Tuesday, April 29
Packing
I'm packing for my move to Brooklyn, and batting at the cat as I go. I have to say if there was a camera on me today, it would look like this:
Saturday, April 26
Ellen Fullman and Sean Meehan
Just a quick note to acknowledge Ellen Fullman and Sean Meehan's excellent duo record, which has been caressing the hours of my workday for a week or so now. You can purchase the record here, and for drone fans, I strongly encourage you to do so!
Sunday, April 20
Triphasic Sleep: The Week in Review
Last week I embarked on a little experiment I've been meaning to try for a few years. I was first introduced to the idea of polyphasic sleep sometime during college - I forget the context, but suffice it to say I probably came across it during an exam period. The idea is fairly simple: break your sleep schedule into smaller more frequent chunks, and you will gain more time overall as a result of having to sleep less.
For the exceptionally hardcore, there is the polyphasic method championed by such night-owls as Buckminster Fuller. This involves various and sundry sleeping patterns of say 20 minutes every 4 hours or 30 minutes of sleep every 6 hours, etc. Various polyphasic approaches are detailed on this wiki.
I've always had trouble falling asleep and waking up - and I've certainly never been able to pull off a successful nap. Without fail I'm either twice as groggy afterward as when I went to sleep, or I sleep way too long for it to qualify as a nap. Polyphasic sleep per se was kind of out of the question for me.
Instead, I went with a triphasic model - which is just a fancy way of saying I sleep three times a day - and broke my sleep periods into chunks that mirrored a full and natural REM cycle of 90 minutes.
I started my first waking day last Sunday at 10am after waking from a full eight hours of sleep. My first sleep period actually began on Monday, in order to deprive myself enough that I'd be able to fall asleep right away. That was important since I needed to be able to set my alarm to go off roughly 90 minutes after I actually fell asleep in order to wake again at the end of a natural sleep cycle. So the sooner I was able to fall asleep after setting it, the better.
I won't detail every day journal-style, as I've seen others do, but here's a run-down of my daily schedule and a rough overview of my experience.
Each day I slept three times. Once in the early morning from 5:30am until 7:00am. Again in the afternoon from 1:30pm until 3:00pm. And finally in the evening from 8:30pm until 10:00pm. This seemed like a good and even distribution. I was only out for 90 minutes of the work day, and I wouldn't need to miss any evening events like shows etc. I should mention in case you don't know me, I freelance for a living, and I'm lucky enough my schedule can be flexible enough to accommodate a little modification like this. I did quickly find out however, that while the extra awake hours gave my productivity a serious boost - I missed a sleep cycle at least once because my hours aren't always as flexible as all that.
The first few days were both tougher and easier than I expected them to be. On the one hand, I've never been so regular in my sleep patterns before in my life. As long as I can remember I've taken at least an hour and sometimes two to fall asleep at night, and I tend to be a snooze-button guy, where the wake-up process can last just as long. Since high school I've learned to set my alarm at least an hour and a half earlier than I actually want to get up if it's very important that I get up on time. Sleeping in 90 minute periods seems to be an amazing solution for this. Waking up at the end of a full REM cycle was way easier than I'm used to, and I found that I was consistently tired enough in the half hour or so before my cycles to be able to fall asleep right away. I also began meditating again in the minutes leading up to my cycles, which I think helped me fall asleep easier.
What was tough was I thought at first a simple matter of adjusting to the new pattern and amount of sleep I was getting. I'm not used to getting 4.5 hours a night, so I figured it would take some adjusting. I was a little groggy between cycles during the first two days - but that actually went away surprisingly quickly. The toughest thing for me was losing the psychological sense of a day beginning and ending.
I ended my week of experimentation with a full 8 hours of sleep during the night, and the thing that surprised me the most the following day was that I recalled the events of the entire previous week the same way I would recall the events of one day. Everything ran together like one massive undulating day. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to keep that up any longer than I did.
I really enjoyed the extra time this schedule gave me though, and so I'm trying a new variation this coming week. I'll be sleeping for three hours (a multiple of 90 minutes) each evening - from 4:00am to 7:00am, with a 90 minute nap at some point throughout the day depending on when my schedule allows. I think this will make my sleep schedule not conflict with my work/life schedule as much (that came up twice last week) and I'm hoping to solve the strange never-ending day phenomenon by going to sleep when it is dark and waking up when it is light for my longest cycle. Last night was my first 4-7 period, and so far so good. I don't feel any more tired than I did last week so far - and definitely no more tired than I would on 8 or more hours of sleep.
More next week!
For the exceptionally hardcore, there is the polyphasic method championed by such night-owls as Buckminster Fuller. This involves various and sundry sleeping patterns of say 20 minutes every 4 hours or 30 minutes of sleep every 6 hours, etc. Various polyphasic approaches are detailed on this wiki.
I've always had trouble falling asleep and waking up - and I've certainly never been able to pull off a successful nap. Without fail I'm either twice as groggy afterward as when I went to sleep, or I sleep way too long for it to qualify as a nap. Polyphasic sleep per se was kind of out of the question for me.
Instead, I went with a triphasic model - which is just a fancy way of saying I sleep three times a day - and broke my sleep periods into chunks that mirrored a full and natural REM cycle of 90 minutes.
I started my first waking day last Sunday at 10am after waking from a full eight hours of sleep. My first sleep period actually began on Monday, in order to deprive myself enough that I'd be able to fall asleep right away. That was important since I needed to be able to set my alarm to go off roughly 90 minutes after I actually fell asleep in order to wake again at the end of a natural sleep cycle. So the sooner I was able to fall asleep after setting it, the better.
I won't detail every day journal-style, as I've seen others do, but here's a run-down of my daily schedule and a rough overview of my experience.
Each day I slept three times. Once in the early morning from 5:30am until 7:00am. Again in the afternoon from 1:30pm until 3:00pm. And finally in the evening from 8:30pm until 10:00pm. This seemed like a good and even distribution. I was only out for 90 minutes of the work day, and I wouldn't need to miss any evening events like shows etc. I should mention in case you don't know me, I freelance for a living, and I'm lucky enough my schedule can be flexible enough to accommodate a little modification like this. I did quickly find out however, that while the extra awake hours gave my productivity a serious boost - I missed a sleep cycle at least once because my hours aren't always as flexible as all that.
The first few days were both tougher and easier than I expected them to be. On the one hand, I've never been so regular in my sleep patterns before in my life. As long as I can remember I've taken at least an hour and sometimes two to fall asleep at night, and I tend to be a snooze-button guy, where the wake-up process can last just as long. Since high school I've learned to set my alarm at least an hour and a half earlier than I actually want to get up if it's very important that I get up on time. Sleeping in 90 minute periods seems to be an amazing solution for this. Waking up at the end of a full REM cycle was way easier than I'm used to, and I found that I was consistently tired enough in the half hour or so before my cycles to be able to fall asleep right away. I also began meditating again in the minutes leading up to my cycles, which I think helped me fall asleep easier.
What was tough was I thought at first a simple matter of adjusting to the new pattern and amount of sleep I was getting. I'm not used to getting 4.5 hours a night, so I figured it would take some adjusting. I was a little groggy between cycles during the first two days - but that actually went away surprisingly quickly. The toughest thing for me was losing the psychological sense of a day beginning and ending.
I ended my week of experimentation with a full 8 hours of sleep during the night, and the thing that surprised me the most the following day was that I recalled the events of the entire previous week the same way I would recall the events of one day. Everything ran together like one massive undulating day. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to keep that up any longer than I did.
I really enjoyed the extra time this schedule gave me though, and so I'm trying a new variation this coming week. I'll be sleeping for three hours (a multiple of 90 minutes) each evening - from 4:00am to 7:00am, with a 90 minute nap at some point throughout the day depending on when my schedule allows. I think this will make my sleep schedule not conflict with my work/life schedule as much (that came up twice last week) and I'm hoping to solve the strange never-ending day phenomenon by going to sleep when it is dark and waking up when it is light for my longest cycle. Last night was my first 4-7 period, and so far so good. I don't feel any more tired than I did last week so far - and definitely no more tired than I would on 8 or more hours of sleep.
More next week!
Thursday, April 17
Let's Keep Writing
Thanks to Myer I've been reading Jeff Atwood's Coding Horror on a regular basis recently. For a web designer turned developer it's a godsend - especially for someone like me who dry-humps the very idea of 'best practices' in every systematic thing I do.
Today I came across a post in which Jeff outlines an extremely simple best practice of sorts for being a blogger: Choose a schedule you can live with, and stick to it. It's moronically simple, which is why it's also utterly useful advice. So, I decided to take it, and use this blog and Lovely Media as my experiments.
When I started this 'dreamlife of letters blog' it was specifically with the intent that nobody would read it. I had just started working on my book (which will be the subject of many future posts, and is the driving motivation to get off my ass and write again) and was looking for an easy and accessible place to catalog my ideas. This was before the days of google documents.
Somewhere along the line I started to occasionally write as though someone were actually reading. I went back and forth this way for a while until my current "somebody might be reading but it's probably just Myer" mentality. If you are reading, thanks Myer! But after reading Jeff's post I've become inspired to make this thing work both as a dumping-ground for research and ideas related to my book and other detritus as well as something a person who does not know me may actually enjoy reading occasionally.
The whole point of Lovely Media on the other hand was to make the common link-email-exchange that happened amongst my friends a community activity. I thought we were all sharing some pretty neat things with each other, and it made sense to also share these neat things with anyone who might be interested.
So I'm going to alternate between the two blogs - three posts a week for each, after Jeff's six post goal. I think it's a good one - gives me a day off, and by splitting time between blogs I have some variety personally. The actual problem of when to post is one I haven't worked out yet. I'm writing this at nearly 1am in the morning, which is probably when most posts will happen, but I'll need to feel out when I'm in the most bloggy mood as I go I suppose. I'm on a new triphasic sleep schedule (more on that soon) and so I have a lot more hours in the day to choose from to designate as blogging / writing time.
No matter who is reading, if anyone, I can already tell it's going to feel good to write again.
Today I came across a post in which Jeff outlines an extremely simple best practice of sorts for being a blogger: Choose a schedule you can live with, and stick to it. It's moronically simple, which is why it's also utterly useful advice. So, I decided to take it, and use this blog and Lovely Media as my experiments.
When I started this 'dreamlife of letters blog' it was specifically with the intent that nobody would read it. I had just started working on my book (which will be the subject of many future posts, and is the driving motivation to get off my ass and write again) and was looking for an easy and accessible place to catalog my ideas. This was before the days of google documents.
Somewhere along the line I started to occasionally write as though someone were actually reading. I went back and forth this way for a while until my current "somebody might be reading but it's probably just Myer" mentality. If you are reading, thanks Myer! But after reading Jeff's post I've become inspired to make this thing work both as a dumping-ground for research and ideas related to my book and other detritus as well as something a person who does not know me may actually enjoy reading occasionally.
The whole point of Lovely Media on the other hand was to make the common link-email-exchange that happened amongst my friends a community activity. I thought we were all sharing some pretty neat things with each other, and it made sense to also share these neat things with anyone who might be interested.
So I'm going to alternate between the two blogs - three posts a week for each, after Jeff's six post goal. I think it's a good one - gives me a day off, and by splitting time between blogs I have some variety personally. The actual problem of when to post is one I haven't worked out yet. I'm writing this at nearly 1am in the morning, which is probably when most posts will happen, but I'll need to feel out when I'm in the most bloggy mood as I go I suppose. I'm on a new triphasic sleep schedule (more on that soon) and so I have a lot more hours in the day to choose from to designate as blogging / writing time.
No matter who is reading, if anyone, I can already tell it's going to feel good to write again.
Wednesday, April 9
I Was So Wrong
Maybe it's just that my blog reading habits have taken another upswing recently, or that I've found more interesting things to read, but Google Reader has become part of my daily routine (most days) and I was so wrong about it. Netvibes may look pretty, but I'm reading more with Google Reader. You win this time, Myer! ;-)
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