Polyphasic sleep refers to a practice of getting sleep needs met through multiple (often very short) sleep sessions instead of the usual single night-time sleep session.
As has happened in other realms, the Internet allowed the relatively few individuals interested in such ideas to publicly share information and experiences, which exposed many others to these ideas. I stumbled across Steve Pavlina’s blog account of his 5 months of a polyphasic schedule sleeping 20 minutes every 4 hours, was fascinated and curious, and decided to try a modified version that fit my life.
I currently sleep 4 to 4.5 hours at night, and take 20 minute naps around 7am, 11am, 3pm, and 7pm. It has been *wonderful*, giving me 2 to 3 hours a day of personal-creative time I just did not have before.
For easy reference, below are links to my polyphasic sleep category posts:
- day 1
- day 2
- day 3
- day 4
- day 5
- day 6
- day 7
- day 8
- day 9
- day 10
- day 11
- day 12
- day 13
- day 14
- 2-week reflection
- day 15
- day 16
- day 17
- day 18
- day 19
- day 20
- day 21
- day 22
- day 23
- day 24
- day 25
- day 26
- day 27
- day 28
- day 29
- day 30
- a partner’s perspective
- one-month reflection
- two-month reflection
- eight-month reflection
Other useful references:
- Wikipedia polyphasic sleep entry.
- Steve Pavlina’s polyphasic sleep blog.
- “Why We Nap, Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep“, by Claudio Stampi (Expensive! Support your local library!)
