it. At day 6 I started out being productive all day and night long. BUT at the same time, my eyes began to hurt. They felt overstraining and indeed this is a fair enough reaction of being open 22 hours a day.

Experiment: Exactly at day 7 in the morning I came to the conclusion that it has been to much for my eyes and I decided to sleep for 1,5 hours. Afterwards my eyes didn’t hurt anymore.

2nd week: In the next 2 days I mixed up uberman with coresleeping in the morning for 1 or 2 hours <– not my best idea! I’ve got the feeling, that the body needs a fixed schedule and no confusion.

Alternative models

Day 9:I developed some solutions by the book and including my experiences I made. All of them based on the model “Everyman”. We talked and I thought a lot about. In the end I settled “Everyman 3″ with 3 naps.(down in the centre) This means 4h sleep and 20h awake per day.

2nd & 3rd week: Since 7 full days I’m living with Everyman3 and I’m quite excited about. I didn’t need any time for getting into it and I’m currently feeling fantastic!!!

PS: I was told that 42 days is a milestone for every change you make in your life. Apparently it is proved in many situations, i.e. quit smoking. My 42nd day will be the 30th of June 2012. My friends and everybody else who would like to are invited to have my first beer with me after I switched to polysleeping. (Have I ever told you I’m abstinence from alcohol for changing to uberman/everyman?)

The calm before the storm

Today will be my fourth night. So far every night was kind of hard, but definitely managable. Last night I stayed at home and kept my self awake for 7 hours by rearanging and cleaning my room.

Right now I’m even lying on my bed working and relaxing my back (which hurts due to only standing/walking without rest last night).

I’m really excited what will happen tonight and tomorrow. For Marcel, the fourth and fifth night seemed to be the hardest nights, so I’m excited

Ben going Uberman

Hey there,

I’m Ben, joining the guys today with the Uberman. Being on the same schedule as Marcel I just had my first two naps at 8pm and 12am.

I’m really looking forward to the Uberman  - at least after the adaption Why am I doing it? Because I’m chronically lacking time, running a startup in Munich and finishing my studies at KIT right now.

Stay tuned

One Week

One week has passed and some things have changed.

Firstly, we are not doing it all four of us anymore, Kilian had to drop out and so did Andy in regard to the Uberman Rhythm. Anyway he is still doing an attempt at polysleeping but canned the idea of going Uberman.

So as is today the crew looks like this:

• Chris – Uberman since Monday,  21.05.
• Marcel – Uberman since Sunday, 20.05.
• Ben – Uberman from today, 28.05. on.
• Andy – Polysleeper since 19.05.

Other than that it is going really good, some nights were tougher, some were easier, in the end it is about self-control and imaginative approaches on how to use all this new time.

What has been proven I guess is that the Nightliner concept worked and the support within the community helped each of us to do it. I personally think it would not have been possible for me if it was not for the other guys.

Within next week we are expecting some changes. The 4 to 8 period is still wearing on us and this has to change. Also, the additional full adaption should have taken place by day 10 or something, so we are expecting it to go through within the next 7 and expect the Uberman rhythm to set itself.

I still can’t believe that we slept only about 16 hours within the last 7 days. We are awake 22 hours a day.

Picture Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecstaticist/3462253178/ (CC-by-nc-sa)

Contacts

I wear my contact lenses at night, so I can, so I can…

actually see something.

Somehow I feel much fitter during the periods I wear contacts in relation to the ones I wear my glasses in. This might come from the fact that my contacts are closer to my actual visual short-sightedness. The glasses just are a bit old by now. I am also not allowed to drive with them anymore.

But due to this and the idea, that you should not wear contact lenses for much more that 8 hours, I now put them in right after midnight and put them out again right before the 8am nap. This gives me the chance to use on of my most active stimulants for vigilance during night.

Also, as I am quite often a bit absentminded during the night, searching for my glasses over and over again is not something I like the idea of.

I should probably get lasic.

Don’t wait for it to wor…

Don’t wait for it to work, make it work

The quote of the day, brought to you by your trusted WordPress blog.

“Don’t wait for it to work, make it work”, you can quote me.

Currently I am thinking more and more that it is not so much, more to say, not at all about an adaption period but about making the Uberman work and getting along with the new circumstances. As I figured out, you can challenge nearly every status of sleep deprivation with not only the on time scheduled naps, but also measurements during the waking period such as consumption of fruits, usage of energizers, fresh air and physical activities. Stuff like that (see the last post).

So take it as a learning process more as an adaption process. This is being gone actively, not passively.

What do we do with that? Well, I am thinking about an Uberman learning circle to introduce at the Nightliner. If anyone wants to join, feel free to contact us.

Cheers

So we fell asleep…

… so what, you might say. It was only one hour and this within one full week is acceptable.

No. It is not.

What is the problem, you might ask.

As our bodies need to adapt to the cycle the body has to be trained to use the 20 Minute phases to dissipate the sleep deprivation. It can not be tolerated for the body to think he can just snatch one hour or two when it really get’s hard. This way we will not really adapt.

Because of that we have come up with the two urgent situations and am presenting some examples on how to get along with them:

1. The Fallback – Going back to bed right behind a nap whilst because not conscious about what is going on
2. The Zombiemode – Vegetating for hours whilst dozing off over and over again which (happens a lot, at does not seem to be so bad, but) can lead to worse things. That’s why it is so dangerous. Letting the Zombie Mode happen and uncontrollably happen can lead to fallback later in the phase.

So how to we encounter these challenges?

Firstly, the fallback:

The main problem here, is that we are not at all aware, what our mood and our status of consciousness will be after waking up, so we have to act upon that. To enable ourselves to make decisions aware of ourselves, the outcomes and also enabling ourselves to execute them ourselves. In the end, it is about remaining in control and not getting hit by a bus unexpectedly.

On the one hand, to force myself to check up on myself we have added a questionnaire which is to fill out right before going to bed. This is checking all alarms, external factors, such as companions and their status of vigilance, and also the time of day in relation to the experience how bad this phase is going to burden me. This questionnaire has to be filled out right before going to bed to make myself aware of what is going on and to force myself to actively take a decision on how to prepare, because as part 2:

I am filling out my To Do Sheet for directly after the Nap, based on the analysis. This will include To Dos related to the areas of:

• Personal Hygiene (which I find very awakening)
• Housekeeping
• Social Encounters / Activities (e.g. Phone calls to my grandparents or sister)
• Fresh Air (Opening a Window, entering the balcony, leaving the house, different levels basically)
• Food
• Project Work (Which will be the area of work I will be facing after the phase to have something to look forward to getting done)
• Energizers (Chewing on an ice-cube can be scheduled for especially hard phases as this BOOSTS you, seriously!)

+ General Things which will obviously be added to the To Do List, such as

• Jump up
• Leave the room
• Turn on some music

The different possibilities to fill these out can be taken from an all over list I am preparing next to that. This way, I will always be preparing a complete and coherent list of To Dos right before bed time. Then, upon waking up, I will force myself to do ALL of them before thinking of anything else. This comes in the hope, that through that I will reach the stage in which I can logically think and make a rational decision upon what to do next.

In conclusion, what we are doing here is the Double Tap! Most of the times, one of these elements would be enough to get myself going. But actually planning it out, what do to, we are forcing ourselves to do the right thing. Just because when actually getting up, we are doing all of these anyway!

Secondly, the Zombiemode

Losing control is the big thread. If this happens we might succeed, we might fail, but we can never be sure. So we better use all the resources we have.

Challenging the Zombiemode requires two main elements:

A) Zombie Awareness (Unrelated Fact: It is Zombie Awareness Month!)

Being aware of our own status and level of consciousness is key. So two controls will be put in place. Firstly, a change of perception has to be made. The body shutting down and getting tires can be viewed as a new set, but also as Feedback (as my flatmate Andy , the man of genius, pointed out). So whenever going like “I just want to sleep” “I feel so bad”, take it not as a status which is carved in stone but as feedback from your body which you can react on. As it is possible to react upon this and to influence it, why not take it as what it is, Feedback regarding your current physical situation. Now the reaction can not only be “I want to sleep”, but way more!

For example:

Uh, my body feels bad, maybe…

• Should I take some vitamines to help him – Juice!
• Do I need some fresh air
• Water should also help regenerating
• Sugar pumps our system from time to time, maybe he is lacking that?

There are various possibilities with which we can support our body. Consulting these make it possible for us to react, not just to function or malfunction.

Secondly, the other habitants of the Nightliner should be able to know how to help you and how you are feeling, so we are adding a Sleepiness Scale to the wall of our Office. Showing the complete night in time, every inhabitant has to state his subjective vigilance constantly. This way, the other should become able to determine where he is standing and who has to support who right now and how bad. We want to help each other, so now we start enabling each other even better. In this picture blue was doing pretty good but is now loosing control a bit and green constantly needs help but is getting better overall.

B) Zombie Backup Defense

As every household should work on its zombie defense, we are now printing out all the backup lists of things to do when everything fails.

Some points from the list:

• Chew or suck on ice
• Shower with clothes on
• Leave the house, no matter where to
• Do the shuffle!
• Tend to your plants
• Sing as loud and energetic as you can with the song which is going

Most of these are taken from Puredoxyks Book Ubersleep – Still highly recommended

So when we realize, what is going on, we should react! Now it is made easier for us to do so. The List is printed out and lays all over the apartment (1 in every room).

Thread identified, thread subverted?

This is the plan and this is how it feels, but as we both know for today this was too late. Let us hope this helps us preventing such situations in future. What would be greatly appreciated is if you have anything to add to the presented lists. That would help enormously.

Happy Napping.

tl;dr: New recommendations: Exactly and versatile plan, what to do after waking up EVERY time and prepare your house and yourself for not being able to decide what to do with printed recommendations and information systems for yourself and your housemates.

Picture Sources: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/31082469/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/gattomimmo/1269272123/ (CC-by-nc-sa)

He got us.

“I’m the hand up Mona Lisa’s skirt. I’m a surprise, Kevin. They don’t see me coming: that’s what you’re missing.”

So this is how it comes in the end?

The quote is from the movie The Devil’s Advocate, spoken by Al Pacino as the devil, who is explaining why being underestimated is one of his key techniques to success.

And this is how our two stories merge.

We overslept from 4:20 to around 5:40, so roughly one hour of exact sleep if you discount for the fact that we actually got up before going back to sleep.

But even more interestingly, before that something odd happened.  From 00:20 til’ 04:00 Andy and I seemed to be having one of the best nights of our adaptions periods. We made some funny pictures with the webcam, filmed each other and Chris how we are fighting the sleep dep and generally having a fun time. When going to bed we were I think both genuinely happy and positively looking forward to what comes after the nap.

But there was no “after the nap”, we immediately overslept or went back to bed after getting up. We were not able to react to the now upcoming situation in which Chris had to wake both of us up. He succeeded around 05:40.  Before that, as he himself was fighting sleep deprivation there was no waking us up. We were not fully conscious, and this after such a glorious phase.

We felt safe and we did not prepare our awakening when we had the chance. He got us this time.

No Time To Waste

While writing this, I’m at my fifth night of sleeping polyphasicly. This led to a saving in time of 30 hours in total so far.

First of all, I’m proud of having no single moment of oversleeping until now. At every nap I laid down at the favored times and got up directly when the alarm rang. So I’m lucky to be very sensible to the sounds of the alarm clocks and do not really need a back up. Furthermore I challanged the time frames between the naps not falling uncontrolled asleep.

On the other side, I had to struggle with the consequences of sleep deprivation by night and day. Especially the fourth night was very hard to survive. I was so tired that my eyes kept on closing and I had to do some weird things from time to time to keep from falling asleep. The one which helped best was to turn on music very loud that pushes me best usually for party and to dance a little.

 

We also testet the impacts on social interaction and went to a bar in Munich on thursday night (BARer47). Unfortunately it had to close at 2am due to some legal rules. Therefore we only get one beer each and less social interaction.

In conclusion, while adapting to the new sleep-cycle it is vast difficult to struggle with sleep deprivation. But there were also time frames in which I felt really refreshed, like I had slept normal like before the polyphasic sleep. Unfortunately the first one is dominating until now. But I’m confident that this will positively shift within the next days .

Some people i have spoken to said they do not want to sleep poly., even if they could because they love sleeping too much. Meanwhile I have an answere on that: If you sleep poly. you get the opportunity to sleep 6 times a day. So if you love to sleep, you can do it than more often. In total with less hours, but isn’t the time when you lay down and than falling asleep the most enjoyable part in sleeping?

Picture Sources: http://www.mein.salzburg.com/interessen/aktiv_draussen/2008/08/04/zoo.jpg & http://file1.npage.de/003892/72/bilder/bin_wach.gif

Ups and Downs

It is 11:30. I am sitting here, actually being able to think. I have just watched a movie. Before that I read some pages in a PDF from a government entity (really exciting read) and after this I am going to answer one or two emails before my next nap comes at 12:00. I really am somewhat productive right now!

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Let’s go back 4 hours.

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I am slapping myself in the face every 3 seconds not to fall asleep. When sitting, I am falling asleep within 10, when standing I sometimes lose the muscles in my legs and nearly hit the ground as I am falling asleep whilst standing. Just right now I was outside with the guys taking a walk through Olympiapark. For four times I walked off the pavement and nearly fell, for about 6 thousand times I ran into Andy without wanting to. I am wasted.

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Right now every Nap seems like a phase shift to me. I do not know where I am going to end, but there ARE highs and lows. Right now I am on top of the world, but what will be in an hour?

Scary stuff.

Photo Sources: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jm999uk/176990144/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/onkel_wart/2262694499/ under (CC-by-nc-sa)