Day 7 - Hypothesis

I know there was a study done somewhat recently that said we have a "sleep bank" of sorts. I'm too lazy to dig up a link :-) Anyway, the basic idea is that if you sleep more you can stay awake longer. If you sleep less you have to pay back the bank for that lost sleep eventually.

Hypothesis: Assuming the sleep bank idea is true, if I'm about 5 years in the hole as far as sleep debt goes. (I actually don't know how long I've had sleep apnea for, it could be more, it could be less). This is the reason why I "crash" once per day from 5am to 9am. If I "pay back" some of the debt I won't crash as hard for as long (if at all).

Assuming my hypothesis is true, the more good quality REM sleep I get, the longer I'll be productive each day (not to mention each waking period improving in quality). Since starting this new schedule it FEELS like this has been the case. I don't have proof though since I haven't kept detailed logs of each nap and how I felt during each waking period. I've been doing my tests at fairly random intervals each day to get a sense of how I'm doing at different times of the day rather than track every waking period.

Here's my idea to test my hypothesis: Take 5 extra naps per day at 10:30pm, 2:30am, 5:30am, 6:30am, 7:30am. If I keep this up for long enough I'll pay back the bank and feel that much better. At that point I can cut it back to 6-7 naps per day again with no ill effects.

I haven't decided to do this for sure, I need to confer with my wife first, but I'm thinking about it.

Of course I'm going to keep up with the exercise and diet changes as well since only good can come of those as well :-)