I think there's two major things you can do to help. Try to reduce that 2 hour long morning constitutional to like 5 or 10 minutes with extra fiber in your diet. Get that morning routine down and sleep longer.
Don't nap. It's a trap and you're probably get little to no REM cycles with two 3-4 hour rest periods. Even a six hour sleep would improve your life dramatically. Obviously 7+ would be ideal. Two shitty naps will never replace a continuous rest.
That 2 hours is me using the bathroom, making my lunch, packing it, eating breakfast, cleaning up after myself, taking a shower, and then getting ready for work.
It still feels like a lot of time for all that, but the core of my advice is still the same. You need REM or you'll be a zombie. Figured that one out the hard way with a similar schedule to yours.
I do realize you weren't asking for help or anything but I just wanted to share in the off chance it might help you.
No problem.
He is definitely entering REM sleep in that amount of time, even more so because it's routine. Your body can enter rem almost instantly when adapted to polyphasic sleep schedules for instance.
We enter rem sleep multiple times in a nights sleep, it's a cycle and it can kind of be messed with.
Benefits of napping but mostly only if it's long enough to enter rem. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsr.14177
Extreme polyphasic sleep and how rem isn't reduced significantly. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.20.542775v1.full
Polyphasic sleep to that level (3 hours of sleep a day through 20 minute naps) is a bit extreme and has other complications. Splitting your sleep schedule in two seems fine, although I don't know of any long term studies.
I am looking for mods!
1. The "good" part of our community means we are pro-empathy and anti-harassment. However, we don't intend to make this a "safe space" where everyone has to be a saint. Sh*t happens, and life is messy. That's why we get things off our chests.
2. Bigotry is not allowed. That includes racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and religiophobia. (If you want to vent about religion, that's fine; but religion is not inherently evil.)
3. Frustrated, venting, or angry posts are still welcome.
4. Posts and comments that bait, threaten, or incite harassment are not allowed.
5. If anyone offers mental, medical, or professional advice here, please remember to take it with a grain of salt. Seek out real professionals if needed.
6. Please put NSFW behind NSFW tags.