Biphasic Sleeping - It’s not for me (yet)

Over the past two days, I have been trying out an experiment in biphasic sleeping. I had hoped to increase my energy during the day, spend more time awake and get up earlier. I had hoped to have better quality sleep. After two days, however, I’ve decided to end this experiment.

Before you judge me, I’ve got a simple and important reason.

I’m a teenager.

It has become apparent that I am one of those people that just needs large amounts of good sleep.

While this is the end result of biphasic sleeping, I do not have the self-discipline or motivation to continue. I knew I would struggle with the adaptation phase, but this morning I slept through my alarm. And this triggered a different alarm in my head. It made me realise I can’t be trying to revise and work if I’m feeling tired all the time.

I can’t hedge my bets that I’ll get used to it, that my body will adapt. I can’t be going to school on Monday feeling as bad as I felt yesterday. I can’t run that risk.

I need to find another solution to my sleeping issues. I’m going to try to get up at 6:30 each morning anyway and go to bed at, say 11pm; I like having time in the morning to get up leisurely. I’ll try to go running every morning, perhaps more exercise will make me sleep better?

To anyone thinking about biphasic sleeping: don’t expect adapting to be easy. I’m sure that it’s fantastic once you’ve adapted, and I will encourage anybody to give it a go. I just don’t have the will or energy to go through this fatigue.

I’m a teenager. I need more sleep than adults. So until I become comfortable on less sleep, I’m going to keep sleeping monophasically.

Perhaps, some time in the future, I will give it another go.

Thanks to everyone who has been interested in this little experiment, and apologies for letting you all down.

Biphasic Sleeping - Day 2

It was only 35 hours ago that I decided to take the plunge into biphasic sleeping. I always knew my second day would be a struggle, but, my god, this is more difficult than I anticipated. I've got pains across all my muscles, including my eyes, and caffeine only relieves it for a few moments.

I'm struggling to concentrate and have to be thinking all the time to just stay focused. My motor skills are impaired, and typing and writing is difficult. Right now, I'm at home on my own. I'm expecting to get into the rhythm of the day and be feeling better by lunchtime, but right now it's ghastly.

Yesterday's nap was nice, but not quite what it should be. It'll take a few days to get used to sleeping in the day, so until then I can't expect it to be brilliant. I dreamt two very weird dreams in my one nap, and woke up in the middle. Give it time, but it seems to be on the right track.

Last night's sleep was lovely, until I had to wake up. I managed to scrape together enough discipline to get out of bed but I fear that won't perservere. If I'm not feeling well after my nap, I'm not sure I'll wake up tomorrow morning. Thank god it's Saturday and doesn't matter.

I'm remaining optimistic. My body needs time to adapt. Until then, I'm going to struggle through school on high-caffeine drinks. Have a good day.

Clearly, I don't work well without sleep.

A Biphasic Sleeping Experiment

I've been trying to improve my sleeping pattern as much as possible; recently I've been experiencing insomnia, feeling stressed and becoming overworked. I've also been finding it incredibly difficult to get up every morning at a reasonable time. I've been missing school because of it, and honestly, it's not good for me.

So, over the past week I've been experimenting with various techniques. Getting to sleep on time has never worked for me: there aren't enough hours in the day and I have stuff to do. Additionally, I never wake up feeling refreshed and energised, quite the contrary. I've tried reading, not doing anything, resting for 30 minutes before going to sleep, having a bath, all kinds of things. None of them seemed to work.

In an attempt to solve my sleeping issues, I've decided to adapt to a biphasic sleeping schedule. I'm in the hope that it will allow me to spend more hours of the day awake while feeling more refreshed and energised throughout the day.

Biphasic Sleeping Schedule

There are loads of variations in biphasic sleeping; but the general rule of thumb is this: Sleep in multiples of 90 minutes. Human beings sleep in sleep cycles that last 90 minutes, so it makes sense to sleep with those cycles, rather than sleep randomly in and out of them.

I've decided to set my two sleeping periods as so:

• 2:00am - 6:30am (3 cycles, 4 1/2 hours of sleep)
• 5:00pm - 6:30pm (1 cycle, 1 1/2 hours of sleep)

Totalling this up I'll be getting 4 cycles of sleep, which is 6 hours. Much less than I should get on a monophasic cycle, and I'm sure I'll struggle to begin with, but I believe it to be an adequate amount of sleep.

My schedule is pretty unflexible: I have full-time school during the day - with my GCSEs beginning soon - and various other school responsibilities. This makes it impossible for me to get any sleep between 8:30am and 4:30pm, so I have to work around that. I'm hoping this sleeping schedule will allow me to sleep better and work better, while allowing me to stay integrated with normal society.

When I first mentioned this on Twitter, I got a particularly witty quip from good old Kyle Ridolfo in response.

@jamierumbelow That's called getting a nap in.

It's much more organised than that. Biphasic sleeping will allow me to experiment with different timings and lengths of sleep, and who knows, perhaps I'll end up sleeping three times a day, or even four?

Concerns and Issues

I've been discussing this briefly with a few friends, and I've drawn up a list of concerns.

• I'll probably be feeling awful for a few days. After researching this, a lot of people say it feels like having bad jetlag. I think I can cope with this. I'm pretty sure my friends and family can cope too :)
• Are there any long term health effects associated with biphasic sleeping? I'm not sure
• I also don't know if caffeine will negatively affect me. I should probably cut down anyway, but I just simply don't want to stop drinking caffeine.

It has begun!

I made this decision last night, fell asleep at 2:00am and woke up just shy of 7:00am. So, currently, I'm feeling a bit crap. Nothing worse than if I just had a late night though. When I get home I'll do an hour's work, relax for a while and have a sleep at 5:00pm.

I'll blog about this, probably daily, to keep everybody updated on my progress. I'm looking forward to the challenge and the new way of life!

More Reading

I'll keep this post updated with a list of each new biphasic sleep related entry I write.

• A Biphasic Sleeping Experiment
• Biphasic Sleeping - Day 2
• Biphasic Sleeping - It's not for me (yet)