4 Hour Sleep Training – Day 6
February 7, 2007 by Ryan Merlin · 2 Comments
Note to self: drink less water. Yep, lesson of the day is this. If I going to try and optimize and get the most restful sleep in 4 hours, I need to make sure that I’m not getting up to squirt. That’s a technical term. I didn’t end up sleeping that well because of it. I did still wake up ok after preparing myself to do that (like I talked about yesterday).
But this whole morning I was dragging. Then came mistake #2, drinking coffee. I decided to make up a cup of joe before heading up the mountains to watch the sunrise. Drinking the coffee was fine at first but a few hours later when the caffeine wore off, I was comatose. I couldn’t peel my eyelids open. So I had to take a 30 min nap which really hit the spot. Interesting how little I needed also, because I set my alarm to wake up after 1 hour but got up early. I think I need to get a book on sleeping to have a better idea of what’s going on because it’s so amazing.
Thanks Travis for the support and inspiration on watching the sunrise:
You’ll get used to it, just remember that 55% of the people in the world don’t watch the sun rise daily, what a waste of one of the worlds most beautiful creations and it takes no money, no traveling just an open window and an open eye. Thinkin of you bro.
I couldn’t argue:
Moon over the Boulder Flatirons
Boulder Sunrise – overlooking Boulder from Flagstaff Rd.
About My 4 Hour Sleep Training Project
4 Hour Sleep Training – Day 5 point 2
February 6, 2007 by Ryan Merlin · Leave a Comment
Update-
This morning I was definitely feeling the effects, being sluggish. Especially with it still being dark outside for a few hours. I had enough energy to read and didn’t feel like much else. So what happens when you don’t have energy and you want more? Coffee? Nope. Just bite the bullet and move, change the physiology, build momentum which changes mind and body states.
So I did, I went to Rally Sport and got on a Spinning bike. Besides the fact that I almost instantly felt like a million bucks, I seemed to be in a state of incredible creativity, thought, ideation, it was fantastic! Some brilliant ideas came to me, which I’ll be working on but can’t share quite yet.
It seems that less sleep effects my conscious mind in a positive way by reducing the wasted energy on unnecessary worries, anxieties, perfectionism. But doesn’t seem to effect my unconscious or my body (as long as I don’t let my mind get in the way). Despite the difficulty, I’m actually have a ton of fun with this.
It’s the first day here in Boulder in a while that is actually nice weather outside. Think I’ll go get in some more saddle time.
What would you do if you had an extra 4 hours of daytime all of a sudden?
About my 4 Hour Sleep Project
4 Hour Sleep Training – Day 5
February 6, 2007 by Ryan Merlin · 1 Comment
7:17 AM Yesterday was the hardest day yet. After I posted about fantastic Yoga, I started to get a lot of work done and saw my energy start to drop off. But what blew my mind, was how easy and powerful it was to recharge with a quick 15 min of meditation. In the meditation, I hit a point where it felt like I got a shot in the arm of adrenaline and was completely juiced again. It was wild being both the experiencer and the watcher and I couldn’t stop talking about it, as if my friends had any way to truly capture what it was like.
Part of the most amazing things so far has been my ability to even more in tune with my energy, physical and more importantly psychological. It is a tough but very interesting challenge to optimize energy throughout the day and has already taught me a ton.
What do I mean? I can relate it well to a race. Energy management is vital, you have to be able to lay down maximum power at times and then recover, or focus all the energy into a rhythm with little wasted energy, all of which requires energy management.
My level of reading has shot through the roof, with more time and a flowing focused attention, like I’ve talked about a bit already. So, I headed to the library to pick up a stack of some more books Including some on NLP, Dr. Erickson hypnotic techniques, Huna, and FLOW.
Waking up this morning was also pretty tough. But like I said yesterday, there is a huge shift that happens once I make the decision of getting up and actually enjoying it. I think I realized that part of what is making it hard, is that I’m waiting until I wake up to see how I feel and then put myself in the position of having to deal with (change) it then. So, I’m really curious to try and make decision before I go to sleep about how I want to feel when I wake up, and really imprint it. So, I’ll try that tonight.
Makes you wonder, am I Pavlov, or am I the dog? 
About My 4 Hour Sleep Training Project
Dean Karnazes – It’s Not About Running, It’s About Life
February 5, 2007 by Ryan Merlin · Leave a Comment
Just reading about Dean Karnazes can inspire anyone to tap into deep wells of strength and courage. Here are a couple of clips that I found particularly powerful. I wanted to post it here because it has helped me to experiment with pushing my own limits of human performance such as sleeping, and has been amazing.
“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!! What a ride!”
Western culture has things a little backwards right now. We think that if we had every comfort available to us, we’d be happy. We equate comfort with happiness. And now we’re so comfortable we’re miserable. There’s no struggle in our lives. No sense of adventure. We get in a car, we get in an elevator, it all comes easy. What I’ve found is that I’m never more alive than when I’m pushing and I’m in pain, and I’m struggling for high achievement, and in that struggle I think there’s a magic.
Outside Magazine Interview
Take a look under the hood of this engine by reading Dean’s blog.
Read about his enlightened epiphany from Wired.
Related:
Quote – Our Greatest Fear Is Not That We Are Inadequate
Secrets Of Greatness
The Alpha Project
4 Hour Sleep Training – Day 3 Update
February 4, 2007 by Ryan Merlin · Leave a Comment
It’s about 10 pm right now and I’ve been completely surprised so far. I’ve had more energy, vitality and spunk today that is “normal”. In fact, I rode almost the entire Super Bowl on a trainer. And I still feel good. I know the real adaptation probably hasn’t started to set in but I’ve really been working with my mind to keep it focused and directed.
Other amazing side effects include, feeling more relaxed in a calm and focused mentality and physiology. And, the vision in my right eye has improved, supposedly a stigmatism (?), and while reading at Barnes & Noble trying to decide on a new book, I was more easily able to speed reed. Can’t explain it, but at this point, I like it.
About the 4 Hour Sleep Project
4 Hour Sleep Training – 2 Down 28 To Go
February 4, 2007 by Ryan Merlin · Leave a Comment
Last night was the second night in my journey to sleep training. I ended up getting 5 hours waking up at 5 am on purpose. It came from my unknowing of the effects of trying to dive completely in from being a 7-9 hour sleeper to 4 hours in one night, so I decided to go with 5 to start.
I feel good and didn’t have any problems waking up. In fact it was better than I expected on the 2nd day as I was up so early and had a great chunck of time to meditate, write, think. All of which seemed to have more of a clarity to it, an uncluttered purity that was in itself refreshing and invigorating.
Yesterday, after my first full day of 4 hours of sleep, I had a big day spinning in the gym for over 2 hours, since there’s still so much snow and it’s friggin cold outside. Interestingly, I found that I had more than enough energy to make it and then some. Today I have more planned and it’s Super Bowl Sunday, so I gotta get my exercising in early. I’m thinking about doing more running early since I can’t bike outside right now, maybe tomorrow since I’m focused on putting in some good saddle time today.