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52 Unless I'm really ill, in which case all bets are off.
53 One which is best solved by having a Big Fat List of things to do and/or a tight schedule to keep you moving, as discussed earlier.
44 Ubersleep
" Whip out the icky stuff. Make a list of useful things you hate doing: laundry, bills, some irritating
personal care requirement, or whatever. Label it "Bored List" or something more creative if you like,
and do something off it whenever you get bored. If you're the right kind of personality, then having
the list out there, looming with its Ick, will keep you from letting yourself get bored. And if you do get
bored, well, at least something useful gets done. If you're not the right kind of personality, though, the
presence of this list can lead you to doing not-good things, or oversleeping, in order to avoid having to
pull out the list. (The list, in this case, is similar to my mom, who would give you chores if you
complained of boredom. If moms like mine could motivate you, this probably will too.)
" Go low-key once in a while. If your problem is mental or emotional exhaustion54, you may find
yourself getting "bored", or entering a state where nothing you could do sounds palatable, even if you
have lots of options and willpower. Sometimes the best thing is to stop trying to accomplish
something, and put yourself in standby for a while. I like to read, with no music or computer or other
electronic noise anywhere near me. Other people are happy watching a fish-tank, or walking aimlessly,
or watching a movie. People need those things occasionally, and a lot of polyphasers get so involved in
being hyper-efficient with their time that they forget to just chill once in a while. Make sure you don't
waste too much time, though: set a timer or alarm, so your chill-out period is what you need and not
too much more.
" Go ahead and sleep55. Obviously, be extremely careful with this one, since you risk doing damage to that
schedule you worked so hard on, and ending up with a bunch of tiredness to deal with later!
Remember that on a polyphasic schedule, more sleep isn't necessarily more refreshing, so try to get
away from thinking that "extra" sleep will somehow make you feel better later56. Unless you're very
careful, and possibly even if you are, extra sleep will actually make you feel more tired later, or at least
you'll have some trouble waking up at some point. However, if you know your schedule and yourself
well, you've probably figured out some place where you can fit some extra Zs if you want to, and not
suffer for it. Even Uberman schedules seem to have those places, once they're done long enough. I
suggest making a list of when it is and isn't acceptable to get any extra sleep (include times of day,
durations, and things you want to definitely have accomplished first -- you'll be shocked how much
time you lose to sleep, if you're used to polyphasic naps), so that you're not making the decision when
you're bored and *want* to sleep. Also, make sure you don't use this option too often - once a week
should be the maximum, really. "Loosening up" your schedule too much can lead to an erratic
schedule and systemic tiredness -- it's less of a danger for adapted polyphasers, but you can't just give
up on your schedule and do whatever either.
Scheduling and Real Life
Ah, real life...it could almost be defined as "the stuff that gets in the way of plans", couldn't it?
Long-term polyphasers are unique critters simply because they're rare enough that they're hard to group
up (plus, that whole lack of formal studies thing) -- but they seem to run the gamut between carefully
scheduling all their time, and scheduling little more than their naps. I'm probably a 7 out of 10 on the
scheduling scale -- I have a proposed schedule for each day, that I modify as needed on an ongoing basis.
But it doesn't matter how precise you are with your schedule, because nothing can stop Real Life from
throwing its monkeywrenches in. The question is, when it does, how does a polyphaser handle them?
Sickness
Almost everyone gets sick sometimes. If you get sick terribly often or badly, you probably don't
want to mess with polyphasic sleep anyway; but if you're a normal, healthy person, you probably still deal
54 A good way to determine this is to look at what you've been doing all day -- If it's very brain-intensive, or difficult emotionally (i.e. if you're a professor or a
therapist, etc.) then it's likely that that part of you is tiring out, even though your body isn't. You see this a lot in students, even monophasic ones, who are
working a really intensive program: After doing it most of the day, they tend to shut down, and either stare at walls or get drunk.
55 My gods, did I just say that?? ;)
56 The obvious exception being if you're sick, in which case you DO need extra sleep. See next section for more on that.
Ubersleep 45
with colds or allergies or what have you. (Though I'm not saying they're inevitable...I think many regular
illnesses are caused by lifestyle. I'm currently at war against colds -- and I haven't had one for almost a
year! My website has more on natural cold remedies and preventions, if that's something that interests
you.) And there are things like the flu, food poisoning, and other contagions that sometimes you just get
stuck with.
Sickness is the one instance where I've never advocated trying to keep to one's schedule --
be it polyphasic or monophasic or whatever -- and I've never tried to myself, either. Sickness is not
something to mess around with, and it's well-known scientifically that sleep provides some of the best
chance for your body to heal. It lets you shut down all non-essential functions and re-route the engines to
life support, if you will. ;) And it's WAY healthier than taking drugs! So whatever your normal sleep
schedule, if you've contracted some illness, forget about it -- sleep as often as you want and as long as your
body will. Feel no shame about staying in bed all day if that's what feels right. I'm all about efficiency,
right, but missing one day of work to sleep off an illness is way more efficient than missing four days
because you wore yourself down to a stub.
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