OAR NORTHWEST: EDUCATION
Africa to the Americas Expedition 2013
Daily Update 4.7
Week 8: Module 4: Date 3/21/13
Now that we have learned a bit about sleep let’s look at how the crew is dividing their time. The
following excerpt is from Adam. In it he is describing the sleep schedule used on the training
row around Vancouver Island:
The sleep protocol we used was modeled after the highly successful 'everyman' polyphasic sleeping
schedule which was developed through empirical means from online forums. One larger 4-hour sleep
period is mandated every 24 hours with 3 evenly space 1-hour mandatory sleep segments throughout the
day. Slide 46 (attached) gives a good visual. 'Rest' is optional sleep. ‘Sleep’ is mandatory sleep. 'Row' is
obviously when we were on deck & rowing.
As mentioned earlier this schedule is from the training row around Vancouver Island but is
similar to the one that they are using now. Polyphasic sleep is a schedule where you sleep for a
short time during the night and take a number of naps during the day. This schedule has a
number of different iterations consisting of a varying number of naps and different lengths of
sleep at night.
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OAR NORTHWEST: EDUCATION
Africa to the Americas Expedition 2013
These schedules are intended to have less total time sleeping with more of your time sleeping in
the REM stage. The theory behind this is that during REM sleep your body gets the most rest so if
you can spend more of your sleeping time in REM then you can sleep for less time during a 24
hour period. Most of the information on polyphasic sleep is anecdotal with little empirical
research devoted to it.
This schedule works really well for the crew due to the fact that they are rowing non-stop and
they have an altered sleep schedule. The impact of this sleep schedule on their physical output is
not yet understood. This is why they are participating in research on sleep and fatigue designed
by the Center for Sleep and Human Performance in Calgary, AB. This study will investigate the
sleep and recovery impact of the sustained high-volume physical output needed to accomplish
the demands of the CWF Africa to Americas expedition.
This research will be breaking a bit of new ground. While there have been studies on sleep
deprivation and altered sleep schedules and on the effects of physical activity on sleep, there has
been very little on the combination of these effects.
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OAR NORTHWEST: EDUCATION
Africa to the Americas Expedition 2013
The crew will be wearing Fatigue Science wristwatch-style ReadiBand™ physiological activity
sensors throughout the expedition to track sleep quality, quantity, and cognitive ability in
relation to daily sleep patterns.
The rowers will be asked to complete three specific web-based questionnaires – Athlete Sleep
Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ), Hooper McKinnon Questionnaire, Karolinska Sleepiness Scale –
at key times during the day.
With this information the study will track individual cumulative wakefulness, total sleep time,
and cognitive effectiveness scores, in addition to collecting subjective individual physical and
cognitive performance metrics. By objectively and subjectively measuring the rowers’ sleepwake patterns before, during, and after the expedition, this research will provide new
understanding of the links between sleep restriction and fatigue on cognitive and physical
performance in endurance-rowing athletes. This seems like a very select group of people, but
as with many scientific experiments the data collected may contribute to many other studies and
add to the general understanding of sleep and how it affects us.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Everyman%20Sleep%20Schedule
http://dustincurtis.com/sleep.html
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