Polyphasic sleep refers to the practice of sleeping multiple times in a 24-hour period—usually
more than two, in contrast to biphasic sleep or monophasic sleep.
The term was probably first used in the early 20th-century by psychologist J.S.
Szymanski who observed daily fluctuations in activity patterns.
It does not imply any particular sleep schedule.
The circadian rhythm disorder known as irregular sleep-wake syndrome is an example of polyphasic
sleep in humans.
Polyphasic sleep is common in many animals, and is believed to be the ancestral sleep
state for mammals, although simians are monophasic.
The term polyphasic sleep is also used by an online community that experiments with
alternative sleeping schedules to achieve more time awake each day.
Multiphasic sleep of normal total duration An example of polyphasic sleep is found in
patients with irregular sleep-wake syndrome, a circadian rhythm sleep disorder which usually
is caused by head injury or dementia.
Much more common examples are the sleep of human infants and of many animals.
Elderly humans often have disturbed sleep, including polyphasic sleep.
In their 2006 paper "The Nature of Spontaneous Sleep Across Adulthood," Campbell and Murphy
studied sleep timing and quality in young, middle-aged and older adults.
They found that, in freerunning conditions, the average duration of major nighttime sleep
was significantly longer in young adults than in the other groups.
The paper states further:
Whether such patterns are simply a response to the relatively static experimental conditions,
or whether they more accurately reflect the natural organization of the human sleep/wake
system, compared with that which is exhibited in daily life, is open to debate.
However, the comparative literature strongly suggests that shorter, polyphasically-placed
sleep is the rule, rather than the exception, across the entire animal kingdom.
There is little reason to believe that the human sleep/wake system would evolve in a
fundamentally different manner.
That people often do not exhibit such sleep organization in daily life merely suggests
that humans have the capacity to overcome the propensity for sleep when it is desirable,
or is required, to do so.
Napping in extreme situations In crises and other extreme conditions, people
may not be able to achieve the recommended eight hours of sleep per day.
Systematic napping may be considered necessary in such situations.
Dr. Claudio Stampi, as a result of his interest in long-distance solo boat racing, has studied
the systematic timing of short naps as a means of ensuring optimal performance in situations
where extreme sleep deprivation is inevitable, but he does not advocate ultrashort napping
as a lifestyle.
Scientific American Frontiers has reported on Stampi's 49-day experiment where a young
man napped for a total of three hours per day.
It purportedly shows that all stages of sleep were included.
Stampi has written about his research in his book Why We Nap: Evolution, Chronobiology,
and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep.
In 1989 he published results of a field study in the journal Work & Stress, concluding that
"polyphasic sleep strategies improve prolonged sustained performance" under continuous work
situations.
U.S. military The U.S. military has studied fatigue countermeasures.
An Air Force report states:
Each individual nap should be long enough to provide at least 45 continuous minutes
of sleep, although longer naps are better.
In general, the shorter each individual nap is, the more frequent the naps should be.
Canadian Marine Pilots Similarly, the Canadian Marine Pilots in their
trainer's handbook report that:
Under extreme circumstances where sleep cannot be achieved continuously, research on napping
shows that 10- to 20-minute naps at regular intervals during the day can help relieve
some of the sleep deprivation and thus maintain ... performance for several days.
However, researchers caution that levels of performance achieved using ultrashort sleep
to temporarily replace normal sleep are always well below that achieved when fully rested.
NASA NASA, in cooperation with the National Space
Biomedical Research Institute, has funded research on napping.
Despite NASA recommendations that astronauts sleep 8 hours a day when in space, they usually
have trouble sleeping 8 hours at a stretch, so the agency needs to know about the optimal
length, timing and effect of naps.
Professor David Dinges of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine led research
in a laboratory setting on sleep schedules which combined various amounts of "anchor
sleep," ranging from about 4 to 8 hours in length, with no nap or daily naps of up to
2.5 hours.
Longer naps were found to be better, with some cognitive functions benefiting more from
napping than others.
Vigilance and basic alertness benefited the least while working memory benefited greatly.
Naps in the individual subjects' biological daytime worked well, but naps in their nighttime
were followed by much greater sleep inertia lasting up to an hour.
Italian Air Force The Italian Air Force also conducted experiments
for their pilots.
In schedules involving night shifts and fragmentation of duty periods through the entire day, a
sort of polyphasic sleeping schedule was studied.
Subjects were to perform four hours of activity followed by two hours of rest, this was repeated
four times throughout the 24-hour day.
Although sleep was allowed, subjects adopted a schedule of not sleeping at all during the
first rest period of the day.
The AMI published findings that "total sleep time was substantially reduced as compared
to the usual 7–8 hour monophasic nocturnal sleep" while "maintaining good levels of vigilance
as shown by the virtual absence of EEG microsleeps."
EEG microsleeps are measurable and usually unnoticeable bursts of sleep in the brain
while a subject appears to be awake.
Nocturnal sleepers who sleep poorly may be heavily bombarded with microsleeps during
waking hours, limiting focus and attention.
Biphasic sleep
Historically It has recently been theorised that, before
the advent of electric lighting in Europe, sleepers awoke from their "first" sleep for
an hour or more during the night, before returning to their "second" sleep.
Studies One study suggests that during periods of
short daylight, humans will adopt a biphasic sleep pattern.
Another study indicates that this will happen whenever humans are removed from artificial
light.
Claimed sleep patterns
Scheduled napping to achieve more time awake In order to gain more time awake in the day,
Buckminster Fuller reportedly advocated a regimen consisting of 30-minute naps every
six hours.
The short article about Fuller's nap schedule in Time in 1943, which also refers to such
a schedule as "intermittent sleeping," says that he maintained it for two years, and further
notes "he had to quit because his schedule conflicted with that of his business associates,
who insisted on sleeping like other men."
However, it is not clear when Fuller practiced any such sleep pattern, and whether it was
really as strictly periodic as claimed in that article; it has also been said that he
ended this experiment because of his wife's objections.
Critics such as Piotr Woźniak consider the theory behind severe reduction of total sleep
time by way of short naps unsound, claiming that there is no brain control mechanism that
would make it possible to adapt to the "multiple naps" system.
They say that the body will always tend to consolidate sleep into at least one solid
block, and they express concern that the ways in which the ultrashort nappers attempt to
limit total sleep time, restrict time spent in the various stages of the sleep cycle,
and disrupt their circadian rhythms, will eventually cause them to suffer the same negative
effects as those with other forms of sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm sleep disorders,
such as decreased mental and physical ability, increased stress and anxiety, and a weakened
immune system.
Woźniak further claims to have scanned the blogs of polyphasic sleepers and found that
they have to choose an "engaging activity" again and again just to stay awake and that
polyphasic sleep does not improve one's learning ability or creativity.
In popular culture In "The Friar's Club", an episode of Seinfeld,
Kramer attempts to use this form of sleep, with unintended consequences.
The episode "Qasim" of the web series High Maintenance chronicles the daily practice
of a proponent of polyphasic sleep.
In Ursula K. Le Guin's science fiction novel The Word for World is Forest, the indigenous
race practices polyphasic sleep universally and successfully.
They are understood to be the result of genetic modification of humans in a bygone interstellar
empire.
See also REM rebound
References
External links Polyphasic Sleep: Facts and Myths – Dr.
Piotr Wozniak – January 2005 – This article compares polyphasic sleep to regular monophasic
sleep, biphasic sleep, as well as to the concept of free-running sleep.
Miles to Go Before I Sleep at Outside.com, April 2005.
Polyphasic-sleep - blog entries by Steve Pavlina detailing his experiment with the Uberman
method for 5 1/2 months.
Polyphasic-sleep One Year Later - blog entries by Steve Pavlina detailing his conclusions
to an experiment with the Uberman method.
SmartSleep – First mobile application for polyphasic sleepers
Polyphasic Sleep Schedule - Benefits, Adapting, and Overcoming Obstacles of Polyphasic Sleep