2 days ago, I decided to stop polyphasic sleeping. I did anticipated that it would be hard, I did know that I would feel very sleep deprived, but I didn't anticipate the issues that coffee bring.
I've been a caffeine addict for years. Using probably between 200-400mg a day - not crazy high but high enough to experience strong headaches when I tried to give it up. I tried to giving it up and my body was NOT happy. Headaches, extreme fatigue, I became depressed and anxious - not enjoying all the extra time I'd created with my sleeping pattern.
Caffeine has a great stimulant effect for a few hours, but what I didn't know was that it interferes with sleep by reducing REM sleep (more useful sleep), and changing it to SWS and other non-REM sleep (less useful). This ended up causing me big issues for my polyphasic sleep experiment because it relies on the fact that you begin to entering REM sleep during your naps which helps your recovery.
I was unable to get into REM in my naps and as a result, but naps were much less productive in reducing my fatigue. I started getting very anxious/on-edge (still am - but this should reduce as I recover).
During polyphasic sleep adaption, the sleep deprived body/mind get very desperate and try to lull you into additional sleep by getting you to turn off your alarm in your sleep, or making you intermittently unconscious through micro sleeps. Only after persevering through this, do you go through "sleep compression" aka "REM-rebound" where REM gets prioritized and you can feel very refreshed from a 20 min nap. This never happened with me, and possibly wouldn't have due to my continued caffeine consumption.
For the last week or so, I've been helping a friend with their business and it means that I have to drive to the city daily, so micro sleeps are a dangerous situation. Coupled with the withdrawal of my 200-400mg caffeine consumption I've decided to stop this attempt and re-attempt at a later time.
Time for me to get a week or good sleep and then return to focusing on the other aspects of POWER MONTH - Daily exercise, daily meditation, future planning & gratitude journalling, and cold showers!
Good night. 💤