This morning was a normal morning. I was feeling overconfident as normal with the morning boost that I get at my 9 am wake up. This is due to the light from outside, previous experience, and lastly (I believe) my medication. I take Synthroid each day due to my thyroid. Understanding that synthroid gives my body extra thryroxin {metabolism and energy} that it is missing, I am wondering if this is also contributing to my insane boost of energy at that time period. Because I take my synthroid an hour before I nap in that time frame. I am just wondering if that medication gives me an unfair temporary jumpstart each morning. Either way, it is a thought that I have been considering. I did not do anything too crazy this morning. I simply at my breakfast and headed to my church for play practice from 11:30 to 1:00. I had been slowly stretching my sleep schedule so that I would be able to make it back home and collapse for my slightly overdue nap. But this is what happened. I had a parent show up 25 minutes late to get their kids. Now I was understanding, but I was also very upset inside. I ended up getting home an hour overdue for my nap! I functioned fine since I was in my boost, but I knew that this would have terrible consequences. This is why (back-track, then I will pick up from here): I believe I failed to mention last night in my my post that I had taken an extra nap to pass the time by. Due to the whole 20 minute nap verses 30 minute nap situation, I needed rest and I took a nap exactly half way between naps. this is a quick nap only meant to pass the time by. Sleep by definition of REM or DEEP is almost null! But I was so exhausted when I got up. Even more so than I was previously. My body was used to a pattern of Up Down Up Down Up Down. By throwing in a little double time, my body was not in the right spot to get my rest. This was recovered for by my nap (original time again), but I learned that not only are you tired in cycles, but your rythyms need to be in line with your naps.
So back to the story, I got back an hour late for my nap. I had to have it. My heart had begun pumping harder and my mind was tired and ready to pass out. It took me a very long time to fall asleep. I could feel my body working overdrive trying to keep me functional while I was attempting to relax so it could rest. I could hear my heart beat in my ears, I could feel it on my skin (and face against pillow). It kept me up even as I tried to rest. So this is what happened........
Mind you, it could have been worse. I ended up worrying if I would get any sleep because of my burdened vitals. Well, the Lord was gracious and I fell asleep. In this moment. It was a DEEP sleep. The orange bars that overlap the 2PM mark were my nap. Well, I ended up waking up with the alarm and shutting it off. But I slept terrible and I (apparently) fell back to sleep immediately after I turned the alarms off (3 total alarms during the process {1 normal and 2 backups}) . Well, luckily I didn't take off my headband, so my zeo just kept recording. I ended up sleeping an additional bit with a total of 45 minutes of LIGHT, 12 minutes of REM (most I had these last days at a shot), and 27 minutes of Deep. With all of that sleep, you would assume that my body would be rejoicing!!!! It wasn't. The timing was wrong, the amount of sleep was not patterned in 20-30 minutes of time, and I was super groggy! My normal nap time was just an hour and 48 minutes away (108 like LOST (which is why I remember that detail) ). here I got 10 minutes of REM and 20 minutes of LIGHT. I felt much better after this, even though I knew the next naps would have to compensate for this outrage. :) They did. My next naps were REM filled. The first was 9 min REM to 2 min DEEP and the second was 16 min REM with 2 min DEEP. But I have slid back on track again with my high DEEP and low REM again. last nap was 12 DEEP and 6 REM.
So in a concluding thought on this subject before I talk about caffeine and REM, I want to show you just how important these naps are. When they are off balance, it literally will ruin your day/ ruin the entire cycle you have begun. (I AM VERY LUCKY) that my body aborted early on that long nap. If it had been another 2 hours, I would have had to start back on day 2 again with getting a cycle down pat and re-working my entire experiment. Thank the Lord, this did not happen. Otherwise, my nap would have had even more light sleep, and I would have been like a normal person running on 2 hours of sleep in finals week of college. A normal person in a normal monophasic state cannot function on 2 hours of sleep a day for an entire week. You will either, pass out, get very sick by exhaustion, or even die! On to better thoughts for Polyphasic sleepers.
I have really attempted to be very good during this experiment with drinking water. I have attempted (and done well) to drink at least one glass of water in each cycle. And only water. The only exception to this is the occassional milk in cereal, or decaffeiNATEd sweet tea. Because I am stressing my body, I want it to have what it needs physically and water is the way to go. I get electrolytes from the foot I eat! Anyway, I am not drinking any caffeine during this experiement. And I know this from personal experience in my 2 month backlog of a baseline. When you drink caffeine, your body is affected during sleep. You are simply too active due to the drug being in your system. You will start a normal (big block) of REM and abort it early. In fact, you will see dramatic cut back in your REM lengths. You are literally "too hyper" for REM and you are sent back to the principles office in LIGHT of your activities. HAHA you get what I am saying? Any caffeine is running a risk of that happening. And on the amount of REM that I am getting, I cannot sacrifice any of it!
Closing thought for the day. This is why caffeine is so bad for you. I will explain in a roundabout way, but it will help you to understand. Here comes the biology, but it will be in laymans terms. trust me, you will get it from this:
Our body likes equilibrium. (a balance). It desires to be in a mixed/balanced state and never at the extremes. And here i will explain a situation. Hang with me. When you see a person who likes another person (call it American teenage love), biologically, they are pleased with the other person and their body shares in the pleasure by releasing dopamine. (in other words, brain candy). When you make a shot in basketball, achieve something great, or are happy because of something; it is a dopamine release. It is a wonderful little drug. So when a person likes someone, they are selfishly liking the way they feel when they are around them. due to the drug, they are happy. Well, just like with any drug, we need bigger accomplisments, more time with a special someone, to keep the current feeling going over time. this is due to our body fighting the increase in dopamine levels.... it wants to get back to a balanced situation. So you want more of the happy feeling, while your body is fighting to stay normal. Hence, in love, you feel lost when they are not around. you are a downer. that is because, when you first met them, they increase you from 50% to around 80%..... Over time, your body adjusts for the fact that the person is going to be around and releases less dopamine on its own (maybe 35%). It is accounting for the surplus that it will get from the person (15% from seeing the person). (so when you are not around them, you are running at 35%....... This makes you sad. This is also why people who break up (sadly) have a rebound person to just "MAKE ME FEEL BETTER". Over time, your body will adjust, but a rebound is so much faster. This is also what happens in marriages. Infatuation love brings you together, your body adjusts for them being there, and then you wind up at 50%. No more lovey dovey.....
Now caffeine works the same way. This is what it does. When you are in a scary situation, you release epinephrine/adrenaline (fight or flight). Ready to punch or run for your life. this goes to a cell and induces cAMP to be formed in the cell. YAY.... This will give us the energy to run or fight! cAMP is broken down by another enzyme (i believe it is phosphodiesterase). Anyway, caffeine is a tricky little drug and inhibits cAMP from being broken down. This causes high cAMP in our cells, thus a booster of energy!!! YEA!!!! We are doing nothing of super importance, and have the fight or flight system running to keep us going (as if our life depended on the situation). Well, our body likes equilibrium.... when you normally take in caffeine, your body will start making more phosphodiesterase to break down the excess cAMP in your cell. So after a while, you become addicted to caffeine..... you need it to get moving in the morning. Because otherwise, any little cAMP you make is immediately cleaved because of extra phosphodiesterases. Your body is used to having caffeine induce more cAMP. so without it, you cannot even do anything. You are a zombie... Now, if you were to go without for a week or two, your body would begin to adjust to get you to 50% on your own.... But we just do the quick fix. we take in caffeine. So people that always have caffeine, and people that don't; the ones that don't normally have it will be more affected by caffeine..... or a bear that charges into your work place. theoretically, the person with no caffeine will probably be better reacted to the fight or flight, since his/hers is not already in effect.
And just to sum this up to my simple point..... FIGHT or FLIGHT means a monster is chasing you..... you aren't supposed to sleep when that happens..... So now your body is ready to go........ but you are just laying there..... REM is interupted... and you probably won't sleep well overall either! ... if you do, imagine how well you would sleep without the caffeine....
Sorry for the light-hearted, oversimplified biology lesson. I guess I just wanted to talk about it! :)
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