My sleep has controlled me for almost all my life.
Yes, I was usually going to bed very late and couldn’t wake up afterwards.
But even if I followed some “arbitrary” schedule – going to sleep early, having a winding-down period – I didn’t have any authority over it.
If I felt sleepy – then I was the “sleepy guy”, and I blamed myself for it.
If I was so tired that I literally fell down head into keyboard at my workplace – that was that inefficient biological need to shut myself out and I was just a victim.
It never even crossed my mind that I can do something about it other than suffer through what my body decided to feel like that day.
And taking a nap – oh boy, that was considered something from the kindergarten and “for children”.
“I need to suck up and push through my drowsiness as a strong man I am”
Suffice to say, I had many sleepovers. I was late to my workplace a lot of times. I was sleeping in my weekends and feeling miserable about wasted time.
I always thought how unfair it is that I cannot just be awake whenever I wanted to.
Then I stumbled upon a concept of polyphasic sleeping…
After finding out about poly schedules an entire new world opened up to me.
The world where I can be an authority in my most “uncontrollable” area of life.
I could finally shape my sleep.
I got into it with all the passion I had.
I want to shout out the site I started from – polyphasic.net
It goes out from time to time, but it is still the most helpful place to learn all the details.
Basically – polyphasic schedule is when you split your one-part usual sleep (monophasic) to some pieces.
It can be big 3-hour chunks, it can be mix of that with naps.
Or it can be only 20-minute naps throughout the day – you sick madmen who try doing that.
Here’s how it helped me.
And in some later articles I’ll go into details on caveats and schedules I tried.
I started messing around with it 2 years ago. I had 4 attempts in that time, 3 of which were successful.
And I’m gonna say from my experience – it is the most important part of my life now. I can attest that I wouldn’t be where I am if I didn’t use polysleep.
First of all, it finally gave me agency over the must untamable part of my life – huge psychological switch. I was not a victim anymore – I could DO whatever I wanted with my sleep.
It gave me more time in a day – the thing I struggle with most, even for some periods nowadays. I always tried to make the most out of my days. And I earned more hours by optimizing my schedules.
It allowed me to workout on mornings.
You know, that was the cause of me fucking around in gym for 2 years instead of consistently making progress – I cannot go to the gym in the afternoon or evening – it just doesn’t feel right for me, I start to hate it.
When I was waking up for it at 6/7 am and immediately tried to push myself out of the house half-asleep – well, every time I was fighting a battle against my laziness, sleepiness and cold weather, without having even a little bit of “action” inertia and being week-minded from just waking up. And, expectedly, I was losing 4 times out of 5.
That is why I couldn’t go to the gym more than 2 weeks in a row consistently. I just went back to sleep after waking up, because the pressure was just too overwhelming.
Polysleep handled every problem there – I was waking up about 4 hours prior, having a chill shower, having a good meal, was doing something that I liked for a while to get me into good state.
After that, with already having some energy from actually moving around, it was quite easy to go to the gym.
Nowadays, my polyphasic schedule also gives me my most “creative” and “mindful” hours of the day – morning. I don’t care much about evening – I cannot work or write something then – nothing comes into my mind. But mornings are a different story. I feel so peaceful and connected to the present, that meditative state comes by itself and words flow out of me freely.
My articles owe big time to the polysleep.
Another thing tied in to full control over sleep – I don’t think of it as some unknown thing anymore.
I studied it. I studied how it affects me.
I see the sleep as a tool now, instead of a leisure or even out-of-hands addiction, as it was prior.
Strictness of the schedule helps a helluva lot too – I don’t need to be concerned if I should take a nap or not, if I should be awake or not.
I already decided that when I created the schedule.
I just need to follow it now – go to sleep at 11pm, wake up at 3:30, take naps at 7:40, 12:40 and 16:40.
Everything is handled for me already. It was created to give me the best state of being possible.
Now I can just relax into it and free up mental energy
The last, but maybe the most important advantage of polysleep for me is tied to first one – that newly-found control over my life prevents me from being down for long periods of time.
When I had to fall off from the schedule in these years – I was becoming really prone to anger, apathy and negative thinking.
Polysleep acts like a cold refreshing shower for my brain each day – it keeps my mind awake and ready. There is no place for depression anymore, there is a constant level of awareness and motivation.
I have no really bad days when I’m on the schedule.
If I can have more hours in the day and still combine it with all pros of “long” scheduled sleeps – count me in.
But most of the benefits I described would probably apply to any strict sleeping schedule – going to sleep and waking up at exactly the same time each day.
I highly recommend researching it and finding what works for you.
I suggest to start with the site above and go from there.
I give you permission to go and find it – to take agency over your sleep, as I did with mine.
It may be one of the most important breakthroughs in your life.
In the contrary to “uncontrolled” monophasic 8-10h sleep, where I am drowsy all day, cannot workout properly, constantly considering if I should take a nap and just having 4 hours less to enjoy my life.
Now I can be have my productive days and be happy in the process.
Polyphasic sleep is the main foundation of my life now.
I cannot praise it enough
