Polyphasic Sleep

Our daily sleeping schedule is usually an 8-9 hours of nighttime sleep. However, there are people who take multiple naps, instead of sleeping for long hours. This irregular or abnormal sleeping pattern is commonly described as polyphasic sleep. Here 'poly' means many and the term 'phasic' is related to phase. Thus, people diagnosed with this abnormal sleeping cycle are said to complete their sleep in multiple phases. This unusual sleeping pattern prevents a person from getting long hours of uninterrupted sleep.

What is Polyphasic Sleep

Honestly speaking, a large population of United States are unaware of this type of sleeping pattern (polyphasic sleep). Even terms like biphasic sleep may sound unfamiliar. This is because, most of us follow a biphasic or monophasic sleep pattern, which involves sleeping just once, usually at nighttime. As aforementioned, a person showing polyphasic sleep pattern has the habit of taking short naps throughout the day. In other words, frequent alternating periods of sleep and wakefulness are commonly associated with polyphasic sleep. The duration of each nap may vary from 20 minutes to about half an hour. Sometimes the nap duration can be as small as 10 minutes.

Causes
This irregular sleep-wake pattern is usually not diagnosed in healthy individuals. So who are most vulnerable to this unusual sleep-awake syndrome. A trauma such as violent blow to the head during an accident may disturb normal sleeping patterns. A brain injury too, can produce the same result. Polyphasic sleep is also found in babies, which is quite natural.

Polyphasic Sleep Schedule

There are people who intentionally change their normal sleeping mechanism and opt for polyphasic sleep cycle in order to increase their waking time. This kind of experimentation can negatively affect health in the long run. Although, research is yet to reveal long-term effects of polyphasic sleep, short-term effects have been well documented. Studies show that performance at office work is likely to diminish as the body is deprived of uninterrupted sleep. Decreased alertness at office or home can also occur as a consequence of polyphasic sleep. To be more specific, intellectual performance and creative output takes a dip, in people following a polyphasic sleep pattern. Lack of sleep continuity can lead to decrease in mental capacity. Thus reduced ability to think have been linked in followers of polyphasic sleep.

Normal sleeping mechanism goes haywire, if polyphasic sleep schedule is incorporated in the daily routine. It means staying away from over sleep. Polyphasic sleep mainly comprises short naps taken at regular intervals of time. There are different variations of polyphasic sleep schedule and each one demands strict mental discipline to make it a habit. It is discussed below:

Everyman
In this sleep schedule, one can take uninterrupted sleep whose duration varies anywhere between 1.5 and 4.5 hours. In addition to this continuous sleep, one can take short naps (around 2-5 in numbers) at regular intervals. This sleeping pattern is considered to be a less severe form of polyphasic sleep schedule.

Uberman
This type of sleeping schedule involves taking 6 naps in a 24 hour period. Each nap comprises 20 minutes sleeping and separated by 4 hours duration. Thus a person opting for Uberman's sleep schedule takes a 20 minute nap every 4 hours.

Dymaxion
Followers of this sleeping schedule are supposed to take 4 naps, each having a duration of 30 minutes. Also, a time gap of 6 hours has to be maintained before taking the next nap.

Long Term Effects

Many consider sleeping polyphasically as an unhealthy habit. The fact that it deprives you of much-needed sleep as well as may put you at the risk of sleep disorders such as delayed sleep phase syndrome, is unacceptable. Yes, there are exceptions who claim to have no problem by following 'Uberman' schedule. But, these are just handful of them and studies reveal a large population have had trouble following polyphasic sleep schedule. Most of them complained about fatigue, inability to stay focused and irritability. Mental health issues like depression are also likely to erupt.

Also, adjusting to polyphasic sleep cycle is no easy, rather quite difficult. The body will take some time to adapt to this new sleep cycle. A point to note that practical implementation of sleeping polphasically, in today's hectic lifestyle, has its own drawbacks. For instance, taking naps during office works is not feasible, unless you are self-employed or your boss allows you to work at your own pace.

To survive in today's cut throat competition, one has to learn new skills and maximize mental capacity, which is not possible with polyphasic sleep. We all know about importance of sleep. A good night's sleep has plenty of benefits such as improved memory, more alertness and reduces stress that can go a long way in optimizing our overall health. So, it is recommended to enjoy all the stages of sleep by sticking to monophasic sleeping pattern as it does not disturb the human biological clock, thus keeping us energetic and active throughout the day.