Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Biphasic: Day 25 (Reverting)

I decided to try something. I woke up with my alarm at 6:30am (I had been giving myself an extra 15 minutes per cycle the last few days), and deiced to see what would happen if I fell back asleep like I normally would on a lazy summer day after waking naturally. I dozed off and on until a little before 9am, and honestly, it felt great to sleep. I thought I'd feel much better, which would have caused me to rethink the biphasic experiment. But then I got up.

Try to stay with me... I felt a little more rested, but entirely more tired and exhausted. I don't know how else to explain it. My body regained a feeling that I used to associate with well restedness, and yet I had a slight headache (a pressure that is worst in the base of my skull and behind my eyes) and I keep stumbling. I feel like a drunk without the mental incapacitation (though I actually haven't tested my mental acuity, I think it's about on par with biphasic). I think this must be the effect of a broken cycle, and I genuinely think that I've felt this way most days through my monophasic summer, sans the headache. I don't at all feel alert like I have for the last few weeks, but that might be because I haven't been very active yet. I can see myself in this state staring blankly at a carpet, wanting to go back to sleep constantly and not being very productive at all. I have only been "Broken Cycle Reggie" for about 20 minutes, but I get the feeling that this feeling isn't fleeting.

I'm going to experiment more. Today, I'll do the same I did this morning. I'll let the alarm wake me, but then I'll stay in bed and see what happens skip my nap. As for tomorrow, I'm going to go to bed when I normally would, but not set my alarm. This will help me determine two things:
-first, will I wake up naturally around the end of two cycles, or will my body take more now that they are available?
-and second, given that I wake up naturally, I'll be able to roughly calculate my cycle length.
In addition, I will also give myself a natural, non-alarmed evening nap.

Stay tuned. I'm going through weird sleep things so you can find out what's best in the sleep routine world without sleep deprivation. That sounds like a deal to me.

Edit: I tried the Sheep dash game... three games gave me a Bobbing Bobcat (rank 3) and two Ambling Armadillo (rank 4). At least I'm not a Sluggish Snail...

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