Flexing
Flexing is moving sleeps earlier or later from day to day without changing their length.
Mechanism
It was noticed by different community members that it's possible to make polyphasic schedules flexible after adaptation.
During adaptation, when sleep stages aren't repartitioned yet and the sleep structure isn't stabilized, in most cases, it's necessary to adhere to schedule strictly. Changing sleep times may hinder repartitioning and significantly delay adaptation. However, adapted sleepers often report successful experience with flexing.
It's recommended to stay on an adapted schedule for extra 3-4 weeks to make sure sleep fully stabilized before trying to flex. It takes two steps to start flexing:
- Adaptation to a strict base
- Adaptation to flexing
Adaptation to flexible schedules cold turkey has a low success rate, therefore, is not recommended.
Difficulty
After the adaptation to a strict base flexible adaptation can be started. The flex range should be narrow at first, ~5-10 minutes in both directions, gradually increasing step by step.
It's usually easier to flex in these cases:
- High total sleep time. Such schedules contain more light sleep, thus having less compression. Flexing slightly decreases sleep quality, which is detrimental for the schedules with extreme compression, but is tolerated by the easier schedules. This makes monophasic sleep and other non-reducing schedules inherently more flexible.
- Naps. Unlike cores, naps contain much less vital sleep, which makes them more flexible. You should avoid flexing cores much since it's possible to destabilize them this way.
It's difficult to flex in these cases:
- Low total sleep time. Extreme schedules have to be very rigid to maintain sleep compression. Even a bit of flexing may fully destabilize the schedule and lead to the oversleeping syndrome.
- Too much at a time. Excessive or random flexing is a receipt for the unstable adaptation and should be avoided. You should gradually test your limits, expanding the flexing range little by little, and stop the expansion as soon as you face the signs of sleep destabilization.
Inherently flexible schedules
There is a group of schedules, which are classified as alternating or inherently flexible.
BiphasicX
BiphasicX is a flexible biphasic schedule, which potentially includes two blocks of sleep of any given length. This schedule does not require a strict base since it's a non-reducing schedule, which makes it flexible from the very beginning. At least one of the sleep blocks has a natural wake on this schedule, thus making the duration of it alternating from day to day.
-AMAYL
The -AMAYL schedules, just as the other flexible schedules, require prior adaptation to a strict base. The differences between these two groups include:
- Structure. The regular flexible schedules maintain the original structure, and only move sleeps earlier or later from day to day. However, the -AMAYL schedules alternate the number of naps/cores from day to day depending on sleepiness, making it possible to take a new nap/core whenever needed.
- The range of flexing. Unlike the regular flexible schedules, -AMAYL schedules are many times more flexible. The range is very wide and reaches 24 hours a day on some of them.
After adaptation to the strict base, the adaptation to flexing should be performed. The range of flexing is gradually increased step by step, followed by switching to the final -AMAYL schedule.
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