You Want More Hours in Your Day, Right?

This was the black sheep of my family. Take a guess at her most heinous crime:

1) eloped to Reno

2) smoked unfiltered cigarettes

3) stayed up long after the TV stations signed off for the night.
The correct answer is: 3.

Sister Black-Sheep was actually a pretty good girl. No elopements. No cigarettes.

But her sleep habits? Yeah, a real stain on her character.

Here’s hoping I can convey to you how much this behavior disturbed her farm-folk parents. Yawning awake at noon was unnatural, unthinkable, unworkable to a farmer with full-uddered cows on his hands. And to his wife, whose duty it was to lay out a high-calorie breakfast for her hard-working man, and who anticipated the same life for her daughters, it was mission failure.

But there was no changing Sister Black-Sheep. Bedtime was 2 or 3 a.m. Her habits never budged, not her whole life long. Her late hours were as fixed as the shape of her jaw.

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I’m no stranger to 2 and 3 a.m. myself. I’m not proud of it. But it’s like a box of cookies I can’t leave alone. Barely able to keep my eyes uncrossed, I sit with my laptop and hunt for more excuses to not go to bed.

How do you paint stripes on a wall?

Are there any music festivals in Nova Scotia?

Wonder if L.L. Bean has silk long johns in stock.

Better check Facebook again.

Like, who’s up at that hour, bragging about what they’re doing?

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What if you had sleep habits like these? The thin slices of the pie represent 20-minute naps. All the other sections depict the waking hours.

The blogger Puredoxyk details in her book, Ubersleep, how she and a friend made the leap into this schedule, called the Uberman. Supposedly Leonardo DaVinci slept a similar pattern, and we all know that he got a lot done.

The author admits that the transition from traditional sleep (monophasic) to super-napper was a tough one, but once she and her friend got there, “We worked part-time jobs. We took over 20-credit hours each of classes. We hung out with people every day; we went to most every party and event . . . We got good grades (studying 3-4 hours every day will do that), our dorms/apartments were sometimes hilariously clean, we had time for all our hobbies . . . And we were never tired, except when it was naptime.”

This lasted until she left college. Then jobs and a baby interfered, but she eventually returned to polyphasic sleeping in the form of the Everyman 3 and maintained it for years with no ill effects.

In the Everyman 3, you sleep a 3-hour core, then break up your day with three power naps.

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Well, who wouldn’t want more hours in their day?

This is tempting stuff to me. Since I published a book and added marketing activities to my schedule, suddenly every day is like scrambling up the down escalator.

Enter Puredoxyk’s book.

Why do you want to do this? she asks the reader. Are you punctual? Can you keep a schedule? Can you handle the discomfort?

Here are the obstacles, she warns. She lists job schedules, dependents, illness, etc. “If more than one . . . is an issue for you, you may want to reconsider.”

Duly warned, I decided to try the Everyman 2. A variation on Everyman 3, you sleep a 4 1/2 core and nap twice.

Imagine my family, discovering me up at 5 in the morning.

Shock and disbelief!

 

I couldn’t have done it without the author’s guidance. There’s nothing like the voice of experience, telling you which symptoms you’re going to feel and for how long. Was it tough? Yes. Just as she warned, two or three hours a day were a noddy-headed fight to stay upright. Sometimes I just had to get up from my writing chair and vacuum instead.

She promises two weeks of tough going, after which the worst of it lets up. A complete adjustment takes about 60 days.

Here was the intoxicating thing: I loved the early mornings. Dark, quiet and distraction-free, I got a jump-start on the day and, despite the sleepiness, watched my to-do list shrink.

I gave it four weeks, then thought hard about whether I was actually adjusting, whether the newfound hours were truly productive. For every day I thought I had it licked, I suffered a day of two of draggy mornings.

I thought about how the nap schedule fit in with life. A quick 20 minutes doesn’t cost much, unless it hits when you’re supposed to be somewhere, like church, or when you want to take a day trip and don’t want to nap enroute. I mean, it’s one thing to doze in the library carrel of a pricey suburb, and quite another among the long-haul truckers at the rest stop.

So did I give up and go back to my Sister Black Sheep life?

No.

I couldn’t give up the mornings.

I mean, half this post was written before six a.m.

That’s it, you say. An imposter has gotten hold of Kristen’s blog. Go away! We want our real blogger back.

But no, really, it’s me.

Look, here’s your recipe. Would an imposter know the format rules of this blog?

Double-chip Cookies

 

So here’s the tweak: I’m on the Bi-Phase, or Siesta schedule.

I may soon start eating lots of olive oil or speaking Spanish.

But at any rate, I’m bolting awake in the small hours.

And liking it.