Polyphasic Sleep, Day 7 | The Probabilist . com

Polyphasic Sleep, Day 7 January 7, 2007

Posted by The Probabilist in : [News], Exercise, Sleep , trackback

I’m not a runner and I’ve done very little of it for exactly two years now since I left the military. The exercises that I fit into my polyschedule eventually comprised of mostly walking, along with very minimal in door training. However, yesterday at 4 am I decided to go for a run and boy was it ever a blast! Imagine the surprise I experienced of being able to run for 20 minutes straight (about 4-5 km of ups and downs) with virtually no previous habitual running. I’d say my pulse was at about 80 % throughout and at about 3/4 of the way I started feeling undernourished and overly exhausted. But I carried on and felt really great when I got back home.

I got incredibly inspired on a mental level from the physical rush. So after releasing some muscle tension I sat down and wrote an introduction to this blog of mine for a new start page I’m adding. I felt so empowered and am still feeling great just from the thought of it.

Does this have anything to do with polyphasic sleeping? I’d say it’s somewhat intertwined, but more so a question of the other exercises I did during the first six days. Walking about 90 kilometres during 5-6 days is bound to have an impact. If nothing else, then my muscles had adjusted enough not to become soar neither during nor after the run.

I’ve also done some minor dietary changes, eating less meat and more vegetables. I’d say the energy boost that I felt last night can’t be explained by a single factor, but more as a culmination of several changes I’ve pushed myself to elicit during this week alone. It’s an overly positive result from changing several habits simultaneously through the concept of overwhelming force, used in the military.

I couldn’t sleep on my 8 am nap (no surprise there), and I didn’t feel sleep deprived until after 10 am. After taking a nap I soon noticed that I’d have to add the lost nap in between because I was falling into level 2 alertness on the 1 to 5 scale I’m using. Since 4 pm I’ve been back on track with level 1 alertness. 1.5 is the final verdict for day 7.