Polyphasic sleep

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Polyphasic sleep is the pattern of sleeping. People in this pattern, sleep in multiple smaller phases rather than sleeping in single, longer, night phase of sleeping. Polyphasic sleep is the bucket term given to a few different sleeping patterns which tend to reduce the sleeping time requirement to just 2-5 hours every day. The sleeping time is broken into multiple smaller parts throughout the day which makes people feel alert although they sleep less. If you need extra time from your 24 hours day, this is the best way to go without feeling sleep deprived or tired. You just need to adopt to a Polyphasic sleep schedule.

The fundamental behind this approach is the presence of light sleep which accounts for 65% of sleeping time. This light phase off sleep is intermediate non-recovering sleep stage and if we minimize this phase of sleep, we can save substantial time. If a person is sleeping in a single 8 hour phase, adopting this Polyphasic sleep can help reduce the sleeping requirements by 5 hours. The aim is to keep the REM phase and Slow Wave sleep normal.

Benefits of Selecting Polyphasic Sleep

Why we should be bothering about saving on the sleep time? This is simple mathematics. If we sleep 9 hours a day, we end up awake for only 227.5 days out of 365 days. If we can somehow reduce that by controlling the sleep without impacting the normalcy and functioning of body and brain, it is like leading extra months or days every year in your younger body.

So sleeping 3 hours a day gives you extra 91 days in a year when you are awake and hence enjoy life or do things which you were not doing due to lack of time.
Although this procedure is considered not un-healthy, this research is done only for 6 months period. If the test is ran more than 6 months, there is risk of unknown happening there. So this is the word of caution one should consider, before trying this.

Some tips for Polyphasic Sleep

• No Caffeine and no stimulants
• DO NOT OVERSLEEP, as it will fatigue you for at least the duration of 2 naps.
• Do not try this if you have epileptic disorder or history of epilepsy
• Do not skip naps
• Polyphasic sleep can have food sensitivity, so see what you should eat and what not.
• This is not for children or adolescents to try. They need Single phase sleep for proper growth and development.