I tend to trust the scientists who have compiled statistics by watching thousands of people sleep under various conditions. And they say that polyphasic sleep is a crock.
Why, then, does this polyphasic thing seem to work for some people? Let me suggest some hypotheses:
* Many people are raised on lack of sleep: Early rising for school, late nights, packed schedules. One can be sleep-deprived for so long that one really has no idea what being fully awake feels like. They say that it can take a month or more of active oversleeping to work your way out of sleep debt. (I'm not sure I have ever been truly out of sleep debt. Just because I know this stuff doesn't mean I'm always good at living by it. ;)
* Chronic sleep deprivation manifests as chronic sleepiness. If you can lie down at any hour of the day and fall asleep within a few minutes, you're sleep-deprived. But it is perhaps more psychologically satisfying to allow yourself to take those periodic naps that your sleepy self craves than to drive yourself through that sleepiness with coffee and determination. Compared to merely being sleep-deprived, being sleep-deprived polyphasically might feel really good.
* Polyphasic sleep is a ritual that requires discipline. The advantage of adopting such a ritual is that it forces you to change your life around (lose your strict 9-to-5 job, stop commuting two hours each way) and encourages you to do things you enjoy (e.g. have a social life). Dare I suggest that it is these side effects, rather than the polyphasic sleep, that make people happy? Dare I go on to suggest that it's better to adopt a different disciplined ritual -- based on, e.g., exercise, diet, or meditation -- that actually lets you get some sleep?
* It may be that a few people really do work better when they sleep polyphasically, or that a few people have associated health or social problems that tend to benefit from a polyphasic schedule. Something tells me, however, that many of these people have not really taken the scientific approach, by adopting the no-sleep-debt schedule for a few months and seeing what the difference is.
I can say, having a newborn, that polyphasic sleep in some looser form is real, necessary, and practiced in some form by both newborns and the mothers and fathers who care for them.
http://www.akbars.net/?p=31
I tend to trust the scientists who have compiled statistics by watching thousands of people sleep under various conditions. And they say that polyphasic sleep is a crock.
Why, then, does this polyphasic thing seem to work for some people? Let me suggest some hypotheses:
* Many people are raised on lack of sleep: Early rising for school, late nights, packed schedules. One can be sleep-deprived for so long that one really has no idea what being fully awake feels like. They say that it can take a month or more of active oversleeping to work your way out of sleep debt. (I'm not sure I have ever been truly out of sleep debt. Just because I know this stuff doesn't mean I'm always good at living by it. ;)
* Chronic sleep deprivation manifests as chronic sleepiness. If you can lie down at any hour of the day and fall asleep within a few minutes, you're sleep-deprived. But it is perhaps more psychologically satisfying to allow yourself to take those periodic naps that your sleepy self craves than to drive yourself through that sleepiness with coffee and determination. Compared to merely being sleep-deprived, being sleep-deprived polyphasically might feel really good.
* Polyphasic sleep is a ritual that requires discipline. The advantage of adopting such a ritual is that it forces you to change your life around (lose your strict 9-to-5 job, stop commuting two hours each way) and encourages you to do things you enjoy (e.g. have a social life). Dare I suggest that it is these side effects, rather than the polyphasic sleep, that make people happy? Dare I go on to suggest that it's better to adopt a different disciplined ritual -- based on, e.g., exercise, diet, or meditation -- that actually lets you get some sleep?
* It may be that a few people really do work better when they sleep polyphasically, or that a few people have associated health or social problems that tend to benefit from a polyphasic schedule. Something tells me, however, that many of these people have not really taken the scientific approach, by adopting the no-sleep-debt schedule for a few months and seeing what the difference is.