My little bi-phasic sleep experiment drew out of a need to be in the office a whole lot. I was left with the choice of getting maybe 4 hours of sleep a night, or breaking it up into chunks. So, I went with chunks.

For four weeks, I did sleep 3 hours, twice a day. I generally went to sleep around 2200 or 2300 — 10 or 11 pm — for the whopping 3 hours. On good days, I’d get up and run, on bad days I’d just get up. Shower, shave, and on to work. Some days, there would be food on my desk, waiting for me, and on other days, I’d tough it out until 6 or 7 AM when I’d sneak out for some breakfast.

I’d finish around 10 or 11 AM, on most days, and go back to sleep until after lunch. No, no lunch for me. I’d be sleeping. I’d make it back to the office sometime between 1 and 2 pm. Most days I’d sneak off to get some before the close-out meetings of the day started. By 9, maybe 10 pm, my day was over and I was heading back to sleep again.

Does it sound like all I did was sleep and work, and sometimes run? Well, that’s a pretty fair description of my 4 weeks. Did it kill me? No. Could I do this forever? Yes. Does it take a lot of attention to pull this off? Yes. Could I have done this by myself? No.

Would I ever do this again? Yes — but only if I was back in a situation like this. Being awake all day and being awake all night just isn’t… normal. I did get a lot of work done, it did have the effect I wanted, but to a “T” everyone thought it so abnormal as to be troublesome. Some worried about my health, others worried if I was eating enough. Thankfully, no one seemed to think that my work was slipping.

For me, it was all about the 9 hours. I’d wake up knowing I just needed to make it 9 hours and I’d go to sleep and reset. If I could make it to then, I’d be good.

There were a half dozen or dozen days when I did not make it to sleep during the day until well into the afternoon. There were at least two days where things were so busy that I did not get to sleep during the day. Being late was one thing; missing sleep was something entirely different. Being late was generally OK, but missing sleep left me trying to make it up over the next one or two sleeps — 4.5 hours vs. 3. Which worked.

I could do this, long haul. I’d take care and attention and dedication to the hours, the missed meals, the need to fit running into all this. But it can be done. It’s very regimented, but very possible. And very possible in a military environment, where there are people working 24 hours a day, every day.

I have no idea if this would translate to the regular world, to a regular job. I guess if your boss would be OK with you just sleeping all the time. I had the two windows every day — early night, and late morning / lunch — when I could sneak away to sleep like this; I don’t know how many others have windows like that.

So, today I sleep some some and tonight I go back to nights. But maybe a run first, since my foot has felt rock solid for a couple of days.

OK, that’s not entirely true. But my sleep has changed.

When I got back from Hawaii, my work changed. Suddenly, I was on nights, learning what my day counterpart was doing so that with time I could do both — as he had been doing. I was easing into changing jobs and taking over his.

Well, he definitely does not sleep. Long, long hours, often being in the office until after midnight and coming back in at 4 or 5.

I don’t know about you, but I only do so well for so long under those conditions. So, I broke the mold.

I wanted and needed to come into the office by 3 am. There’s some key work that is done before the start of the regular work day, work I think is important. But the work day really doesn’t end until 10 pm / 2200 on a regular basis, and yes, sometimes as late as midnight when things are crazy. That leaves little time — and the problem.

So, I’ve stopped sleeping and gone to napping. I start my day around 1 am, when I wake up and dress and now try to go run on most days. I shower and shave and stuff, and could be ready to go by 0200 but often, like right now, sneak in an hour or less of me time to read emails, etc. By 0230 or 0300, I am in the office.

Some nights, there’s food waiting for me. People think I am working strange hours, and some are looking out for me / worrying. I might eat around 0300. Before 5, my boss shows up. By 7 or so, I usually have had some breakfast — an actual meal which, on a good day, I sneak out to get (to go, of course). By 1000 or as late as about 12, I am back in my room, asleep.

Going to sleep means opening Apimac Timer for OS X. I tell it to play Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals in 3 hours and 15 minutes, and I rack out. Ideally, I start that by 1000. When I wake, I get up and head back in. I often have a next hard time / event at 1430, so I can catch up and then press on.

Some but not all nights, I sneak out to get some dinner to go. Not always — I never did get to eating last night. I have a 9 pm / 2100 meeting, and then after that, it’s a matter of closing up shop, making sure subordinate leaders are straight and that projects are underway, and I head back to the room. On a good night, by 10 pm / 2200, I am starting the countdown and going to sleep.

Does this really sound nuts? Not the whole “I only work” aspect — there are jobs in the Army for which one all in, and this is one of those ones. But two naps, of 3 hours each? Why would I do this?\

Well, there’s a couple of reasons. First, I already fall asleep in a blink. Like, insanely fast. Two, I know that I sleep in 90 minute intervals — my sleep cycle is 90 minutes, so 3 hours is 2 full cycles on a regular sleep night. Only getting 3 hours every once in a while would be better for me that only getting 4 hours every one in a while.

But, I had read this article a loooong time ago, and the idea of doing this has been in my head ever since. My job isn’t one wherein I can sleep every 4 or 6 hours, but right now, every 12 works. And I thought about a powernap – biphasic / siesta approach versus actual polyphasic, and that wasn’t going to work because I was after a little sleep mid night and a little sleep mid day. And I wasn’t trying to go extreme — I just needed to break my sleep up into different chunks.

So, i shifted to two naps a day, three hours each. And the soldiers have started to refer to me as a vampire – which royally sucks, because I am so much more of a zombie fan than a vampire fan.

What’s it like? Odd. Really, my work has me on the go all the time, so it’s strange to have that actually mean all day and all night. When I wake up, I still have problems identifying if it’s mid night or mid day. I can now fall asleep really, really fast — i.e. within a minute or two most of the time. And yes, I still tend to wake up just ahead of my alarm, as I set it for 3:15 and sleep 3 hours.

I need to do a better job with the whole eating thing, esp. now that I am back to running, too. People ask how I do this, and I tell them that I am surviving on the blood of kittens — which is about as good of an explanation as anything. Loooong days like this burns more energy, as does the running. So, really — kitten blood just wouldn’t really cut it, if you thought abut it. And I’ll be honest — I notice less that I’ve skipped a meal than I might otherwise, and I am unsure why this is.

I’ll probably write about this some more. If you have questions, ask — I’ll do my best to answer them, though I am kind of busy these days and long answers take time. I’ll probably also talk about this on the podcast which, as you might have guessed, has dropped off in frequency — down, but not out.