I think at one point in time I was routinely drinking close to 1000mgs of caffeine. I remember drinking multiple grande lattes a day (2 shots in a grande vs 3 shots in a venti).
Based on some of the information in these articles, I believe a majority of my sleep problems are related to my caffeine intake. I am going to try cutting out caffeine intake from Starbucks drinks for a month.Starbucks Venti Twenty ounces = 415 milligrams caffeine
- http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/breakfast/47395/
- http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0501/feature1/index.html
- http://www.newsweek.com/id/32848
- http://www.starbucks.com/retail/nutrition_beverages.asp
Polyphasic Sleep
I ran across a blog chronicling one person’s 5+ month experiment with polyphasic sleep. I had originally been Googling for information about sleep disorders since I’ve been unable to get a good night’s rest for a longtime (years?) now.
Polyphasic sleep involves taking multiple short sleep periods throughout the day instead of getting all your sleep in one long chunk. A popular form of polyphasic sleep, the Uberman sleep schedule, suggests that you sleep 20-30 minutes six times per day, with equally spaced naps every 4 hours around the clock. This means you’re only sleeping 2-3 hours per day.
One of the upsides is the extra awake time you gain for activities. The major downside is that you will be on a fixed sleep schedule that likely conflicts with the rest of your friends and family. It’s a very interesting set of blog entries to read, and provides a lot of food for thought. I think I’ll stick to improving my monophasic sleep for now.
