(Crop from an xkcd comic.)

Last week I decided to experiment with a 28 hour day cycle. Instead of scheduling my sleep around a 24 hour day, I would schedule it around a 28 hour day with 9 hours of sleep. I would do this until I complete a full loop around the clock and return to normal sleeping times.

Everyone asks “Why? What are the benefits?”

I didn’t do it for any particular benefits; I did it because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do since my sleeping patterns naturally drift forward if left unattended, and because they already started veering forward and I figured it’d be more fun to do a full somersault forward than to slowly revert my sleep times into civilized hours.

It went something like this:

        Day         Sleep
        ------------------------
        Friday      12 am - 9 am
        Saturday    4 am  - 1 pm
        Sunday      8 am  - 5 pm
        Monday      12 pm - 9 pm
        Tuesday     4 pm  - 1 am
        Wednesday   8 pm  - 5 am
        Thursday    12 am - 9 am

Like normal sleep patterns, I veered in one direction or another by under an hour, but overall I completed the trip. My notes on the experience follow:

• Saturday, officially decided to start the process today. I am very well rested well rested, I even had trouble getting the full 9 hours of sleep tonight and had to settle with 8.5.
• Sunday, the first day being awake on opposite hours from the rest of local civilization. Everything is quiet and exciting.
• Monday, easily getting the full 9 hours of sleep, and no trouble waking up. I feel rested throughout the day.
• Wednesday, no trouble sleeping or waking up, but towards the second half of the day I was feeling tired and unable to focus, so I settled into a 45 minute nap.
• Thursday, again became tired towards the second half of the day and took a 45 minute nap.

Waking up at unusual hours was an interesting experience, although I would probably need more than 9 hours of sleep to maintain this pattern for longer periods. Or just adapt to 9 hours + short naps.

To me, sleep is very important. Getting enough sleep noticeably affects my memory, focus, and stuttering. Also, I enjoy sleep and look forward to it, and I usually get 9 hours of sleep even with a regular 24 hour sleep pattern.

If I had to push myself to spend more time awake then I would definitely prefer a 28 hour sleep pattern over polyphasic sleep or pulling all-nighters and crashing. It’s a bonus that it lasts a predictable 6 days, and I am not experiencing any problems while integrating back into a normal 24 hour sleep cycle.

In a few hours, I’m getting on a plane to the west coast for some interviews and sun. Be back in nine days!

Today, you’ll get to hear about what I’ve been up to! This wont be on the exam.

• After a year and a half stint with Ubuntu, I’m back to my true love Gentoo. That is, with a shiny matte new quad core beast of a machine.
• Bought Rockband for my PS3 couple of weeks ago. Drums are ridiculously hard. Been rocking out. Good fun is being had by all those who dare rock. Can’t wait for Still Alive to be released for free. It shall be a triumph!
• What started out as pretty code is now a bonafide open source Python module: workerpool. People are using it. No, really.
• muxtape.com: A super simple music sharing web app launched last week. Its been enriching my life — doing what Pandora once did. Here’s my muxtape. Be right back, there’s someone at the door.

My courses:

CSC340H1 F – Reqmnts Engineering
CSC407H1 F – Softw Arch & Design
CSC443H1 F – Database Sys Techn
CSC458H5 F – Computer Networks (UTM)
CSC347H5 F – Intro to Information Security (UTM)
CSC494H1 F – Project Course

CSC408H1 S – Software Engineering
CSC422H5 S – Cryptology & Comput. Complex. (UTM)
CSC321H1 S – Neural Networks
CSC495H1 S – Project Course

My schedule:

first semester, second semester (dashed outlined boxen are at the UTM campus — yay 20 min commute)

Yes, that’s right: 10 Computer Science courses. I’m hard-core like that.