4 ms·
The article makes for an interesting read, however, I am not entirely convinced that "polyphasic sleep" is necessarily effective or healthy. The article state
by rileyjm 15y ago
The article makes for an interesting read, however, I am not entirely convinced that "polyphasic sleep" is necessarily effective or healthy. The article states that, "There’s no clearly defined biological reason for it, and it is intuitively an evolutionary disadvantage." This type of reasoning makes me believe that longer sleep periods are healthy and required, otherwise we would have evolved beyond that disadvantage. Dolphins have somewhat evolved beyond the "disadvantage" of sleep by remaining conscious in one half of their brain while they sleep. Granted... that is due to having to surface to breath, which is a circumstance humans do not have to cope with. Another point I noticed regarding this article that seemed a bit strange, is that the more "standard/normal" sleep cycles require only four REM cycles, while the "everyman-4 nap" or "uberman" require five and six REM cycles. If REM is the only relevant sleep cycle, shouldn't only four cycles be necessary across all sleep patterns?