Three Days In: I'm Exhausted

Five Days In:  Adaptation Bites

Diego

Staying up late has proven to be very difficult.

We have gotten through the first week of this project but It's been rough. Staying up late has proven to be very difficult.

Over the three week nights that we did this project, I read two full books. The problem with books is that I have a hard time staying awake, no matter how good the book is. I tried TV as well, and got similar results.

On Friday, however, I tried to stay up by playing some video games. I found that this was way easier than reading, and I think it has something to do with the fact that on a video game there is user input. This would have been a great weekend plan, had I not gotten sick on Friday night.

At about 11 pm I came down with a fever (I think it was probably a plea from my body to get some sleep). I tried to ignore it but that didn't help.  I went to bed early in the hope that some rest would make the fever go away. It did.

After 6 hours of rest, I felt better but still decided to take it easy Saturday night  to ensure my recovery. Last night I started getting back on track with a 3 hour night. I plan on trying to shift down to two hours tonight. I am now behind schedule, but I hope to be able to get back on track quickly.

Liam

I am extremely tired right now because of this project.

I am extremely tired right now because of this project. It has been a real challenge to get my body adjusted to polyphasic sleep, yet surprisingly, I am functioning quite well for 3 hours of sleep ( I got my black belt in karate and went out with friends until midnight with little problems).

Saturday night, I took my nightly nap, and since it was only my second nap instead of third, I thought it would be a good idea to turn off the alarm and then lie in bed for a bit to be more awake for the rest of the night.

At 9:00pm my alarm went off. I turned it off and closed my eyes for a few minutes - and opened my eyes at 9:00 the next morning. I guess that’s just my body telling me that it’s not adjusted to polyphasic sleeping, but oh well.

I have a piano lesson now, but when I get home I will take my 30 minute nap, and then sleep from 1-3.

At least, that’s the plan.

Taus

My weekend was really, really long

My weekend was really, really long. I was awake for most of it and used my time to be very very productive. I used Netflix to get caught up on stuff and watched Sherlock, Firefly, and Doctor Who. Then I played Starcraft 2

I failed on Friday night, slept from 8:30-1:00 but spent the rest of my weekend doing the whole system pretty well. A nap every 5-6 hours and 2 hours of sleep - I’m actually starting to enjoy it.

My naps are fully REM according to the Zeo,  which is cool, and a bit strange because so far all of them have been lucid dreams.

My weekend was pretty uneventful until about 4:30 monday morning. I looked at the clock is was 4:30 then what felt like a few seconds later I looked at the clock. It was 5:30. I think I fell asleep but I have no recollection of it or anything else for that hour.

Amanda

I am trying to find something to keep me up

This weekend went pretty well.  The naps during the day went well but I started pushing back my night nap until sometime around midnight.  When it gets late, staying up is harder to do so I thought that doing that would fix it and give me an energy boost to stay up until my 2 hour stretch.  This didn’t work and actually made me more tired. Currently, I am trying to take my nightly nap around 9. 

I’m also trying to find something to keep me up because neither reading nor watching T.V. has been very successful.

I also have the issue of having hockey practice at 5:30 am.  Although I am able to get up and perform well at practice, it saps up a lot of the energy I have for the day which makes me especially tired at night.

Do you blog about sleep?  If so, we want you as our next Zeo Featured Blogger!  Tell us your story today!

I'm going to be exploring some of the sensible and not so sensible suggestions in order to bring down my AHI (apnea - hypopnea index).

To do that I needed reliable data, so I decided on a 5 day mean with a few basic rules:
    •    No coffee after 3pm
    •    Monday - Friday monitoring only (to ensure routine sleep and wake times)
    •    No alcohol
    •    No other supplements known to affect sleep
    •    Begin sleep on my back (supine)
    •    Motion detection IR (Infrared) camera (for verification of events if needed)
    •    The same apnea / hypopnea scoring criteria will be used throughout

I could use the IR camera to detect sleep position, but that would take a lot more time, so until I have a system that can detect that reliably then I won't include that data, and I may re-evaluate some weeks using that ability.

I did initially check the camera to see if I attempted to breathe when the system was detecting apneas. I did make some respiratory effort, so I will make the presumption (for now) that my apneas are obstructive in nature.

I also noticed that when the oxygen desaturations due to apneas were compared to the Zeo hypnogram, that like my son's, they were clustered around REM sleep. 

The top line is my oxygen level.

It does look like I'm awake for those periods, but the black line is a more detailed Zeo hypnogram (data calculated on a 30 second basis). Zeo has a scoring system and shows the highest scoring sleep stage as being the dominant one. "Wake" scores the highest; this makes sense, as being awake is probably the most important thing to show when you are supposed to be sleeping.

The 30 second graph shows that why the main Zeo graph shows a lot of wakefulness during the night... I have oxygen desaturations which in turn wake me up, hence Zeo shows "wakefulness for the whole 5 minute epoch. However, when you see Zeo's calculations of time spent in each sleep stage, these are based on the more detailed 30 second data.

Sleep apnea can run in families. Whether that is a factor or not, my diagnosis (albeit a self-diagnosis) doesn't surprise me. I sometimes snore, I wake up with headache a lot, and I could do with losing a bit of weight.

I have long suffered with sleep paralysis, and I suspect that being disturbed in REM sleep is a major factor in that, if not the sole cause.
So, how is this a problem?

My average AHI (number of apneas and hypopneas per hour) is 7, hence I am classified as having "Mild Obstructive Sleep Apnea".
The classification ranges are: 

• <5  - Normal (unless symptomatic)

• 5-20  - Mild

• 20-40 - Moderate 

• 40+  -  Severe

 
The REM element brings the name to "Mild REM-Related Obstructive Sleep Apnea"

I will say that this "diagnosis" is an amateur one, it may not correlate with a professional one in a sleep lab, but if I use the same equipment throughout this experiment the results will still be valid, just relative to my original numbers.

So, what if I don't want to have that diagnosis, what if I want to be "normal" (says the man who sleeps with electrodes on his head, prongs up his nose and a camera watching him)?

Standard advice:
    •    Lose weight if you are overweight (even a small amount can make a difference)

That's all very well, and something that I will do, but that won't help me fix my sleep tonight will it?

Other advice includes:
    •    Prop the head of your bed up by 4-6 of inches (takes the weight off your neck)
    •    Cut down on alcohol
    •    Quit smoking
    •    Use a mandibular advancement device (pushes the bottom jaw forward to hold the airway open)
    •    Use a CPAP device
    •    Avoid caffeine and heavy meals within two hours of bed
    •    Use a nasal dilator (keeps the nostrils open)
    •    Try a nasal saline spray
    •    Throat exercises
    •    Surgery

I'll evaluate some of these (plus a few more ideas that I have) and back up the findings with a 5 day mean AHI and sleep graphs.
Let's face it, we're all looking for quick-fix solutions, and I'm not trying to cut corners, but I am trying to help myself while on the journey to losing a bit of weight. However, so that I don't confuse the issue I will not intentionally lose weight until I have tried some of the other methods.

So, in essence I am looking for some way of bringing my AHI down, along with the time that I spend awake at night.