the
gateway
www.thegatewayonline.ca
November 16, 2011
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But there is another way. If you’re finding the day is too short, stop adhering to societal norms based on the cycle of light and dark. Instead, you can divide the week’s 168 hours into six equal 28-hour days. With four additional hours every day, that’s more time to write papers and do research — or more time to hang out with friends and play video games. There are scattered tales across the internet from people who’ve given this a try for various reasons. Some enjoy the novelty of watching the world across all times of day, while others want to work during longer periods across fewer days, maximizing free time. I had to find out if it was worth it. I thought I would give this crazy 20-hour day a try. Sleeping eight hours at a time works out to 48 hours of sleep in a week, equivalent to just less than seven hours of sleep per night in a seven day week — which isn’t too different from the amount many people get in practice. I took advantage of a long weekend, worked out a schedule, and got myself ready for six long days.
Day One — Tuesday at 10 a.m. until Wednesday at 6 a.m. The first day was the easiest. Staying up for 20 hours on a single day is no big deal. The only unusual thing was that having already had what I understood to be dinner at around 8 p.m., I forgot to eat anymore — but by the time I felt hungry, around 4 a.m., I was too tired to want to cook anything. Putting more thought into meals was definitely going to be a concern moving forward.
Day Two — Wednesday at 2 p.m. until Thursday at 10 a.m. When I woke up, I had a minor headache but wasn’t particularly tired. While 2 p.m. seems like an absurdly late time to wake up, it’s nothing I wasn’t familiar with after summers of working evenings. I spent my morning doing my usual Wednesday afternoon things, and then, it was time for lunch — at my sister’s birthday party. I was feeling mostly fine when I left at around 9 p.m., but by 3 a.m. I was feeling
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pretty spaced out, and at 8 a.m., when daylight came, I was completely exhausted. My muscles were aching, I desperately wanted to sleep and it already felt like the party had been yesterday. I soldiered through the last two hours, but it hardly seemed like the bonus time the 28-hour day system promised.
Day Three — Thursday at 6 p.m. until Friday at 2 p.m. Waking up in darkness now, I felt somewhat tired. But while I knew I could go to sleep anytime I lay down and closed my eyes, I felt much better than I did the previous night. After a short trip to the grocery store to avoid having to eat instant noodles for two days straight, I realized there was nothing I had to do. Too tired to seek out friends, I resigned myself to spending the day alone. I realized, at some point, that I would be transitioning from Thursday to Friday during this day, and I had some business in the outside, daytime world. When approaching Grandin LRT station, I suddenly heard some loud noises from nearby. Momentarily confused, I then realized it was 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, and it was probably from a remembrance service. While not as tired now as I was at hour 18 the previous day, I had completely lost all concept of what daylight meant and what time it was supposed to be for me.
Day Four — Friday at 10 p.m. until Saturday at 6 p.m. There are ways to maximize the amount of daylight in the latter half of the six-day week, and that’s what I did. But in doing so, you sacrifice any hope of going out to bars. I woke up at 10 p.m., and while this is prime time to get your drink on, I was instead frying up an omelette. The day before it had seemed like my body was almost fully adjusting to the schedule, but today that was definitely not the case. Right after waking up, I could tell that the accumulated sleep deprivation was becoming unmanageable. Occasionally, I caught myself staring into space for minutes at a time. Around 5 a.m. I decided to walk over to McDonalds for lunch — and some fresh air.
here aren’t enough hours in the day. With work, class and everything else we want to get accomplished, life feels like a never-ending fight against the clock...
The streets were completely empty save one drunk cowboy stumbling through the freshly-fallen snow, and I was feeling better. But after returning home, the exhaustion returned. Finally, at around 10 a.m. I gave up and took a two-hour nap. I felt much more awake and alert afterward though still too tired to really do anything. When I went to bed at 6 p.m., I was happy to be sleeping during darkness again.
Day Five — Sunday at 2 a.m. until Sunday at 10 p.m. The first almost-normal day in a while, and it was time to get back to work. Apparently Day Four’s nap helped out a lot, because when I pulled myself out of bed, I felt more refreshed than the previous days. I still had that background tiredness, but the physical exhaustion and muscle aches had disappeared. Between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. I was able to get through a fair amount of work relatively undistracted. With no friends updating Facebook and Twitter, no text messages and nobody online to talk to, I was able to concentrate and stay focused. And then here, finally, came the benefit of the long day. After finishing work, I still had 14 hours left to relax and didn’t find myself particularly tired until 7 p.m., and even then, it wasn’t bad enough that it prevented me from doing anything. Given the midweek nap’s effect, I was beginning to suspect that 19 hours awake and nine asleep per day might have worked out better. With one day left, I decided to give it a shot.
Day Six — 7 a.m. Monday until 2 a.m. Tuesday The extra hour of sleep didn’t help much, probably because I still had so much to catch up on. But I was at least waking up now on the cusp of dawn, and so it was finally a normal day as far as daylight was concerned. Returning to the normal daylight cycle marked the full six-day rotation. Thursday, Friday and Saturday had sort of melded into the same day back there, but Sunday was surely Sunday and today was definitely Monday. Though I had a day of work ahead, I’d made it through gruelling part of the six-day week. Besides still feeling generally
tired, nothing was particularly confusing or difficult any more.
Conclusion There are many downsides to the 28-hour, six-day week. You have to deal with the disconnect from the real world. But once you forget about daylight and start thinking more in terms of “hour one,” things do start to make a little more sense. There’s still the issue of your memory of the day seeming distorted, and while it’s weird to think that you had breakfast 18 hours ago when the sun was setting, it’s not a huge deal. Even if you get over the confusion, you’ll then have to find activities to fill those extra hours with. I had one or two extremely productive periods during the week, but I spent the bulk of it too tired to do much other than entertain myself and simply endure the schedule. Of course that could be overcome by a combination of motivation and opting for slightly longer nights and shorter days, if you need them. And you might not, as I did find myself adapting slightly better at the tail end of the week. The major problem is that you are alone in your new schedule. If you want to hang out with friends, you’ll find it difficult to arrange. And unless you’re setting your own work hours, it’s not going to be easy. Assuming that you have such a job, you’re a social recluse and you’re able to find a sleepto-awake ratio that works, there are some benefits. By committing to staying awake for a longer chunk of time, you can fully immerse yourself in activities for extended periods, whether work or play, and still have plenty of time left in the day when you’re done. While the 28-hour day doesn’t increase the number of hours available to you per week, it does give more of them to you at a time. If you find that you work better when you fully commit yourself to a task for long periods of time, you might find it useful. If you want to throw a full eight hours at a paper and get the whole thing over with in one sitting, you can do so and still have time left. Given the chance, I might try it again sometime with 19 and nine — but not until I sleep for a day to catch up.