Hiking the Na Pali Coast

Tl;dr: Polyphasic has many pros, but our extended hiking/camping trip was only made possible by switching to monophasic until our "return to civilization." and doing so, did not have any adverse side affects!
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Like any good hiking/camping trip, it all actually began days before we left the house, this time though, the weekend that we would normally pack prior to a week-long trip was compromised due to several social events and Mensa activities/duties, but that's where my polyphasic sleep schedule came to the rescue.

All packed into the last few days before we left, we had scheduled a mini D&D campaign for two players, games night on the other side of the island on Friday, a movie night at our place with 13 RSVPs on Saturday, then the grocery shopping and cleaning required before and after each event, plus packing all before an early flight on Sunday.

Waking up after the events were over and several hours before the early flight enabled us to easily finish our final errands in preparation for the trip. However, napping on the narrow, cliff side trails or in the mosquito infested jungles was out of the question. Also, our uncharged phone batteries were too important to waste on alarm clocks, so I decided to skip napping altogether and temporarily return to a monophasic schedule for awhile.

Here's how the trip went in regards to my sleep schedule (highlighted in maroon):
Saturday - 12:00am: Do silent chores like Mensa planning on the computer, etc, and begin gathering all the camping supplies, clothes, and non-perishable food into one area with the backpacks/luggage. I realized that the movie night would interrupt my normal 8:30pm bedtime, but that's okay because polyphasic is more flexible than I you would believe, so I adjust my nap times by 30 mins each.
Saturday - 4:00am: Nap (20 mins)
Saturday - 4:20am: Do more silent chores including answering emails, etc. Begin cleaning the house for the movie night in the evening, and ensure that we have all the ingredients required for making homemade salsa and pizzas.
Saturday - 8:00am: Nap (20 mins)
Saturday - 8:20am: Continue cleaning, prepare breakfast, start laundry, begin packing the camping gear into the packs, ensure that the technology is working for the movie, go to the grocery store to get the missing ingredients
Saturday - 1:30pm: Nap (20 mins)
Saturday - 1:50pm: Eat lunch, make the salsa, prepare the pizza ingredients, finish cleaning, rearrange the furniture, make the pizzas...
Saturday - 5:00pm: Movie night! Then clean up, take out trash, do dishes, etc.
Saturday - 10:00pm: Core Sleep (3.5 hrs)
Sunday - 1:30am: Finish packing clothes, food, and luggage. Drop off the animals with their care-takers.
Sunday - 5:00am: Nap (20 mins)
Sunday - 5:20am: Seal up the house. Leave for the airport
Sunday - 8:40am: Nap (20 mins) My last polyphasic nap for awhile, Kirsten posted a pic of me snoozing at the airport
Sunday - 9:00am: Travel by plane and car to the trail head.
Sunday - 11:30am: Begin 4 day hike. Napping on the narrow, cliff side trails or in the mosquito infested jungles was out of the question. Also, our phones batteries were too important to waste on alarm clocks, so I forgo napping altogether
Sunday - 3:45pm: Arrive at 6 mile campsite, set up camp, forage fruit and replenish water with boiled spring water, eat supper
Sunday - 8:30pm: Monophasic sleep (12 hours, wow!) Polyphasic already had my body attuned to responding to early evening sleep pressure, so given the chance, I was out like a light!
Monday - 8:30am: Stretch, breakfast, explore/adventure, pack up
Monday - 11:30am: Continue hiking
Monday - 4:30pm: Arrive at 11.5 mile campsite, set up camp, forage fire wood, bathe in the twin waterfalls, cook dinner, eat it on the beach while watching the sunset :), meet other hikers
Monday - 10:30pm: Monophasic sleep (9 hours)
Tuesday - 7:30am: Clean up camp, begin return hike, skip 6 mile camp grounds
Tuesday - 6:45pm: Arrive at the 2 mile beach, set up tent in the dark, rinse off in the river, eat
Tuesday - 9:30pm: Monophasic sleep (9 hours)
Wednesday - 6:30am: Clean up camp, explore area, finish hike
Wednesday - 12:00pm: Nap on the beach (20 mins)
Wednesday - 12:20pm: lunch, swim, carpool to Anini campgrounds
Wednesday - 8:30pm: core sleep (3.5 hours)
Thursday - 12:00am: wake up, stretch, snack. Off the trail, I would be able to safely take naps, however our phones/alarms are not yet charged, so I decided to stick to a monophasic-esque schedule, even though my body was trying to wake me up at regular intervals
Thursday - 12:40am: Extended nap (1 hr)
Thursday - 1:40am: wake up
Thursday - 2:00am: extended nap (3.5 hours)
Thursday - 5:30am: public transportation, grocery shopping
Thursday - 12:00pm: Nap (20 mins)
Thursday - 12:20pm: lunch, rent car, return to campsite
Thursday - 8:30pm: Core sleep (3.5hours)
Friday - 12:00am: wake up, stretch, snack
Friday - 12:40am: Extended nap (1 hr)
Friday - 1:40am: wake up
Friday - 2:00am: Extended nap (3.5 hours)
Friday - 5:30am: catch up with facebook, email, coordinate dinner plans and testing venues, check into hotel
Friday - 1:00pm: Nap (20 mins)
Friday - 1:20pm: unpack, relax, swim, eat, visit with friends
Friday - 7:00pm: Meet local Mensans for dinner
Friday - 9:30pm: Core sleep (3.5 hours)
Friday - 1:00am: wake... etc.
Friday - 3:30am: Nap (20 mins) With a set schedule and reliable alarms, I have finally returned to my polyphasic schedule from here out.

Day 14 - Pre Core

In bed by: 9:00pm

I'm a little late for core sleep tonight after the Mensa folding party and dropping off a friend's car. I began to feel the effects of napping on the bus (I suspect I didn't fall asleep quick enough, therefore the alarm woke me up too early or during REM).

I have been reflecting on these last few weeks and have some interesting (I think) observations and additinoal lessons-learned that I'll share tomorrow... after I go get some good core.

Day 14 - Naps 1, 2, & 3

Nap 1 - Alarm: 3:50am

Ah... nothing beats a perfect nap. I'm not sure exactly what that bump-without-noise is at 3:42am, but I don't think it affected my nap at all.

Nap 2 - Alarm: 7:20am

Another perfect nap! What away to end this 2-week adaptation period!

Nap 3 - Alarm: 12:50pm

After having lunch with my brother, then dropping seeing him off back to the mainland at the airport, I needed to take a bus over to a car shop to pick up a repaired car for a friend that had just deployed. Luckily it was a 45 min bus ride that should have started at 12:15pm, however buses are always late. 

I was in a comfortable window seat by 12:25, when I realized that if I could quickly fall asleep on that nearly-no-seat-left bus ride from the airport, that I wouldn't even have to change the alarm for Nap 3 and would still wake up within 10 minutes of my ETA.

So I did and it was brilliant. The graph is all over the place with movement and sound (as expected), but as that became the "norm" my body/mind found peace and I merrily drifted off into a comfortable dream about the new Elon Musk idea, the Hyperloop. 

I was a bit stiff after waking, but I totally avoided all symptoms of sleep loss until about 8:00 when I began to feel the slight pressure behind my eyes again.

Day 14 - Post Core

Alarm: 12:00am

Geez, what a bumpy night. At least I don't feel completely horrible; just a little dizziness and eye pressure. I hope that I don't develop further sleep dep. symptoms through out today because of this interrupted core.

For the last week or so, laying down for sleep has meant slipping almost immediately into a dream with some degree of lucidity. Lucid dreams aren't by themselves unusual for me, however when I was a mono-phasic sleeper, they usually occurred in (or I only remembered) the last dream cycle.

I think that it is likely that I am so quick to wake up after early REM cycles during core sleep because, while I'm used to lucid dreams only being in the last REM cycles, I'm now experiencing them in the first REM cycles, therefore subconsciously I think that I must be close to missing my alarm and thus wake up once I drop back up to light sleep.

This effect, I imagine, is probably intensified by my recent adaption to nap sleeping; as I am waking after falling up into light sleep after but a single REM cycle characterized by a lucid dream experience. But why I am actually turning off the SleepBot when I do wake up early? I think that is because my phone's clock is set to 24hr display and in that foggy state, I'm not being quick enough to realize that 2200 isn't 2400.

8:30pm - 9:57pm

9:57pm - 10:06pm

10:06pm - 12:00am

Day 13 - Pre Core

In bed at 8:20pm:

An afternoon filled with web development, concluded with a quick 1.5mi run/jog by the marsh, then another episode of Battlestar Galactica (Yay Adm. Cain is gone! (I hate horrible bosses)) over lime BBQ'd chicken, steamed sweet potatoes, and Arnold Palmers.

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Cheers to a good day!

Day 13 - Post Nap 3

Alarm: 12: 50pm

Perfect Nap! I must be getting the hang of it (and getting lucky with the daytime noise levels). I feel great, have no symptoms, am very refreshed and am still getting lots of meaningful work done for the edX.org class that I'm currently involved in, SaaS 2 (Software as a Service/Engineering Long Lasting Software).

There have been ups and downs, but since nothing too crazy has happened during my adaptation period, I have decided to stop blogging on a per nap basis beginning with Day 15. I do plan to continue regularly tracking myself via the survey, however I haven't yet decided at what frequency I will continue this blog.

Day 13 - Post Nap 2

Alarm: 7:20am

Woot! Perfect nap!

It took a tiny bit longer for me to fall asleep than usual, as expected, but using proactive sleeping techniques like:

• regulated my breathing, 
• ensuring that the room was dark, 
• being completely still 
• in a comfortable sleep position, and 
• letting my mind wander about, 

I was able to fall asleep within several seconds.

Strange occurrence though, for the first time, I woke up with our new puppy curled up in our bed for the first time. She was curled up between my knees as I slept half on my stomach, half on my side with my arms crossed under my face.

She must have been a little ninja in getting up on our captain's style bed, because she can't even see on top of the mattress standing on her hind legs and yet she didn't trigger the SleepBot sensors.

Day 13 - Post Nap 1

Alarm 3:30pm

I slept through my alarm (I don't even remember hearing it sounding off) and we woke up at 6:10pm, just in time to get my wife ready and off to work. Also, there was no record in SleepBot of what transpired during that time frame.

While I do feel refreshed, I have a thick feeling in my head, not unlike before when I was still on monophasic sleeping, those rare times when I would oversleep on the weekends for 10+ hours after a week of not getting enough sleep.

Even though it is less than an hour until Nap 2, I still plan to sleep then because I don't trust the extra sleep enough to rotect me from possible sleep deprivation symptoms.

Day 13 - Post Core

Alarm: 12:30am

As mention in Day 12 - Pre Core, we set our alarms forward by 30 minutes. Judging by the SleepBot, it would appear that finishing SWS, I began moving around in my sleep roughly every 20 minutes... does that mean that I got 4-5 REM cycles in?

When I woke up, I could remember more than one dream (one in which I decided was not very entertaining and consciously stopped it and restarted a new one), saw that I was 30 minutes past regular wake time, and was anxious that I had over slept until I remembered the temporary schedule change.

I also felt "thick-headed" for lack of a better work. For the next 20 minutes, I paced around the house switching on and off light switched in different rooms because I couldn't remember what I was doing, or going to do, or should be doing instead.

After that extended spin-up period, I felt great! and indeed was extra productive all the way up to Nap 1, which I was reluctant to stop for, but knowing that I would only be down for 20 minutes and what the repercussions for delaying a nap can by, deciding that I should go nap was not too difficult of a decision.

Day 12 - Pre Core

In bed by: 9:00pm

Spent the afternoon working in yard and moving our driveway fence line forward 6 feet so that we can open have our front door open all the time allowing the dogs access to the backyard at all times.

We saved time making dinner by reheating left-overs and adding a delicious salad and steamed spinach from our backyard aquaponic garden, so we decided to enjoy a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica, Season 2 episodes 22 and 23, which ended on an intense cliff hanger. 

Arrrggh! We had just enough time to watch another episode so we did, but episode 24 is another "to be continued", they're about to attack the giant Cylon resurrection ship. It took a bit of will power not to hit next!

Were were in bed in time, but by the time we relaxed and were ready to sleep, it was already 9pm so we reset our alarms. 

Day 12 - Post Nap 3

Alarm: 12:50

Decent nap that was just a little snafu. Though SleepBot doesn't show it, I could clearly hear a telephone conversation and laughing drifting in though my bedroom windows, and I a fairly certain that I did not fall asleep immediately as I usually do.

My wife also tells me that the dog was whining loudly outside our window because we put her outside while we slept because we had just fed her and didn't have a chance to walk her before nap time. 

Perhaps those are reasons why I don't remember hearing the alarm and slept right through it? With a total time of 38 minutes, I awoke a bit dizzy and felt sluggish (but not sleepy) for at least the next 30 minutes.

Day 12 - Post Nap 2

Alarm 7:00am

Perfect nap! Good-timing and uninterrupted, I awoke even more refreshed than after a good core sleep.

SleepBot decided to only record for the first minute though, so perhaps I squished the "Wake Up" button with my pillow before my screen had a chance to turn itself off and lock.

Day 12 - Post Nap 1

Alarm: 3:50pm

Bam! That's what I'm talking about! Another perfect nap + exercise = more feel good hours for me. : )

Day 12 - Post Core

Alarm: 12:00am

Despite the bump at 9:30pm (which I don't remember), this was a perfect core sleep and I awoke with practically no symptoms. I laid my phone between my wife and me (which I don't normally do) so there are few extra bumps from her. She just informed me that one at 9:30pm was when her phone crashed to the floor.

Some ice-cold lemon+water and a couple of pieces of chilled cantaloupe later, and I'm very much looking forward to the rest of today. :)

Day 11 - Pre Core

In bed by: 8:15pm

A great ending to an interesting day. 

Feeling sleepy, yet no-longer abnormally so, my wife and I were able to get to bed a bit early after eating a scrumptious meatloaf dinner while finishing up a contraption on which we were collaborating in Minecraft, an auto harvesting wheat/carrot farm.

Lesson Learned:

Perfect naps and/or a recovery schedule can salvage even the worst days, ensuring that you don't have to suffer those nasty sleep-deprivation symptoms that you experience on a fluctuating/interrupted schedule. Oh, and exercise makes a big, positive difference too.

Day 11 - Nap 4 (Recovery)

Alarm: 3:30pm (smart)

By 1:30pm, I no longer felt the symptoms that convinced me to switch to the recovery schedule, so I decided to keep working a bit in the yard with my wife; we are preparing a tree for planting at a neighborhood park tomorrow morning.

At 2:45pm I decided that I should nap again anyway, but instead do so under a smart alarm, one that would monitor when I exited REM. The result was I only slept for 18 minutes, so my wife and I could still make our plans to go swim laps at the neighborhood pool. After swimming, I experienced near-perfect freshness.

Day 11 - Post Nap 3

Alarm: 10:50am

Ahhh... a perfect recovery nap was exactly what the doctor ordered; I'm already feeling so much better. I had just a slight headache when the alarm sounded, but a just little physical activity was enough to assuage the pain. I can't wait until after the next nap, its a big, whopping 1 hour kind!

Day 11 - Post Nap 2

Alarm: 7:20am

My wife and I were in bed 10 minutes early so that she could wind down beofre she was expected to sleep. I tried my best not to, but I dozed off 4 minutes early anyway. I did wake up 8 minutes later to engage my SleepBot and from then I was (thankfully) not interrupted.

Upon waking I again had a headache, pressure on and behind my eyes, a slight dizziness, vague discomfort, my eyelids were difficult to keep open, and the morning light coming in through the windows was only making my head feel worse.

I hasten my return to the living, I stepped outside, drank some cold water, then did 30 minutes of jumping-jacks, sit-ups, and push-ups. While that cured me of most ailments, it only made the head/eye aches worse...

I think that it is time to go to the beach!

Day 11 - Post Nap 1

Alarm: 3:55am

My wife got in bed late, so I pushed the alarm back 10 minutes to ensure that we still got 20 minutes of sleep in, however, she tells me that she didn't fall asleep at all, but myself, I still slipped right down into a lucid dream where we were swimming in the ocean so I convinced everyone to lose their clothes because skinny-dipping is more fun.

It was difficult to get out of bed (and not just because of the good dream), the headache is still here and obvious, my eyes feel tight, and I'm not in the best mood (neither is my wife!). 

My concentration is still faring pretty well though, surprisingly; and in fact, I installed CGMiner on our two Linux _ nVidia machines, our Windows 7 + nVidia machine, and am now working on adapting it to our Windows 7 + AMD machine. If you're wondering, the problem is because CGMiner utilizes the CUDA cores which aren't typically accessible; nVidia makes them available by default but you need to install AMD's APP SDK to get access to theirs.

I checked out http://www.polyphasicsociety.com/polyphasic-sleep/overviews/everyman/ to discover a good schedule to recover from that horrible Core sleep this morning. I'm going to try out what they suggest, which is:

Which equates to this on our schedule:

Start	Stop	Duration
20:30:00	0:00:00	3:30:00
0:00:00	3:10:00	3:10:00
3:10:00	3:30:00	0:20:00
3:30:00	6:40:00	3:10:00
6:40:00	7:00:00	0:20:00
7:00:00	10:10:00	3:10:00
10:10:00	10:30:00	0:20:00
10:30:00	13:30:00	3:00:00
13:30:00	14:30:00	1:00:00
14:30:00	20:30:00	6:00:00

*I'm pretty sure that the site was intending those .3s to mean 20 (not 18) minutes, which makes those .2s more like 10 minutes to balance out the rounding error.

Day 11 - Post Core

Alarm: 12:00am

Core sleep did not completely successful and I fear that today's requirement of SWS (slow wave sleep / delta wave sleep) may not have been fulfilled. 

Upon waking, it was extremely difficult keep my heavy eyelids open and when I did, I was punished with a strong sensitivity to any light. That was followed by a medium headache, some pressure behind my eyes, slight dizziness, and a vague discomfort overall. 

I found my self pacing from the living room to the bedroom, waiting for myself to "really wake up", which didn't happen until at least 12:10am (but it sure seemed 10x that long!).Depending on the severity of sleep loss symptoms, I may attempt an extended nap later today to ensure the integrity of my sanity.

According to SleepBot, I was physically active at 9:20, 10:15, and 11:30. My phone had found its was under my pillows, so even though no there does not appear to be much noise, there still could have been sounds coming from outside that caused me to wake up (even higher probability given that it is Friday night).

Day 10 - Pre Core

In bed by: 8:20pm

Great day. Combined two custom ROMs to finally get one working for Kirsten. Also had to manually flash an update to the modem. Sprint Samsung Galaxy S II is not my favorite phone!

Just now feeling sleepy (normal kind) as core sleep time approaches.

Day 10 - Post Nap 3

Alarm: 12:50pm

Huzzah! Perfect Nap! (and I feel great and have no sleep loss symptoms)

Without further ado, I'm going to get back to work :P.

Day 10 - Post Nap 2

Alarm: 7:30am

Refreshing nap overall; got to sleep 10 minutes past schedule due to puppy turning a large white candle into multiple, sticky snow fortresses around the house, but was lulled away quickly to REM by the ambient sounds of a light rainfall; I was not further uninterrupted, and did not sleep through the alarm.

I am starting to feel much better now, both physically comfortable and mentally alacritous. Hopefully the coming of the weekend will mean adhering to the schedule better, not worse.

Lesson Learned:

Getting off schedule in polyphasic sleep is inevitable. Doing so does have powerful and immediate consequences, but it's predictable, not too severe, and still worth the reward. 

It does, however, take awhile to get back to normal, so don't rush it. Try instead to even out the return to schedule over the next two or three naps, and you'll be feeling better again soon.

Day 10 - Post Nap 1

Alarm: 4:20am

It is feeling like delaying this nap because of the delayed core was a great idea.

Had a nearly perfect nap, except that I was briefly disturbed by an itchy nose; perhaps I shouldn't trim my facial hair right before bed? I am still experiencing a light pressure behind my eyes and other general discomfort, otherwise I am feeling rather refreshed and ready to get back to work.

Troubleshooting my wife's phone again this morning. Since getting returned from the warranty repair of the usb port, her GPS and 4G connections do not work 90% of the time so I want to try installing a different ROM. The problem is that this model, SPH-d710, has few options, half of which require flashing a zimage via fastboot... now if I could only get fastboot to recognize the device. Meh, perhaps I'll just replace the zimage in a known working zip and load it via CWM.

Day 10 - Post Core

Alarm: 1:15am

As expected, getting out of bed was not a piece of cake. For at least the next hour, I suffered: Headaches, Eye Pressure, Dizziness, Yawning, and Vague discomfort before the symptoms subsided. Unfortunately, we planned to push Nap 1 back by 1 hour to even out the space up to Nap 2; I'll really looking forward to hopping back into bed.

Day 9 - Pre Core

Bed by: 9:40pm

My wife had errands that kept her away until 9, so I decided to stay up with her to keep or schedules aligned.

Learning from our past, with delayed core sleep, we have decided also to push back Nap 1, and hopefully we'll minimize any symptoms that will occur.

Day 9 - Post Nap 3

Alarm: 12:50pm

Perfect nap! ...and boy do I feel so much better. Nearly every symptom from this morning is gone, except for a slight, hard-to-describe discomfort. After eating, I'm ready to dive back in and get some more work done.

Home and Garden Chores

And thank goodness for chores! I can't say I would have predicted me feeling that way, but when I was being lulled into sleeping too early, I switched from working with spreadsheets and IDEs to doing dishes, laundry and yard work. The sun on me and the physical activity was enough to carry me through, and by the time I hit the bed, I was feeling better already anyway.

Day 9 - Post Nap 1

Alarm: 3:50am

If not Besides starting a tiny bit late, this would have been a perfect nap... so why do I feel so sleep deprived? I feel like if I can just make it to Nap 2...

Day 9 - Post Nap 2

Alarm 7:20am

I made into bed just early enough to relax before falling asleep. What otherwise would have been a perfect nap, was interrupted by me waking up from an intense moment in a exceedingly vivid dream.

I'm really not feeling great today. No more headache, but my eyes feel heavy, I'm yawning, and for the first time, you can see dark rings under my eyes and I have an increased appetite. Oh noes!

Day 9 - Post Core

Alarm: 12:45am

Slept poorly. :( Kept waking from dreams and looking at the time. This is unusual for me, and unfortunately I can't blame it on sounds... those are all from me moving, not causing me to move. Symptoms this morning include: a reluctance of getting out of bed, eye pressure, yawning, and a hollow stomach feeling. 

Blecchh. I am really looking forward to Nap 1, but not before I switch my wife's Android phone ROM from AOKP to Blu Kuban.

Day 8 - Pre Core

Alarm: 12:45am

A little late getting to core yet again. This isn't ideal, but that's life... And I'm not sleep hurting

I read that most people quit polyphasic sleeping because the world doesn't conform to their schedule, but I never head that unrealistic expectation. I'm sure that less-than-ideal conformity to nap times will eventually be good enough... Either that or it won't. :) We'll just have to find out. :)

Day 8 - Post Nap 3

Alarm: 2:20pm

Once again, we have a delayed alarm, but otherwise great sleep. While I don't have any of the other symptoms, I do have a strange pressure around my eyes. Perhaps it is more due to eye strain that sleep loss? I decided to run my monitors in F.lux mode 24/7 with the brightness also turned down to a more sustainable level.

f.lux is a really cool program that... well their website, http://justgetflux.com/, says it pretty well: 

During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun.
f.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.
It's even possible that you're staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.
Read more: http://justgetflux.com/#ixzz2cez6AGLB

Day 8 - Post Nap 2

Alarm: 7:45am

Was helping my wife get out the door for work, so wasn't able to get to bed in time for this nap by about 20 minutes, otherwise, it was a decent sleep with no interruptions.

I did however, experienced a SleepBot failure. I was laying watching my phone at 7:24 am, waiting for the clock to change so I could start the sensors and my journey down to REM. When it flipped to 7:25 am, I tapped the screen lightly, but the phone bounced a little on my bed and I ended up rapidly double tapping which, because SleepBot puts its toggled button in the same location, resulted in flashing the [Wake up] button then back to the [Go to Sleep] button.

I noticed that, so I tapped the [Go to Sleep] button again then dosed off. When the alarm sounded, I tapped slid the alarm into the off position as is typical, but my resulting record said 7:25 - 7:25. (I edited it as you see below to get the correct length of time at least). I've notified the developers.

Day 8 - Post Nap 1

Alarm: 3:50am

Bam! Perfect Nap. It was on time, no interruptions, awoke refreshed.

Too bad I don't feel at 100%. The poor core sleep over the last two days is still adversely effecting me. Perhaps a few more of these and we can put those behind us?

Day 8 - Post Core

Alarm: 12:00am

For whatever reason, I was pretty restless in this core sleep. I fell asleep rather quickly, but my dreams all had some sort of anxiety about the alarm having already gone off and me feeling as if I were sleeping through them. Reviewing my SleepBot log for movement spikes coupled with rustling noises shows that I did that at least 4 times.

Perhaps the two hours before bed spent rushing to finish chores and eat are what effected me in this way?

I ended up getting out of bed about 6 minutes before the alarm sounded, the first 30 minutes of which, were very difficult for me. Symptoms included a light headache, dizziness, yawning, heavy eyelids, and confusion. After walking the dogs, I was left with only the light headache and some eye pressure.

I'm still getting work done, but I can't wait until Nap 1!

Day 8 - Pre Core

Alarm: 12:00am

Composing this entry on my phone to my usual quality is impossible using the Blogger app!

I began yawning heavily at the grocery store by 7:00pm. We got home, bbq'd dinner, brushed our teeth, hopped in bed at 8:24pm. Just in time for me to publish this and fall asleep.

Cheers!

Day 8 - Nap 3

Alarm: 1:15pm

I was engrossed with a software project and I missed my nap by 20 minutes. Actually, the alarm to wake me up was what alerted me that I needed to get to bed ASAP. Besides the slightly delayed time frame, everything else about the nap was ideal.

For every day that I feel great, I still have this vague discomfort that I don't really notice unless I'm looking for it and is very difficult to describe. Some times it feels like an urgency, or pressure to do something, other times its like a slight headache, or very mild form of tunnel vision. I know that sounds like all different things, but like I said, its just hard to describe.

PS: I really like the current iteration of my sleep survey :)

Day 8 - Post Nap 2

Alarm: 7:00 am

Perfect nap: was in bed on time to relax, slipped into a lucid dream within seconds, solved a programming problem while under, was not interrupted, and woke up seconds before my alarm sounded; now if only I could repeat this performance every nap!

My survey entry was failing to save to the spreadsheet, so I capitalized on that opportunity to redesign the form a little bit. I added section headers and a symptoms checkbox question, then reconnected it to the spreadsheet on a different sheet.

Even with the perfect nap though, that headache that began with pushing my core sleep so far back is still slightly noticeable, but it is not strong enough to warrant any kind of worry or medication.

Missing Log Entries

While reviewing my survey results (sleep log), I discovered that I am missing all entries between 8/18 7:30am through 8/20 2:55am; a total of 8 entries. I am certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that I properly submitted the entries, so this is very disappointing and annoying.

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, I created a Google Drive form that captures interesting data about me and my state of mind after each time that I wake up, plus right before I go to (core) sleep. That data is then saved into a Google Drive spreadsheet.

Google warns that if you adjust the format of that spreadsheet or the form, that you can unwittingly break the connection with it to the form, and I did just that on August 14th. So that I didn't have to investigate what it would take to repair the "break", I decided to just create a new sheet in the same document, and connected the adjusted form to that.

Thinking back, around 8:00am on 8/18 I did muck around with creating a new chart in that spreadsheet that helps visualize trends (especially with weight). However, if that broke it, I don't understand why now when I have the spreadsheet open in another tab as I submit an survey, it immediately records correctly.

For now, I will begin confirming the record for each new entry, but further investigation and research into the topic will be warranted if I notice that entries are getting lost.

*Edit 08/20/2013 9:49PM

My survey for Day 8 - Post Nap 2 is not being saved in the spreadsheet, even within the same environment as the Post Nap 1 had worked. I am going to take this opportunity to add a few sleep deprivation symptoms that I have noticed, then re-connect the form with yet another sheet.

Day 8 - Post Nap 1

Alarm: 3:30am

Despite being relaxed in bed 8 minutes early and being sleepy, falling asleep took quite a bit of time. Waking up and getting out of bed was a little easier, though, I still have a hint of a headache. Drinking ice water, I found, really helped.

The plan is to go on a easy morning run, have a decent breakfast, then get prepared for the day. 

Allons-y!

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Day 8 - Post Core

Alarm: 2:20

I remember waking up early twice, neither in a good way. I think that it was some kind of subconscious anxiety about sleeping through my alarm. Reviewing SleepBot, I can see that happened at 1am and 1:25am.

Waking up was fairly difficult this morning; I nearly fell back asleep as I laid in bed after turning off my alarm. After finally getting up I had some pretty intense, sharp pressure around my temples not unlike caffeine withdrawals, that and a severe sensitivity to light.

Most symptoms were gone 30 minutes later, but now that it is 1 hour later, there still persists a very faint, tunnel-vision-esque headache that I really hope disappears after Nap 1.

Speaking of Nap 1 and schedules, we are not adjusting any of the naps times because our core was off by so long. This is because I am beginning to recognize think that schedule consistency will be the key to success in this endeavor.

Lesson Learned:

A consistent sleeper is a happy sleeper.

Day 7 - Pre Core

Alarm: 2:15am

We missed our core sleep time by a long shot! A close Mensa friend of ours held a going away party at our favorite restaurant so we decided to stay a bit later than we would have otherwise. Except for a few yawns near the end of the dinner, I'm happy to report that we are still quite awake and headache/pressure free.

We still need 3.5 hours of core though, so we're moving the alarm back to 2:15am to ensure that happens. So without further ado... good night!

Day 7 - Post Nap 3

Alarm: 12:50

Was in bed a few minutes before nap,

Fell asleep quickly,

Was not interrupted,

Woke up on time, refreshed, and symptom free.

Not much else to say... except: "No news is good news!"

Day 7 - Post Nap 2

Alarm: 7:20 am

I prepared on-time, slept well with no interruptions, then woke easily. I feel healthy, focused, and devoid of sleep loss symptoms, so it's time to get some work (programming) done.

Day 7 - Post Core / Nap 1

Alarm: 12:30am / 3:50am

WHAT?! Somehow, I slept through the first alarm and didn't wake up until after Nap 1's alarms. I woke up very drowsy, with a dry mouth, and an intense headache that lasted about 10 minutes. I suppose this is one danger of sleeping with your phone/alarm in the bed with you. 

If this happens again, I'll start having to use a spare phone as the alarm, and my main phone as the movement/sound sensor.

Because we pushed the alarm back by 30 minutes, I had created a new temporary alarm in SleepBot. When a non-repeating alarm is created, the checkbox that notifies you that the alarm is set gets unchecked after it goes off. That makes sense (as you don't want it to reset itself if it is non-repeating), however, this means that I don't have any way of seeing if the alarm had gone off at all; perhaps I didn't sleep through it and instead just forgot to set it?

Below is my graph from last night:

Until about 11pm, I would say that everything was normal;  you should be able to see where I entered and exited SWS/REM. At midnight, however, loud rustling noises were detected (not an erroneous alarm, I listened to the recording), but on my wife's graph, there was no sound or movement. Perhaps this was my body expecting to be woken up at midnight?

Looking even closer,  I notice that no new movements were detected after 12:22am, and no new sounds after 12:28am, while I slept until 3:50am. I think that this means that my alarm set for 12:30am went off correctly, triggering sleepbot to stop recording, but then was immediately switch off by something in the bed (my pillow or hand being the most likely).

Here are my wife's Core graphs:

And her Nap 1 graph:

The large amount of noise heard until 10:15pm is just rustling sounds indicating her difficulty in falling asleep right away. The noises at 2am are also just rustling sounds. Also, there is an ambient noise throughout her recording that is caused by her being near a fan.

My wife says that at 2am she woke up enough to notice that the [Go to Sleep] button was displayed on her phone instead of [Wake Up], so without checking the time, she toggled that to wait until the alarm sounded.

Lessons learned:

• Changing nap times probably isn't a good idea. 
• Leaving your alarm device in the bed with you holds a real potential for accidental failure.
• Sleeping through Core to Nap 1 can give you a pounding headache.