By Jamie Ducharme | TIME
About a third of Americans don’t get enough sleep. But there’s a small group of people actively trying to spend less time in bed, not more: polyphasic sleepers. Part productivity hack, part science experiment, polyphasic sleep is rumored to have fueled great minds, including those of Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla. The odd sleeping habit has now caught on among Silicon Valley types eager to milk as many productive hours from the day as possible, and has spurred books, an active Reddit community and even a Polyphasic Sleep Society.
Here’s what to know about the unorthodox sleep practice.
What is polyphasic sleep?
Most people are monophasic sleepers, meaning they get all of their rest in one long chunk, typically at night. Polyphasic sleepers, meanwhile, snooze in short bursts throughout the day instead of sleeping all night. There are many different polyphasic sleep schedules, according to the Polyphasic Society, but one of the most popular involves a longer “core” sleep anywhere from 90 minutes to six hours, supplemented by 20-minute naps. The length of the core sleep and the number of naps varies, but people on this schedule spend a total of three to seven hours asleep. Another schedule consists only of 20-minute naps spaced throughout the day, totaling two to three hours of shut-eye per day.
Should I try polyphasic sleep?
Proponents say that spacing out slumber can maximize the amount of time you spend in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and slow wave sleep, since the body defaults to these stages when it’s tired. Dreaming, memory storage and mood regulation happen during REM sleep, while slow wave is the deepest, most restorative stage of sleep. Many polyphasic sleepers believe the other phases of the sleep cycle are unnecessary, and that by eliminating them, they can spend more productive hours awake.
