Everyman 2 sleep schedule, polyphasic sleep

What is polyphasic sleep?

You may not know it yet but you're probably familiar with polyphasic sleep already, with the most famous schedule probably being the siesta. Polyphasic sleep is sleeping to a schedule in such a way that the amount of time you spend asleep is reduced, but the quality of sleep is increased, leading to a better overall sleep. When you sleep, the body passes through 5 stages on it's way to get the most important sleep, REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. The idea is that with polyphasic sleep, you can train your brain to go straight to the REM stage of sleep in 20 minute naps throughout the day. As it takes your body an hour and a half to reach REM stage normally, each 20 minute nap will drastically take away the amount of core sleep needed, and will allow you to feel like you've had a full nights sleep, in 20 minutes.

That's a brief intro, there's much more info on the web, and explanation I quite like is how to hack your brain, which is a really nicely presented page detailing the basics.

How does it work

As you can see from the page there are different schedules to suit your routine, and how many times you can take a nap in a day, from a siesta with 1 nap, to the uberman which comprises of 6 naps throughout the day (that's just 2 hours sleep!). The ubermanl is the best documented, however it is said to only suit the schedule of ~2% of people, and is very difficult to adjust to.

So what are you doing?

I'll be doing (I am doing) the everyman 2 sleep schedule. This is sleeping for 4.5 hours at night, and then 2 naps throughout the day. It may not be too extreme, but it's still 3 hours less sleep a night, and is the only one that I can fit into my schedule. The everyman 2 is perfect for me and I imagine most people as I can only guarantee myself 2 naps a day (if even) and the caveat about polyphasic sleep schedules is that you can't miss your naps or you will feel wrecked, and it will throw your entire schedule off. Also, the less intense a schedule you follow the more flexible it is regarding times, which is very useful as more than likely you'll get caught up doing something and miss a nap by a few hours. For example, my core sleep should start at 12.30 am, but if I go out that night, it mightn't start until 3/4 am. For more info on the uberman, check out here, an account from someone who's done the uberman for 6 months, talking about the everyman.]

My schedule is roughly as follows:
Core Sleep: 12.30am to 5am
1st nap: 8am (cheating really, but it's the only free time!)
2nd nap: 6.30pm

A bit of a gap between the naps, but it's realistically the only times I can make, and it also ensures I'm well rested before going to school/work.

Here's a list of the days, I should stick to it fairly well, except for 1 day this week when I can't avoid an event that will completely throw off the schedule. Also note, the posts during these times may contain spelling or grammatical errors, as I'm probably wrecked.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Days 7-9
Days 10-12
Days 13-19

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