Polyphasic Entrainment, Part II
In my last post, I talked about how the circadian rhythm is regulated, with the underlying issue regarding entrainment of the rhythm to different (but still monophasic) schedules. I left off with everyone wondering why I brought it up. :)
Soo.... My question was prompted by my sleep schedule this past weekend. As you might know from following my blog here, I nap almost immediately after I get home from work (usually around 5:30 to 6:00 pm). That's usually one of my most useful naps, because I'm getting into my most productive / awake time so there's little risk of oversleep. It's also usually been 5-6 hours since my previous nap at 11:30 am during lunch, so it's extra restful.
Over the weekend, though, I try to opt for a more "traditional" 4-hour nap schedule. It's a lot easier and more comfortable than forcing the 5 and 6 hour stretches as I must do with my day job. As such, I tend to slip into an 8, 12, 4 schedule of napping when not accomodating work. Saturday, however, right around 6 pm, I started feeling like I was going to need to nap. It was the exact progression of feelings that occurs leading up to my normal weekday naps.
So I listened to my body and napped. Woke up without the alarm with strong dreams feeling very refreshed. I didn't feel the need to nap again until approx 9:30 pm, the usual time for my weekday naps, instead of the weekend-based 8 pm. The rest of my naps continued like my weekday schedule until I hit a late core sleep, and slept from 8 am to 12 pm.
If it were just sleep deprivation that were causing my need for an extra nap, I would have crashed harder, would I not? I would have just constantly felt the homeostatic pressure to sleep and not prompted to return to my weekday schedule, right?
However, this weekend it appears that my body "knew" that it should sleep at these times. Additionally, during oversleeps this weekend (there were a few), I always woke up at the same time as when I would wake up from my regular naps, despite potentially being out of phase with a 90 minute sleep cycle. Of course, a 90 minute sleep cycle starts to seem irrelevant if one's body is compressing sleep stages... Nevertheless, I didn't oversleep more than what would carry me to the end of the next four hour cycle.
I hesitate to wonder if it is possible to become entrained to a polyphasic sleeping schedule? It does not appear (with the admittedly, minimal research I have done on entrainment) very likely, but it sure feels like entrainment is occurring. What could possibly cause this? How strong is the ability of the cognitive portions of the brain to alter chemical indicators of sleep? Is there something strong enough to force overriding of the gene-transcription / protein mechanism?
Of couse, it could just be a fluke... it's only one weekend's occurences. However, as I progress, naps during my regular times are feeling more and more "right" and are becoming more and more useful. It's not explained by just circadian rhythms or just sleep deprivation.
-sean
Soo.... My question was prompted by my sleep schedule this past weekend. As you might know from following my blog here, I nap almost immediately after I get home from work (usually around 5:30 to 6:00 pm). That's usually one of my most useful naps, because I'm getting into my most productive / awake time so there's little risk of oversleep. It's also usually been 5-6 hours since my previous nap at 11:30 am during lunch, so it's extra restful.
Over the weekend, though, I try to opt for a more "traditional" 4-hour nap schedule. It's a lot easier and more comfortable than forcing the 5 and 6 hour stretches as I must do with my day job. As such, I tend to slip into an 8, 12, 4 schedule of napping when not accomodating work. Saturday, however, right around 6 pm, I started feeling like I was going to need to nap. It was the exact progression of feelings that occurs leading up to my normal weekday naps.
So I listened to my body and napped. Woke up without the alarm with strong dreams feeling very refreshed. I didn't feel the need to nap again until approx 9:30 pm, the usual time for my weekday naps, instead of the weekend-based 8 pm. The rest of my naps continued like my weekday schedule until I hit a late core sleep, and slept from 8 am to 12 pm.
If it were just sleep deprivation that were causing my need for an extra nap, I would have crashed harder, would I not? I would have just constantly felt the homeostatic pressure to sleep and not prompted to return to my weekday schedule, right?
However, this weekend it appears that my body "knew" that it should sleep at these times. Additionally, during oversleeps this weekend (there were a few), I always woke up at the same time as when I would wake up from my regular naps, despite potentially being out of phase with a 90 minute sleep cycle. Of course, a 90 minute sleep cycle starts to seem irrelevant if one's body is compressing sleep stages... Nevertheless, I didn't oversleep more than what would carry me to the end of the next four hour cycle.
I hesitate to wonder if it is possible to become entrained to a polyphasic sleeping schedule? It does not appear (with the admittedly, minimal research I have done on entrainment) very likely, but it sure feels like entrainment is occurring. What could possibly cause this? How strong is the ability of the cognitive portions of the brain to alter chemical indicators of sleep? Is there something strong enough to force overriding of the gene-transcription / protein mechanism?
Of couse, it could just be a fluke... it's only one weekend's occurences. However, as I progress, naps during my regular times are feeling more and more "right" and are becoming more and more useful. It's not explained by just circadian rhythms or just sleep deprivation.
-sean
posted by Sean @ 12/20/2005 12:23:00 AM
3 Comments:
It seems your biphasic nature comes on top and from your weekend reading we might even guess where your troughs fall. Your optimum night sleep now might be around 6 am to 12 am, while your siesta nap somewhere around 6 pm. In other words, you are running some 6 hours out of phase with the "normal world". If you go to sleep at 8 am, those 4 hours are the most precious sleep you can imagine: your subjective night. Totally not-polyphasic.
During the working week, your subjective night is probably masked by the need to work and that may undermine your productivity at work. That would also greatly improve your 6 pm nap.
If the above is correct, we might also suspect that your 9:30 pm nap is not very useful, unless initiatied with a degree of sleep deprivation.
So your per/cry minimum might be "our" early morning towards noon.
This does not seem to be a fluke. As a result of your experiment you might have shifted your (perhaps slightly DSPS) schedule so that to maximize the effect of post-work nap and mask the circadian trough while at work.
Hopefully, with Christmas coming, you will have lots of time to test this hypothesis. Due to social effects, light, etc. the rhythm might progress further and you might transition to subjective night at your "after work" hours. Then it may appear that you function best by getting your night sleep right after work, working throughout the night, getting a good nap in the morning and then getting a productive day in the office. If that entrains well, you might go great on 4.5-5 hours of biphasic sleep, get lots of time for yourself and still be productive at work. Just speculating
mc
Your speculations on the usefulness of my 9:30 nap are, in general, correct (tonight, however, was an exception). As are your estimations as to when during work I feel the most pressure of my subjective night.
In retrospect, past oversleeps also placed me at about this time of waking. Back in week 4, when I slept at my brother's house, my sleeping also took me up to just around 11:30 am from just about 5 am.
Your observations and predictions have gone a long way to convincing me... It has me internally debating trying a minimized biphasic schedule, experimenting with how much I can limit sleep.
-sean
If you want to minimize the total time spent sleeping, you should free run your sleep. Sometimes it is impossible as it may clash with your work. As you already like to nap after work, you might build to starting your subjective night straight after work. This will make you a bit less productive at work but should give you lots of fresh hours for yourself in the night.
If things go super-great, you might get down to as little as 4 hours of night sleep starting at 16, 17 or 18 (whichever suits you best). Then, after 6-8 hours, you would get a nap (which might get beyond one hour if you put lots of stress on the subjective night sleep).
The main problem with this system might arise if you do not get sleepy enough by the time you get back from work. Then the nap could shift to later hours and worsen the next cycle. This is why it would be safest if you obeyed the rule "no nap past the 8-9 hour gap".
The best part is that you would never need an alarm clock and never worry about getting up for work.
What I was fighting all the way through was to help you achieve your goals without employing an alarm clock.
Last but not least, as much as for polyphasic sleep, there isn't much research on sleeping out of phase with the world. Shift work is very unhealthy, but free running sleep is supposed to be the healthiest of all. Now how about well-entrained but shifted free running sleep?
Yet if I was to bet, I would give you longer life on crooked free-running pattern than a "normal" sleep with an alarm in the morning.
mc
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