[UK-CONTEST] Sleep Deprivation Methods etc

[Clive Whelan]

Hi all

Perhaps my two penn'orth might marginally be of interest, as to some extent
it contradicts other advice I have seen here and elsewhere. Please
understand that  in no way no I doubt what has been said as generally
sensible advice for most, simply that it doesn't seem to apply to me, and
the old "horses for courses" adage might be relevant. Of course I could be
in "denial", that must remain an imponderable.

One thing to which I can subscribe , is that the natural sleep cycle is
about 90 minutes, since as a light sleeper, I will often wake after this
time on a normal night. Then at the end of the night, I might doze off at
about 06:00 having previously woken, but will be wide awake by 07:30 ( no
alarm clocks in this house these days!).

I simply cannot sleep on demand, I suspect because I have a high metabolic
rate, and am probably a class A psychological profile type( restless,
workaholic etc, and yes competitive too!). Btw this makes you much more
susceptible to heart attacks, so don't go there!-probably you have no choice
however.

As regards caffeine. Well I simply couldn't exist without regular doses of
black coffee from the off, which is in any event, my usual beverage. Whether
it is the caffeine that helps, or just the comfort factor of quaffing my
usual beverage, remains in some doubt. What I can say however, is that this
in no way detracts from my concentration-however good or bad that might be.
Certainly it has no effect at all on my ability to copy CW ( I can't copy
SSB at any time!), and the only thing which affects my ability to key or
keyboard is just tiredness. I suspect that I may marginally be able to copy
CW when I am asleep!; what does this mean? Simply that I quite often am
jolted into the fully awake state, with somebody calling me, and can
invariably copy the call. The state of sleep was probably only milliseconds;
quite impossible to tell really.

Hallucinations: Nope don't have those, and if I did, think I'd give up for
good. Well, I have to admit that on Sunday afternoon, I did think that that
YV5B was calling me, but that was because I was operating too close to the
beacon frequency of 14.100, and classifies as terminal stupidity rather than
hallucination ( see you're not the only one Ian, must be a GW thing!).

When I examine my "crash" at 01:30 on Sunday( and my subsequent oversleep) I
find that I had been awake for 42 hours at that point, walked the dogs,
worked on the antenna ( yeah I know!) so perhaps I shouldn't be too
surprised. Contrary to the view of John/K4BAI- who is a contemporary of mine
agewise- I definitely feel that Anno Domini is a factor, and doubt if the
above would have happened if I had not already passed the three score
milestone.

Diet?: well the only deviation from my normal diet ( breakfast and single
main meal) is that the stuff must be quick and easy to prepare, and is
generally a "microwaveable" ready-meal; not healthy but necessary. Of course
I definitely don't want anything too heavy, and alcohol is a definite no-no,
to which everyone subscribes.


I suppose in summary, what is best for me, is to change minimally from my
normal routine. Whether this is a physical or psychological thing is
unclear, but it works for me; well sometimes!


What makes it that much harder for me is that I hate contesting (
shock-horror- Ed). What do I mean? Well I often see comments to the effect
"conditions awful-QRM horrendous, but good fun as usual". Well not for me,
it ain't. I find it difficult to find parallels, but does e.g. a Marathon
runner actually enjoy the event or just the challenge and the competition?
The latter is certainly what it's all about for me, or to paraphrase, it's
the wining that's important, not the taking part! Well no not quite, but I
guess you get the idea?


73



Clive
GW3NJW