I have become a huge fan of my iPod naps. They work great. I got a new Bond CD in the mail today that I may start using for my wake-up. Because I have had success with my 15 minute iPod naps, and trouble with my core sleep I am thinking about going total Uberman. I don’t like the frequency of naps (every 4 hours) then, but at least I don’t need to worry about sleeping in from my core. . .
We will see what tomorrow holds. . . .

At home my wife got me a great dual-alarm clock with a nap timer. You hit a button and it will wake you up in a fixed period of time. The dual alarm is great for the polyphasic sleep too. Dawn uses it to wake up in the middle of the night for up time, and then I use the second alarm to get up in the morning.

I was using my cell-phone’s alarm to wake up from naps, but it is a pain to set, and was not 100% reliable. I came up with this great solution that I really like: the iPod Nap.

How it works:

1. Create a play list. I have 3 playlists for naps: they are named 15 minute nap, 20 minute nap, and 30 minute nap.
2. Add meditative, relaxing or soft music to take up the amount of time you want the nap to be. I have some hypnosis tracks I use.
3. Add some high energy and loud music to wake you up, after the soft music. I use Bond’s Highly Strung from their album Classified.
   
4. Play the playlist in sequential play (non-random).
5. Sleep during the soft / relaxing tracks, wake up for the high energy track.

This works great! Using the same soft music reminds my body it is nap time, so I go to sleep quicker, and every single time I wake up right away with the high energy music. Since I carry my iPod most of the time I am always ready to take a nap. The added bonus is the headphones block out a lot of the background noise so I can sleep easier, and without interruptions.

If you don’t have an iPod then you can get any portable MP3 player that supports playlists. You don’t even really need that much storage capacity.

Enjoy your naps!

I am going with a Core Uberman: 3 hours of core sleep and then 3 naps at 20 minutes each.  Total sleep time: 4 hours.  So I get at least an hour more then traditional Uberman, and a little more flexibility and longer time between naps.

Dawn and I worked out a schedule that works well with Dawn’s schedule, so I expect it to go well.  Now that I have a well defined schedule, with my naps programmed into my PDA, I will know when to sleep. 

How long will it take my body to adjust to this schedule?  Traditional Uberman is 2 weeks.  I suspect 1 week.  I operate really well with modified sleep schedules already, plus I have already adjusted my diet to a much healthier one. 

I actually woke up later then I planned, but I still got to work at a good time and took two 15 minute naps at work. The first was in the morning, so I went out and laid down in my car. Afterwards I realized that in the afternoon that would be a hot place to nap, unless I wanted to start parking in the garage, which is a long walk. Plus I plan to go back to riding the bus again to work, so I won’t have a car to sleep in. Need to come up with another option.

Since I have gotten good at the 15 minute REM power-nap I actually woke up on my own right before my cell phone’s alarm went off.  I imagine because I had a plan worked out this morning that is why I got sleepy at the scheduled times, then went to sleep and woke up as expected.

For my second nap I thought I would try sleeping in my cubicle, but that was too noisy, even with headphones on.  Next I tried the bathroom stall.  Again it was noise, and hard to breath.  At this point I was getting sleepy so I thought I would just go out to the car.  That is when it occured to me to grab an empty conference room.  I quickly found a quiet and dark conference room that is rarely used.  It was perfect.  Took my nap and woke up 20 minutes later.

After my nap I use some deep breathing and stretching to get myself woke back up again.  The result is I actually felt better, more alert and much more focused today.  My productivity was much higher and I was able to work out things very quickly.

Here is my plan: Start adding 15-30 minute naps every 4 to 6 hours during the day, and then gradually reduce the amount of time I sleep at night. I actually participated in Dawn’s polyphasic sleep schedule a few times, and so I have gotten really good at the 15 minute REM nap.

Interestingly, we are all born practicing Polyphasic sleep – rotating through a cycle of sleep and awake time through-out the day. Most babies are trained into sleep cycle where they sleep 8+ hours a night, with a nap or two during the day by about 1 year of age, and beteen by 5 and 7 most of them have given up the nap and are now completely monophasic.

At least this is true in the United States. Mexico is famous for its siesta, but it is actually practiced in many other parts of the world. Also, a large portion of Europe used to nap during the day, and then have some awake time at night. They are moving away from this in an effort to more align themselves with the US I imagine.

To sum it up, we are born polyphasic sleepers, which is breaking sleep up over multiple “naps” during a single day, but at least in the US we force ourselves to become monophasic, which is to sleep in one solid chunk once a day.

There is not many types of monophasic sleep. Some sleep less, other sleep more. Some sleep at day, others at night. That is about it.

Polyphasic sleep on the other hand is very varried. The most famous, and probably the most difficult type is called Uberman where there are 6 naps from 15 – 30 minutes throughout the day, and that is it. At the other end of the spectrum is a shorter sleep block at night, with a nap during the day.

My wonderful wife Dawn actually adopted a modified polyphasic sleep schedule to help our son deal with some behaviorial labels the school was placing on him. The two of them go to bed and get up at a normal time, but they are up for 15 – 30 minutes in the middle of the night, and then take a 15 – 30 minute nap during the day. By breaking up the sleep like this causes a calming effect. She has written about it in her blog. (Using polyphasic sleep to deal with Aspberger’s syndrome and Polyphasic sleep update).