====== Sleep ======

===== About =====

Sleep is very important and so I have always been curious about it. I have never been a great sleeper, so it has been necessary to learn a bit about sleep to make my life better. From my own experiments with alternative sleep schedules to reading //Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine//, there is always something interesting to learn.

===== Personal Trials =====

In college I ran a few different sleep schedules. I will break down my experiences below.

==== Dual Core ====

I ran what might be called a dual core without naps or a siesta schedule where I had two sleep periods while I was married. This started because I didn't have enough study time when I came home from college. I would go to school during the day, hang out with my wife in the evening, and then we would go to sleep together. After about 1.5 hours I would get back up and study until my homework was done. Then I would grab 2-3 more hours before going to class again. 

This was my first, unintentional experience with alternate sleep schedules. I started this purely out of necessity. This experience led me to reading up on more potential schedules because I felt that I didn't have enough hours in the day. The appeal of possibly cutting sleep down with only minimal performance effects was enticing. 

==== Every Man ====

This sleep schedule has a few different variations. I tried the 3 hour core sleep with 3 twenty minute naps throughout the day. I found conversion to this fairly easy because before starting it I was basically only sleeping 4 hours a day. The hardest part was being strict with the naps. Moving them at all would ruin my day. I was having to keep my time within a 5 minute start window for it to be sustainable. 

Going from 4 hours in one chunk to 4 over the course of the day really improved my sleep. I found that I was a little drowsy until after my second nap, though that may have just been because of the soul crushing boredom of life-guarding. I was doing this while I was going to college full-time, life-guarding in the morning, and then doing RA duties in the evening. I would nap just before and just after my life-guard hours. After that second nap, I was usually pretty sharp going into my morning classes. The third nap fit in perfectly after class and before studying and doing RA stuff.

I really think it was the perfect college sleep schedule, at least for how busy I was. It is a shame I only stumbled across it my Senior year. I still wouldn't substitute it for a solid 8 hour sleep schedule unless I absolutely had to.