It’s Winter (Christmas) Break! Even without school, there are things to do—but fewer, and they’re far less strictly scheduled. Now’s the perfect time to completely overhaul my basic bodily processes!
1.
Over the next week and a half, I plan to sleep no more than six hours every 24. This will mostly look like five and a half hours overnight, leaving myself room for a quick nap during the day if I really get tired out.
This is an experiment that I’m conducting on myself, as a result of my own sound(ish) judgment. My safety-based rationale is the following: any possible long-term harms of chronic sleep deprivation/restriction don’t apply—it’s only a week and a half—and the potential short-term impact probably isn’t a huge deal—I can always take a nap if I need to without it being as socially egregious as it wold if I had school all day.
I think there are a few ways this could ultimately go:
More hours of awakeness in my life, permanently. The experiment goes great, my brain functions fine with less sleep, and I get a solid 18+ daily hours of wakefulness rather than my usual 16ish (closer to 14 on weekends).
More hours of awakeness in my life, for now. The experiment goes ok—my brain can function with less sleep—but I begin to rely on a midday nap; a nap that’s far less sustainable when school comes back. Or maybe, even without nap-reliance, other confounding factors (upcoming model UN conferences, for example) will get in the way, and I’ll be forced to give up on my sleep-restricting dreams.
Total physical collapse. My body, as it turns out, physically needs the laying-down time, and punishes me ruthlessly for restricting it.
Total mental collapse. I end up completely manic, maybe in the hospital, and very embarrassed that I ever thought this was a good idea. Or some less extreme version of my brain not functioning too good.
My prediction is that I’ll end up at 2.
1 is unlikely because life is complicated and I’m just not great at building habits. 3 is simply ridiculous considering the number of hours I spend sat in front of my computer all day.
4 is interesting. In the extreme case, of course, it’s wildly unlikely—I’m not bipolar, not close either. In its more moderate formulation, 4 is marginally more likely—but I don’t think I’d end the experiment immediately after such a mildly negative result (it’d be hard to detect anyway) and it would just turn into some version of 2 after I flunk a Spanish test.
2.
Why am I doing this? The short (and most honest) answer is, “what the hell, I’m young!”
The long answer has to do with Alexey Guvey’s Theses on Sleep.
Basically, I find most of his arguments compelling, I find Natália Coelho Mendonça’s Counter-theses unconvincing, and I’m in a good mental, emotional, physical, social, economic, situational… state to try sleep-restriction out on myself.
Guvey suggests caution in changing one’s habits based on his article. He particularly emphasizes the need for a gradual transition, “varying the average amount of sleep by no more than 30 minutes at a time.”
Lucky for me, my sleep’s already super screwed up! I forgot to cancel my school-day 6:30 alarm over break, and my habit of staying up closer to midnight over the weekend continued into this week. Monday night, I only slept about six and a half hours.
The night after, the first of my experiment, I cut it to six. Last night, to five and a half. I plan to stay there until at least Saturday night, January 6.
3.
What am I hoping to get out of this? Time!
Life is fleeting; I’ve got a lot of things I want to do with the little time I’ve got. Why not try to give myself a bit more of it?
If the experiment doesn’t work out, I’ll settle for a good story.
4.
On Sunday, January 7, I’ll post an update with the results.
Expect a piece about Christian revivalism, modern religious extremism, and the future of Western atheism between now and then.
Also, check out a short article I wrote in a local outlet about preschool in Michigan.