Polyphasic Day 14 - Forenoon Nap
Last night was a failure, a really strange one. I already decided on the rigid nap schedule, yet for some reason, when the alarm went off at 12:30 AM, I decided that I hadn’t slept so I reset the alarm for 12:50 AM I think, and then went back to get some ZZZs. I don’t know how I slept till 1:50 AM, but the button on the alarm was already pressed, which means that I either forgot to turn it on or I turned it off and went back to sleep. At this point, I just can’t remember. After that, somehow I fell asleep again and woke up at 5:20 AM feeling disoriented. I’m still confused at how that could have happened. For some reason, it was really hard to get up.
Clearly I’m dealing with a completely new set of circumstances, which present a new set of obstacles. While I was dealing with an environment in New Orleans that I had (relatively) complete control over, I am now faced with work and life in New York. My crisis of whether or not to stick to a rigid schedule combined with the disturbance introduced by the day of travel knocked my schedule off of its footing before it even had a chance to establish roots. Also, my allergies have flared up big time, and I’m in a constant malaise. I realize now that the allergies, not the sleeping schedule, are making me feel out of it, and they have contributed to my progress reverting to somewhat of a downward spiral over the past few days. And the weather outside is really bizarre! The sky is an eery yellow, and there’s a blizzard going on out there even though it’s only 40 degrees! It looks like a bioterrorist attack, and that may have something to do with my allergy flare up.
Despite all this, I am not discouraged. There have been some setbacks, but in light of the circumstances of my life, they are understandable. So, I’m creating a new game plan, and I’m going to introduce some core sleep. For 2 nights, I’ll get 3 hours of sleep from 12:00 AM to 3:00 AM and skip my 4:00 AM nap. The following 2 nights, I will reduce that to 1.5 hours from 12:00 AM to 1:30 AM. Then, I will eliminate core sleep altogether. As was suggested to me, it’s better to tame the oversleeps with a core sleep period than to be subject to their will.
On a side note, I found some soothing meditation music while I’m waiting for my power nap music to come in the mail, and I played it for my morning nap. I fell asleep almost instantly! Although that’s usually my easiest nap time anyway, I think the music helped me to fall asleep even more quickly.