The First Step VI - This Is No Joke

'Your whole life has the same shape as a single day.' - Michael Crichton

My days are pear-shaped. My life is pear-shaped. Why can't it look like a sexy mango?

OK - It's been a month since I decided to get my sleep sorted out. After a further two weeks since the last post, I am still in the same position as previously. Last night was the only good night's sleep I've had in the last month. As a result, I feel GREAT!! But the rest of the month has been the same old story. Even on those rare nights that I did manage to do everything right my sleep would manage to be messed up by circumstances beyond my control. So far I've had a noisy vane over the chimney (this is serious - I live in a very windy place), thunderstorms and even flea bites! After suffering sufficiently from cumulative nights of sleep deprivation, I decided to ditch the alarm clock and just get up when I'd had enough sleep. Result: I slept over 9.5 hours and woke up with a headache that lasted the whole day and the feeling that someone had puffed up my face with a high pressure air hose. Couldn't concentrate and felt like shit. I'd prefer less sleep - as least I could gain some respite by taking a nap. Now that I'd overslept I couldn't even nap.

Clearly what I've been doing is not working. Time to change. New strategy. I'm going to drop the second of the goals I set myself, namely to be an early-riser - at least for the time being. Since I have the flexibility (almost) to sleep whenever I want, I am going to try free running sleep. In a nutshell, this means going to sleep when I'm tired and getting up naturally, without the use of an alarm clock.

The key success factors seem to be;

1. Don't go to sleep until you are tired. OK, we all know this. But my problem is that I actually have to discipline myself to wind down so I stand a chance of naturally feeling tired (circadian cycle imposes itself). So - no more late night movies. Read or watch a not too exciting travel or wildlife documentary.
2. How do I know when I'm ready to sleep? When I know that if I put the lights out, I'm confident I'll be out for the count in about 15 minutes.
   

Well, I've made two minor modifications to the algorithm prescribed by Wozniak:

1. I'll set the alarm clock 8 hours and 45 minutes from when I put the lights out. This is just an emergency backup to stop me from oversleeping which makes me feel even worse than sleep deprivation does.
2. The maid comes to clean the house comes at 08:00 on Tuesdays and 09:00 on Saturdays so I'll have to get up then to let her in. On such days, I'll just get up and have a nap as per the nap protocol.
   

As I seem to be on a 25-26 hour cycle, in theory I should be getting up later and later every day. This creates no social problems since I work at home and am going through an anti-social phase where I see almost nobody. (This is so I can focus on my big work project. Perhaps I'll write on this later.) However, getting up for the maid might mean that this won't happen.

Actually, I don't care anymore when I get up and when I go to sleep. I feel so good today that I want to carry on feeling this way. All that matters is getting a good night's sleep. Just imagine - tomorrow could be the first time I've managed to string together more than 2 consecutive nights of good sleep.

Wish me luck.

Proof of DeMorgan's Laws

I couldn't find a formal proof of deMorgan's laws anywhere on the internet. If I could have, it might have saved me a lot of time as I had to end up doing it myself. Here they are in case they prove useful to someone.

Just click on the images to see them fully. (They were constructed using Fitch, a program that comes with the text Language, Proof & Logic.)

I'm not saying that the proofs are the most elegant or shortest. But they are all complete and correct.

Proof of ¬(P∧Q) → ¬P∨¬Q:



Proof of ¬(P∨Q) → ¬P∧¬Q:



Proof of ¬P∨¬Q → ¬(P∧Q):



Proof of ¬P∧¬Q → ¬(P∨Q):



Notation:

¬ Negation 'not'
∧ Conjunction 'and'
∨ Disjunction 'or'
→ Conditional 'implies/only if'
⊥ Contradiction

Each vertical line (bar the outermost one) represents a subproof. Each subproof starts with an assumption.

The First Step V - More Slow Than Steady

'Are we there yet?' - Bart Simpson

• Saturday 9th June - up at 09:00 - down at 01:00
• Sunday 10th June - up at 08:30 - down at 01:00 but had a terrible sleep owing to fantasizing, thunderstorm and noisy chimney cowling
  
• Monday 11th June - up at 09:00 - down at 23:30 chimney cowling fixed (handyman), weather fixed (God)
  
• Tuesday 12th June - up at 07:30 - down at 23:30 up again at 01:00 till 03:40
  
• Wednesday 13th June - up at 09:15 - down at 00:30
• Thursday 14th June - up at 08:15 - down at 02:30. Just couldn't fall asleep.
  
• Friday 15th June - up at 09:15 down at 01:30
  
• Saturday 16th June - up at 08:30 down at 01:45. Stayed up to watch Seven which had just started. Yes, very dumb. And not very wholesome in terms of providing dream material.
• Sunday 17th June - up at 09:45

OK, this is not looking so good. I've not achieved the gradual rein in of my waking up time that I had hoped. The main culprit seems to be that after getting a (relatively) good night's sleep, I don't feel tired enough. In fact, I'm probably on some kind of 26 hour cycle from the looks of things.

Things have changed for the better however. I'm napping pretty much every day now, in accordance with the nap protocol and the result has been that I generally feel less groggy after a bad night's sleep and trying to catch up through long naps. Oversleeping (on both the main night's sleep and naps) now appears to be a thing of the past. Previously, I believed I would be too miserable to go on if I didn't get some extra sleep. Now I believe that I can both have my cake and eat it. Namely, have as many naps as you like as long as they are in accordance with the nap protocol.

I'm still left with the fact that I've failed to achieve my early rising goal. However, there does seem to be some sort of stability to my waking up time so there should be no reason that I can't shift it to 06:30, other than if I'm some kind of owl and not a lark. (Even if this is the case, I don't feel that it is an insurmountable obstacle.)

The First Step IV - Cold Turkey

'What gets measured, gets done' - Andy Grove

• Tuesday 5th June - down at 02:30. I only went to sleep when I was tired.
• Wednesday 6th June - up at 06:30 (nearly didn't make it) - down at 02:00. Still only going to sleep when I'm tired. Problem is, I'm getting tired too late. Nap at 14:30.
• Thursday 7th June - up at 06:30 - down at 01:30. Why aren't I falling asleep earlier?! Naps at 09:00 and 15:30.
• Friday 8th June - up at 06:30 - down at 12:30. Nap at 09:00.
  

At first I was amazed at how functional I was on so little sleep. Up to a point. By the 3rd night of this I'd discovered I could get up even though my cumulative sleep deficit was increasing, but it was getting harder and harder . The key is the nap during the day - do not oversleep. Do not nap more than 30 minutes (from when you set the alarm). I don't understand why I wasn't flopping down on my bed exhausted each evening despite the fact that I was clearly sleep-derived. By Friday night I'd decided I'd had enough - I needed to have my brain back during the day so I could complete an assignment that needs to be handed in by Sunday.

Where to from here? Do I go back to the gradual approach? Have I wasted my time yet again? Am I back to square one? No - I learned two valuable things;

1. When it's time to get up, it's time to get up.
2. The nap is key. Don't overdo it.

For some odd reason, I didn't fall asleep normally. In fact, often my body would treat the beginning of the main sleep period as a nap and I would wake up spontaneously after around 20 minutes. I don't think it's a permanent feature - just something that' s affecting me at this moment in time. But as a result, I've decided that the gradual approach would work for me best right now.

The First Step III

'Take what you want and pay for it.' - Spanish Proverb

OK, here is how I fared (n = ~25 minute nap, s = snooze button auto-torture lasting 10 minutes):

• Wednesday 30thMay - up at 10:45 down at 02:00, n
  
• Thursday 31st May - up at 10:00 down at 01:00, n
  
• Friday 1st June - up at 09:50 down at 01:40, n
  
• Saturday 2nd June - up at 09:00 down at 02:40, nn
  
• Sunday 3rd June - up at 08:40 down at 01:00, nn
• Monday 4th June - up at 09:00 down at 01:00 up at 01:38 down at 02:40, ssss
  
• Tuesday 5th June - up at 08:30 down at 08:45 up at 10:00

Well this sucks!! To cap it all, I've felt zonked the whole day - my head feels like it's puffed up like a balloon and I'm not exactly bubbling over with life and enthusiasm. Aaaargh!! How many times have I been here before?

Enough! OK - as a desperation measure, I've decided to go cold turkey. 06:30 is my desired waking up time. I will therefore, from now on, go to sleep when I'm tired and get up at 06:30, regardless of how well I slept. Once I am up, I am not allowed to have a nap for at least another 2 hours. Each nap can only be for 25 minutes (from the moment I set the alarm till it goes off). I'm pissed off about this as it means productivity will be a write off for tomorrow but I have to get this cracked.

The key is going to be the ability to resist hitting the snooze button and crawling back into bed. Sticking the alarm way over in the other corner of the room so you have to get up to switch it off helps, but not much. I'll try splashing cold water on my face and then jumping straight into the shower, see if that does the trick.

That's the one great advantage of having a job. Fear of getting crapped on by the boss will get you out of bed no matter how tired you feel. But having discipline that depends on external factors is no discipline at all. You have to have it from within. I'm willing to use whatever helpful techniques I can to do this skillfully, but as I write these words, I can tell you that the only thing that's driving me is anger and frustration, motivators that are neither wholesome nor guaranteed to last.

The First Step II - Immediate Action

'Nothing will work unless you do.' - Maya Angelou

Here are my goals with regards to the first step:

1. I will get approximately 8 hours of uninterrupted, fulfilling and refreshing sleep per night.
2. I will be up at 06:30.

Why approximately? I'll elaborate on that when I outline the Sleep Protocol in another post. The initial task however is to get into a good cycle in a relatively painless manner. I got up at 11:30 on Tuesday and 10:45 today. Tomorrow my goal is to get up at 10:00. Each day I'll pull it in a little more until, voila, 06:30 arrives.

Now you might say, why not just get up at 06:30 tomorrow regardless of when you get to sleep tonight (which is not likely to be before 02:00) and slog it out the whole day till you collapse of exhaustion at around 22:30 or whatever. Well, first of all, I've been through enough of such attempts to realize that I become a thoroughly miserable person and I don't like it. At least this way I stand a chance of still being productive each day. Secondly, the name of this blog is incremental transformation, not sudden transformation. Little pieces I can manage. Maybe I'm being weak or even cowardly. All I care right now is for the result. If it doesn't work, we can always try sudden and drastic later on.

The First Step

'The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.' - Ancient Chinese Proverb

We all have to start somewhere. Maybe it doesn't matter where, as long as we start. I've decided that for me, the first step is to get my sleep sorted out.

There are around 6 billion fellow human beings on this planet right now, all of them wanting a gazillion different things. I'm no different - but what I really want, right here and now, is to be able to string together more than just a single night of fulfilling, complete and refreshing sleep.

I'm not an insomniac. I have no problems falling asleep nor even staying asleep (usually - we'll come to that in a moment). But what I do have is a lack of a well-established and regular sleep pattern. Nor have I had one for the last quarter of a century. Sleep as a child didn't seem to be much of an issue. It's at university that things went haywire. New people, new places, new-found independence. Yep - I'd stay up all the hours of the night engaging in stimulating intercourse (social and otherwise) with my new friends. Who cares about lectures the next day? (I didn't - I can safely say I only attended about 55% of them throughout the whole 3 years. Mostly because I'd rather lie in bed than have to get up when I hadn't had enough sleep.) Then came a disaster of monumental proportions. I was a medical student, and when I qualified and started practising I went from a situation where I could manage how much sleep I had but chose not to, to one where I no longer had the freedom to do even the former. 70-90 hour work weeks with sleep interrupted at night if I was on call soon took their toll. Fortunately I quit medicine after about 4 years and moved into investment banking, but things didn't get much better. Long hours plus bad eating habits coupled with an ambition to get ahead (not to mention occasional nights of talking to Tokyo and New York whilst I'm supposed to be asleep in London) meant I sunk into the habits of waking up exhausted during the week and playing catchup on sleep at the weekends.

Now I work for myself from home, so you would think I would have this problem sorted out by now. Nope. Sorry. Complete freedom from an externally imposed schedule has meant increasing reliance upon self-discipline, or more specifically in my case, the lack thereof. I can go to bed whenever I want and get up whenever I want. You'd think this would be paradise for most people but not for me. The result has been an irregular and erratic sleep schedule which has left me chronically fatigued. How on earth did I get into this situation?

Well, I'm not entirely without discipline. But I do have some compounding factors. For me to get a good night's sleep, all I need are two things.

1. I have to have about 8 hours sleep.
   
2. There must be NO interruptions.

This doesn't sound too onerous right? Well, it gets a little complicated. If my sleep gets interrupted (which is an easy thing as I'm a fairly light sleeper), then I end up feeling excessively drowsy when I wake up and decide to play Chinese sleep auto-torture. (This means hitting the snooze button every 10 minutes for the next hour.) Result? I wake up even more groggy and disatisfied with my sleep experience, despite the fact that I've had as much as I need (in theory), if not more. A bad sleep experience means not enough motivation and energy to get what I want done. It means going through the day as if there was a grey mist over everything. It means I'm thinking of when I can next have a nap so I can have that clear and refreshed feeling in my head once more (yes, I've experienced enough of those to know they exist).

Now here's the rub. When I've gotten my act together and managed to get a good night's sleep (about 5% of days), I feel so great and I'm filled with so much energy and passion the next day that I can't sleep at night! My head and heart are absolutely buzzing with the wonderfulness of life and its pluripotentiality and all the amazing things (I imagine) that lie ahead of me. This means I am exhausted the next day when it's time to get up. Once more I do the sleep torture thing, making me feel even worse. Even if I do manage to get up, I still feel flat and lacklustre for the rest of the day, unable to put a decent effort into any of my projects. And so the cycle repeats itself.

I've read loads of books on sleep, created a whole set of sleep rules for myself, yet still have to achieve my goal. Not only that, but I seriously believe that my lack of a healthy sleep habit has cost me dearly in terms of my productivity and ability to impact positively on the world. This situation can't be allowed to continue. Something better change. To this end, I have decided to sort out my sleep once and for all. For I know that once I have this sorted out, I will have access to a continuous and abundant source of energy. And with energy, all things become possible.