Polyphasic Sleep

Today I'm going to educate you. "What are we going to inform us about O knowledgeable little person?" Polyphasic sleep yaaaaay! Oh what? You think it's a boring topic because you've gone over the stages of sleep in psychology a million times and don't want to hear about them again? Well don't worry. This will be just as exciting as an episode of Mythbusters.

Ok I lied...but it's still really interesting. And speaking of Mythbusters...they should totally test this. It sounds like a Tory, Grant and Kari myth to me.

So basically, the idea of polyphasic sleep is training yourself to sleep 20-30 minutes every 6 hours in order to gain more awake time yet feel as though you've had plenty of rest. This happens because once you have succeeded in training yourself to sleep in this manner, your body enters REM each nap you take...so you actually get more REM sleep in the 20-30 segments than if you slept in one segment in the night. Plus hooray you're awake for about 21 hours! Party. Or so the theory goes.

Alright let's back up a little bit. Most human beings sleep in a monophasic manner. That is, they sleep in one long block at a time. Some people sleep in a biphasic manner, with the main sleep block at night and a "siesta" in the afternoon. There are humans who naturally sleep in a polyphasic manner. Say what? Actually, we've all done it. Say what again!? Babies. Babies sleep in segments throughout the day.

The argument goes that parents condition babies to sleep in a monophasic manner...and that's why we sleep that way. Otherwise we would probably continue sleeping like babies do....in a polyphasic manner.

The other side of the argument claims that the brain can't possibly adapt to the multiple nap system. This is because they believe that the best rest is done when you are naturally wakened. It's like...saving data in the night. Your brain processes data in your sleep and if it's interrupted by something say, an alarm clock, you could risk losing that data. What do you need to achieve polyphasic sleeping? An alarm clock. Bye bye data. Critics also argue that, in the long run, there could be problems similar to those that people with sleep deprivation suffer such as decreased mental and physical ability, increased stress and anxiety, and a weakened immune system. Oh noes!

There are 3 different styles of polyphasic sleeping: Everyman, Uberman and Dymaxion.

Everyman is where you sleep a block of 3-4 hours in the night and then take 3 20-30 minute naps during the day.

Uberman involves taking 20 minute naps 6 times a day.

Dymaxion is taking 30 minute naps 4 times a day. It's not clear whether anyone has actually achieved this style of sleeping.

All of these sleeping patterns are very very strict. The first week = absolute HELL apparently too. I can only imagine. Since you haven't trained yourself to get REM sleep during your little naps...you will be pretty sleep deprived until that happens. So...good luck making it through that first week without messing it all up. But what have us insomniacs got to lose? more sleep? hahaaaa.

Actually I'm doing better on the whole insomnia thing.

That's all I'll write about polyphasic sleeping. If you want to hear more, tell me and I'll summarize more stuff on it or you can just google it or something.

~AM