Triphasic Sleep: Day 15

This is part fifteen of my Triphasic sleep experiment. Please visit this page for more info.

To mark the mid point of my sleep deprivation experiment, I posted some stats here.
Stats:
Day 15
Nap: 6:30PM~7PM, 12:30AM~2AM
Core sleep: 6AM~9AM
Total sleep: 6 hours
# of time not abiding by schedule: 4
# of extremely refreshing naps: 2
# of groggy waking: too many to count
# of time I failed to wake up properly: 1
# of total hours I overslept in the past 15 days: 2

I was awake at the usual 7:30AM today and stayed up till 6:30PM. Strangely enough I didn’t feel as tired as if I was working. I read up on SEO and various articles on sleep. I also read more details in other people’s blog about the same type of experiments. It seems that oversleeping is the most prominent problem that eventually got them to quit. No problem in that area for me there.

Comparing with Steve’s blog notes, I found out that his routine relies heavily on sleeping after a certain amount of time being awake and can only push the limit for at most an hour or so. I might be the pioneer in having an uneven sleep schedule because when I started, I didn’t read enough to get to the part where someone says the hours have to be evenly spaced out. It’s probably just a matter of training your body to expect sleep at a certain time.

I worked out a bit, have been working out for 3 days now and that doesn’t seem to affect me a bit. I practiced Trogdor in Guitar Hero2 and as suspected, my body’s muscle memory was able to continue learning and improving even though I had to stop due to hand injuries. I am able to consistently hit a 87% accuracy with 89% accuracy as the top score. This is a good evidence of muscle memory being independent of sleep deprivation.So… the question is, how come I am not as tired as when I was working during the weekday? Is it possible that the mind has certain “mental battery” and gets drained up if you use it in a certain way? My work involves mainly of thinking and creating in previously unknown patterns based on a few facts established by clients to resolve a problem. What I did today only involves taking in information and doing physical activities.

I changed the afternoon nap to 6:30PM based on the assumption that my body has another hidden cycle that’s continually repeating itself whether I am awake or not and if I hit it at the right time, I’d have a more restful nap. I did wake up feeling a lot better than yesterday (again, before the alarm), but it is still not as great as the best sleep I experienced 2 days ago. I don’t remember if I dreamed or not today.

Continuing with the same assumption, I tweak my midnight nap to 1AM~2:30AM. It didn’t make much of a difference. I also ate a big meal before going to bed for a change to see. Doesn’t seem to affect much.