You may have heard of polyphasic sleep, which could also be called multi-phase sleep. The idea is to split one long block of sleep at night into several shorter ones, which can save you several hours a day. But is it that simple? How do you practice this kind of sleep correctly, and how can you find out whether it suits you?
Polyphasic sleep from early childhood
A polyphasic sleep pattern was once used by all of us. As newborns we slept up to 18 hours a day, with sleep divided into several regular intervals. Later, as infants we slept in three phases – besides the main night sleep we also napped in the morning and in the afternoon. When we started kindergarten, the morning nap disappeared, so we slept only at night and in the afternoon. Later we also stopped taking the afternoon nap, usually when we started going to school.
Scientists disagree
This is how we were forced to adapt to a societyin which sleeping about 8 hours a night is considered normal. But is it really normal and the best thing for our body and brain? Are we really using our energy and time to the full this way? After all, when it comes to eating, we keep hearing from all sides that we should split our daily intake of nutrients and energy into 5 smaller meals throughout the day – probably nobody advocates eating just one huge meal a day.
It seems that not enough scientific research has been done in this area yet, so scientists’ opinions differ: Some claim we need 7-8 hours of sleep at night, while others lean toward the benefits of polyphasic sleep. It is said to be natural for us, as we can see in the example of babies mentioned above, and thanks to it our body can regenerate more efficiently and in less time. On the other hand, it also comes with a number of disadvantages and risks, which we will discuss below.
It is not for everyone
There are several ways to practice this kind of sleep. But all of them require great discipline and regularity – the sleep stages should always be at the same time of day, otherwise your biorhythm will be thrown off and fatigue will kick in. In addition, you need to learn to fall asleep quickly and then get up at the set time.
Polyphasic sleep and its risks and benefits have not yet been sufficiently researched, so you should consider carefully whether to embark on such an experiment. There are health restrictionsunder which you should better not try polyphasic sleep. As the saying goes, it is better to prevent problems than to solve them. It certainly won’t hurt to consult your doctor, who knows your state of health. You also need to expect an acclimatization phase, since we are trying to set the body to a completely different regime than the one it has been used to. Fatigue, irritability or inability to concentrate may occur.
Biphasic sleep: in 2 stages
For a person used to classic monophasic (single-phase) sleep at night, the easiest step is to switch to biphasic, i.e. two-phase sleep. It consists of one long night sleep and one short sleep during the day. The night sleep is shortened by one sleep cycle, which lasts 1.5 hours. In practice this means that, for example, if you sleep 7.5 hours at night, you cut this time to 6 hours; if 9 hours, you reduce it to 7.5. Plan your afternoon nap to fall roughly in the middle of your day – that is, the time you are awake. It should last 20 to 30 minutes, never more, so that you don’t fall into deep sleep. This saves you an hour a day.
Perhaps you sleep biphasically yourself or know someone around you who does, you just didn’t know the term until now. It is common especially among older people, whose ability to sleep for longer periods at night is significantly reduced. That is why a shorter sleep during the day suits them.
Polyphasic sleep: 4 or 6 stages
A more demanding regime is four-phase sleep. It can have two variants: in the first, night sleep is shortened to just 3 hours and you sleep 3 x 20 minutes during the day. In the second, the longer night sleep is skipped entirely and you sleep 4 x a day for 30 minutes at 6-hour intervals. Here we can already talk about significant time savings: you sleep only 4 or 2 hours, respectively.
Similar to the second type of four-phase sleep is six-phase sleep. The only difference is the number of phases. You sleep up to 6x a day, every 4 hours for 20-30 minutes. That adds up to 2-3 hours of sleep.
Does it seem far-fetched to you or, on the contrary, like a great time saver? People who have tried polyphasic sleep themselves usually fall into two groups: either they felt extremely tired, their brain was ´´switched off´´ and they gave up after a short time, or they praised their increased energy and the time saved for other activities. Either way, sleeping in stages won’t be the right fit for all of us.
Check out our other articles from the world of mattresses and healthy sleep! 🙂