I’ve always had problems with my sleep schedule. It used to shift forward slightly every day, and sometimes invert – and sometimes I had big sudden shifts in my sleep rhythm. I also used to often wake up around 3 or 4 am. At one point I just gave up with trying to have 1 long sleep, and would do some reading in the middle of my sleep for an hour or two and that improved my sleep.
I think it 2021 when I read about polyphasic sleep and I did a rather strict period of siesta-ext (6h30m+1h20m) for about half a year. The adaptation took a while, but afterwards this was the best sleep consistency and quality I’ve ever had. This schedule is a little reducing for me, with about 8 hours of sleep where my natural monophasic sleep duration is closer to 9 hours on average.
I still try to stick to the siesta-ext schedule as much as possible, but I’m not strict with it at all any more. It can be hard to fit the afternoon “core” in and I’ve been moving towards a much longer night core. I’ve tried to do shorter naps when I can’t do a full afternoon core, but I still only manage an afternoon sleep just a few times per week. Lately, my sleep time has been shifting forward again too – I have flexible work times but now it’s getting a little out of hand.
I’m thinking of being a little stricter for a while again, to get to a Biphasic-X schedule where I do sleep twice every day. This schedule is very flexible, in that the night core can shift a bit, and the daytime nap can be anything from 10-90m in the afternoon.
I think it would be good for me to stick to the following for a while:
- Strict bed time; always go to bed at 00:00. This is just to get back to a more stable rhythm
- Wake up between 7 and 8, with an alarm at 8 if I haven’t gotten out of bed yet
- Strictly nap every day, between 11:00 and 18:00
- Nap: core (1h20m) if I can, nap (10m or 25m) if I can’t. No 25m nap between 16:00 and 18:00. Set alarm/timer to avoid in-between durations