Re: [polyphasic] Dilemma

[Wout Mertens]

You need to relax - it's fine to just rest. There's no pressure. If all you did was rest, then at least you got that. Better next time.

Just make sure you do take your naps at the scheduled times.

To nap, I pretend to be in REM sleep: I squint my eyes slightly upwards (stick out your thumb, look at the first knuckle of your index finger and touch your nose with your thumb outstretched and hand pointing up - that's about the right squint), close my eyes, and forbid all thoughts of words and music. I just watch whatever images my vision system comes up with, and "follow them" with my eyes, and in about 5 minutes I'm asleep.

On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 1:46 PM Nahom Yemane <nahomye...@gmail.com> wrote:

It is napping on command which is just so difficult for me right now-
I could have the most excruciating need to sleep which is coming at the right time just before a scheduled nap- the moment I set the alarm clock for 25 mins (5 mins to fall asleep)  I either a) lose the desire to sleep b) the pressure of falling asleep fast in 5 mins  is so great that I fail to sleep altogether.
and by the time the alarm clock rings all I've done is just lie in bed.
If I don't set the alarm. I go into a wonderful sleep but I always end up sleeping for 1h to 1.5h!
Does anyone have any tips?

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[FrozenKiwi]

Thats a neat concept Wout!  I'll give that a shot next time I'm struggling.

@Nahom - my goto is guided meditations.  You can find a bunch of them on youtube.  They have the advantage of giving your mind a path to follow, so if you have trouble clearing your mind for sleep then I recommend giving them a shot.  Just make sure to follow instructions (breathing & bodyscan), and don't try to rush.  Often you'll feel like just a day-dream, but when I strapped a Zeo to my head it read these periods as sleep, so I think the brain is still getting it's rest.

Experiment a bit.  The main thing is to take the pressure off.  It's very hard to rest when your stressed about not resting.

I'd also combine this with Wout's advice (except forbidding thoughts.  We don't think in negative, it's much easier to focus on B than forbid A).  It definitely helps to pretend to dream, (I've never seen such specific advice before though and am interested to try it).

On Monday, 10 September 2018 01:16:16 UTC-4, Nahom Yemane wrote:

 Thanks for the reply- by first knuckle do you mean MP joint knuckle or the DIP joint (from the picture). I assume DIP given you said upwards. 

By squint up- I assume you mean roll your eyeballs up inside your head with your eyelids shut?

  I've still not been setting an alarm over the last few days and now my core sleep is usually no more than 3.5 hours tops naturally waking up- the other three short naps are still bad but naturally wake up after 45 mins  which is better. Will keep updated on progress.Thanks!

[wout.mertens]

I mean the MP joint. It shouldn't hurt to squint. DIP definitely hurts
a bit for me.

And FrozenKiwi is right, forbidding thoughts is the surest way to
failure. I use the mindfulness trick of noticing I'm thinking words
and/or music mentally shrugging and then focus back on the pretty
pictures.

I must say, if I'm really upset about something, it's very hard to
stop thinking about it, and that generally ruins naps.

[Placebo]

Another option to add, YMMV, is a timed MP3 such as the ones I created (Placebo's Sleep Track) that have grey noise in the background and an alarm sound at the end.

If you want them and struggle to find them, let me know :)

For me I found that I got used to it surprisingly fast - and was falling asleep to it within minutes and waking up a few seconds before the alarm started.

Again, YMMV. Some people disliked the grey noise of it (FYI it's not white noise, it's softer than that)

Kind Regards,

[shadow zhuge]

Hey,

Send us over placebos track

If you have it lying around. I listened to

It before and it was great, I think I lost it since because of changing laptops.

Thanks!

Sent from my iPhone

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[Wout Mertens]

There's also a bunch of most generator apps. The best ones are completely free and generate noise on the fly, like Chroma Doze that lets you paint the desired spectrum. 

I couple that with Android sleep which has great sleep tracking, nap tracking and alarm options

[Placebo]

Glad you liked it!

I enjoyed making and using it too - but not so much my server host phoning me in a panic that I brought everything down with the demand for them :D
It was really amazing how many people wanted it - mostly because Lifehacker featured it in a post.

As Wout Mertens says, there's probably better things out there now.

But for old time's sake, below are two dropbox link to the 2 versions I used most.

As mentioned, it's not white noise but a balance of noises approximating grey noise.

White noise is horrible for this.

Placebo's Polynap Sleep Track Version 5, 23 minutes : https://www.dropbox.com/s/fh55a7q8xixd6wg/Polynap5_23_minutes.mp3?dl=0

Placebo's Polynap Sleep Track Version 8, 20 minutes : https://www.dropbox.com/s/mzwzqkk9kofwh0t/Polynap8_20_amped.mp3?dl=0

Credit for the 3d ocean sounds in version 8 go to reifenhalter (AFAIK): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX-bv245M1g

Enjoy! (or not, as the case may be)

[Placebo]

Sorry to reply to myself, just realised that I probably attributed the 3d ocean sound to the wrong person as the one I used has seagulls in it.

Unfortunately I'm not sure who to correctly attribute it to - but it was very cool.

Original 3D ocean sound I used here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/md8q8q79prjqsri/Ocean3D.mp3?dl=0