Inventor Nikola Tesla never slept for more than two hours a day. Tesla got more out of the day with his limited sleep schedule. Like Da Vinci, Telsa also followed the Uberman sleep cycle and claimed to never sleep for more than two hours a day and reportedly once worked for 84 hours in a lab without any rest or sleep.
One of the most famous inventors on our planet, Nikola Tesla, was quite the opposite of Einstein. He slept only a couple of hours a night and compensated for his lack of sleep with power naps throughout the day.
It's common knowledge that sleep is good for your brain – and Einstein took this advice more seriously than most. He reportedly slept for at least 10 hours per day – nearly one and a half times as much as the average American today (6.8 hours).
Other great achievers, inventors, and thinkers – such as Nikola Tesla, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill, Leonardo da Vinci, and Sir Isaac Newton – are said to have slept between two and four hours per day.
Although the Uberman sleep cycle is technically a type of sleep schedule, it may not be the best one for regulating your natural circadian rhythm. That's because it's based on random periods of sleep, requiring you to sleep during the day and be awake and active at night.
Modern research suggests that sleeping twice in a 24-hour period (a sleep pattern that is alternately referred to as biphasic sleep, segmented sleep, or siesta sleep) may facilitate greater energy levels, alertness, cognitive function, and productivity.
Leonardo da Vinci's sleep schedule included 20-minute naps every four hours. Da Vinci followed an extreme form of a polyphasic sleep schedule called the Uberman sleep cycle, which consists of 20-minute naps every four hours.
Musk wakes up each morning at around 7 am. He says he likes getting around six to six-and-a-half hours of sleep per night.
Elon Musk says he's upped his sleep to 6 hours per night—and that his old routine hurt his brain. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, speaks with CNBC on May 16th, 2023.
Psychology Today reported that intelligent people are likely to be nocturnal beings, with those with a higher IQ going bed later on both weeknights and weekends.
The late Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, good friends, were both proud functioning insomniacs, getting by on four hours of sleep. Barack Obama, the US president who famously asked Modi why he didn't sleep for longer, slept for five hours a day, reading briefs and working till late in the night.
Most Geniuses Perfected the Power Nap
Hence, they'd reduce the time they rest at night in order to have more functional, waking hours. Instead, they'd take advantage of the so-called “power nap”. Both Nicola Tesla and Thomas Edison were famous advocates of this principle.
His performance beats those of physicists Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein, who were both estimated to have IQs around 160.
Similarly to Margaret Thatcher and especially during the war years, Winston Churchill would only sleep for four to five hours a night. However, in contrast to Thatcher, he would catch up on sleep in the afternoons with a 90 minute nap.
Nikola Tesla: IQ 160–310
Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American inventor—and arch-rival of Thomas Edison—reportedly had an estimated IQ falling somewhere between 160 and 310, depending on the measure.
The thing the job is not known for, however, is a good night's sleep. With various board meetings and no shortage of pressure, rest can be hard to find. CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk get under six hours of sleep each night.
On average, he gets between four and five hours of sleep per night. Want to know how he manages? Keep reading to find out more about Donald Trump's sleep schedule.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) When did Elon Musk take an IQ test? The Tesla CEO is estimated to have an IQ score of around 155.
In response to a question about whether Tesla and SpaceX employees need to come into the office every day, Musk said he works "seven days a week," but that he's "not expecting others to do that." Musk also said that he thinks working remotely is "morally wrong."
He Doesn't Sleep
Elon Musk is tired. He has long waded deeply into the weeds of his companies. In 2018, he admitted his 120-hour work weeks often drove him to sleep on the Tesla factory floor. Musk revealed his schedule left him exhausted (shocking), “nutty”, and like he'd “burnt out a bunch of neurons”.
Einstein Slept Only 3 Hours a Year.
Leonardo da Vinci, who functioned on two hours of sleep a day while painting the Mona Lisa, followed a form of polyphasic sleep schedule called the Uberman sleep cycle, which involves 20-minute naps every four hours.