Spamayl
Spamayl is a highly flexible nap-only schedule[1], with its main idea being taking a short nap whenever tired throughout the day.
| Sleep Polyphasically As Much As You Like | |
|---|---|
| chart link
Legend
| |
| Total sleep | Undefined, but usually 2.5-3 hours |
| Proposed by | Rasmus |
| Difficulty | Extremely difficult |
| Specification | Any number of 20-minute naps throughout the day |
Origin
Spamayl is an abbreviation of "Sleep polyphasically as much as you like". It is one of the 4 "-amayl" flexible schedules. It was originally proposed by a forum user Rasmus in a 2012 forum post, who reportedly stayed on the schedule for one and a half years. Spamayl is the oldest "-amayl" schedule, which allows taking a varying amount of naps, as opposed to flexible versions of regular schedules. The original design of the schedule exclusively uses 20-minute naps, though variants with longer naps have later been attempted.
This schedule later inspired 3 other "-AMAYL" schedules, which contain cores to fulfill the required SWS, while still adhering to the principle of sleeping when needed.
Mechanism
The schedule is based on the adaptation to a habit of 20-minute naps. Since there are no core sleeps, all necessary SWS and REM must come from the naps. As with Uberman and Dymaxion, the intense sleep pressures makes the circadian sleep peaks less important than on other schedules. Experienced nappers can achieve a fast onset of REM or SWS in their nap, even for naps that are not strictly scheduled.
Spamayl can have up to ~10 naps to be scheduled per day, which also adds up to a total sleep of 3-4 hours. If one or more naps are scheduled to be longer, then ~6 naps per day may suffice. Note that the number of naps as well as total sleep time should be relatively consistent on a day-to-day basis to ensure their quality.
Adaptation
Cold turkey
Though there has not been many successful adaptations, all of them so far have been achieved cold turkey. However, it is important to note that most of the sucesses come from those with greatly reduced sleep needs.
The adaptation first starts with difficulty falling asleep and tiredness, as sleep quality is reduced after a sudden change of pattern. Once napping is learned, the naps become more restorative and start to yield more vital sleep stages. As a result, it becomes possible to stay awake for a longer before having to nap again. Without core sleeps, the sleep pressure on Spamayl is intense enough to force the repartitioning of vital sleep stages into the naps despite the lack of consistent timings, in contrast to other "amayl" schedules.
Here is the schedule creator Rasmus's experience with adapation:
You nap whenever you get even slightly sleepy (or, when you know that you won't have time to take a nap before you will get sleepy). The only exception is when you're on an upward curve- like, you napped, got up, 20 minutes later you're still a bit sleepy but definitely getting better.
I think it depends where you come from. I started adapting directly after doing a week or two of Everyman3, so that I was already in the rhythm of sleeping every few hours, so I just continued that, more or less. I imagine when you're changing from monophasic, and are used to being up 16 hours apiece, it might look more like that: You're going quite a while without a nap (of course, during a usual day you don't get tired either), then you nap, nap again after an hour or so, a few times during your first polyphasic night, during the second night, when you're already very sleeping deprived, you nap quite often, maybe 15 times, and that keeps up during the next few days. When you're getting in a rhythm where your naps are roughly equidistant (so that you're not NOT napping during the day and all the time at night), I expect that the times you spend awake in between naps get shorter.
So, uhm, nap frequency might take the shape of a polynomial curve during the first few days, lol.
It's no problem to nap as much as 15 times a day or so during the first couple of days or weeks, after all, even that is a reduction of several hours from your usual amount of sleep.
— Rasmus, trypolyphasic.com forum (2010)
However, others noted that they usually required a longer wake gap (~1.5 hours) between naps for them to be effective and not result in difficult wakes. This allows them to be fully alert during those wake gaps, and reduces the risk of naps becoming interrupted cores, which are of much lower quality.
Flexing adaptation
Another approach to adapt to Spamayl would be through an adaptation to a schedule with strict sleep times, for example, Uberman with 7 or 8 naps, and then learn to flex the naps, one or two at a time, and add naps when necessary. However, no one has successfully adapted to Spamayl with a this method, due to both the great difficulty of the first adaptation and the flexing process.
Difficulty
However, Spamayl is considered to be less hostile than Uberman and Dymaxion, since it can allow more than 6 or 4 naps respectively, and the extra sleep from the extra naps will help accommodate sleep need more easily, allowing for extra REM and SWS gain. However, because the naps are being moved they will contain a lower amount of SWS or REM than the naps of strict nap-only schedules, thus requiring more naps to give the same total SWS and REM sleep. It is likely that only adults with genetically reduced sleep needs will be able to accomplish this type of sleeping pattern, due to the inefficiencies of inconsistent sleep times and the very low sleep total.
Due to the usually very low TST of 3-4 hours (while an extended version is thinkable, increasing the density and length of the naps would nullify most advantages mentioned below), lack of cores and therefore extreme repartitioning of SWS into naps with resulting SWS wakes and necessity of correctly gauging the timing and duration of the naps, as well as their scheduling, likely completely ignoring of socially acceptable sleep times as a result, the adaptation difficulty of Spamayl is considered extremely difficult.
Lifestyle Considerations
Spamayl fits those with self-employment, working from home, but is also possible for programming jobs, having stable daily schedules. For those who have gotten used to 20 m naps, there is allegedly no limit in Spamayl’s flexibility. Another niche Spamayl can have is that individuals (with normal sleep requirements) who are in desperate need of extra wake time and flexibility of sleep times can practice Spamayl for a short time (e.g, a couple days, some weeks). Examples include new parents who need to spend a lot of wake time on watch for their babies, and the unpredictable events can make Spamayl a temporarily good candidate to attempt.
Under war or apocalyptic times where it is necessary to be on the move frequently and perform sustained operations under long periods of time without the possibility for any core sleeps (Chapter 14 of Why We Nap), Spamayl may become a very niche survival tool to at least hold on to for a short time (up to ~a couple weeks or so) until a settlement area is found. The flexibility of the schedule (including nap duration) invites more possibility for longer naps to be used to relieve more tiredness and sleep pressure. Getting some rest from naps (which become more effective over time) coupled with the adrenaline generated from the stressful situations can provide certain amount of needed vigilance in the event of severe emergencies to perform better decision-making than skipping sleep entirely. This flexibility also outclasses other nap-only schedules like Uberman, with a nap every X hours especially in the niche situations above. The goal is not to adapt to Spamayl under these circumstances, but to use it as a way to learn to increase the body's efficiency to squeeze the most rest possible from each shuteye session, while having to stay awake and perform demanding duties for a lot of hours in the day. The brief experience with this nap-only behavior may be tempting for certain motivations behind some personal sleep experiments, without having to worry about the pressure to have to adapt.
However, because of the nap only structure, it is important to remember that Spamayl may not fully support the glymphatic system's functions, which is a crucial aspect of well-being. Despite that the naps can be as long as ~60 m, sleepers can still wake in SWS, interrupting the cycle as an abrupt wake. The overall intense sleep pressure to be alleviated by the naps poses a question of whether several bodily functions also have to change due to a long exposure to a sleep regime with no core sleeps. Physically active lifestyles and average sleepers most likely cannot stick to the mere 20 m naps if their Spamayl only contains 20 m naps. Exercise and nutrition also play an important role in affecting sleep architecture of each nap, thus it is necessary to closely monitor these factors as well. Regardless, the unpredictability and flexibility of the nap timing makes it difficult for the body to know what naps to insert REM and/or SWS, given that REM naps, SWS naps and mixed naps can occur at any hours in the day when they are taken. These characteristics makes Spamayl a very inhospitable schedule for most humans, so inexperienced or non-mutant polyphasic sleepers should not seek to adapt to this schedule and maintain it long-term.
Variations
According to Rasmus, most naps are focused in the night, because it is usually harder to stay awake at night than during daytime. Adapted Discord user Charlaxy also reported the majority of naps at night after 8-10pm through early morning before 7am. Usually, nighttime naps allow for SWS gain and make sure one gets some night sleep, and limiting daytime naps to ensure that one can have a (reasonably) comfortable social life.
Longer naps
Up to date, there has been more adaptation success to Spamayl, especially with the use of longer naps. It is worth noting that "-AMAYL" polyphasic schedules are not made to be confined to a specific sleep duration all the time, and Spamayl is no exception. Any sleep duration can be lengthened, as long as it remains a nap. In the above demo example, a nap can last for as long as 60m, and longer naps around dawn (simulating a Pronap) can be taken advantage of before work to limit the amount of naps during the morning work hours.
The reason why such nap lengths can work is largely attributed to the perpetually fragmented sleep in the case of insomniac individuals, who cannot sleep for longer than a couple minutes in one go. It is then possible to start waking up, staying awake after a given nap duration, and wait until they are sleepy enough for the next sleep. As a result, their ever-changing nap durations persist from day to day, allowing each nap to also change accordingly from day to day, or occasionally. The versatility in such nap duration, however, is only viable for individuals with very reduced sleep duration.
The above example serves to illustrate the position of a longer nap in SWS peak to ensure that more uninterrupted SWS goes into this nap, and other naps concentrated during graveyard hours to reduce the sleep pressure at nighttime. Because any naps can be changed in their duration, at any given time for any given day, there is practically no limit on how many Spamayl variants are viable for adapted sleepers.
References
- ↑ "Spamayl Plan + Discussion". Retrieved 2020-11-23.
