1. For those interested, more on polyphasic sleep here and here. The idea is that you sleep 20 minutes every four hours (e.g.) instead of 8 hours every 16 hours. This is quite useful for those of us without enough time to accomplish things, but sadly, it doesn’t seem like it would work well in conjunction with my major hobby (i.e., marathon running, which can require being on one’s feet for 4+ hours). I was not interested in it sufficiently during the last period of my life in which I could have implemented it (undergrad), so I’ve never tried it. I really could have used the extra time this summer, but with the two-three week adjustment period being so painful, I couldn’t afford to undergo that and trust that my grades would stay up. And since having more study/writing time was the whole point of the exercise, well… My current system of going to bed at 22:00 (which usually means 22:45 or 23:00) and getting up at 6:00 is pretty tenable, but I don’t know that I could do it long-term.
It turns out, believe it or not, that running 5-7 miles per day (up to 16 on the weekend, like yesterday) and biking 17-18 miles per day (my normal commute) takes a lot of sleep to sustain. Who knew?
2. This site is now accessible via http://pretensesoup.com. Please update your bookmarks so that if I move to a new server, the transition will be smooth.
3. This comic is filed under RA786.L86 2010, for Public aspects of medicine — Public health. Hygiene. Preventative medicine — Personal health and hygiene — Sleep — General Works
4. This comic was funnier when I began work on it two weeks ago. But it is based on an actual conversation.