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.
A shocker for most, a study suggested that what may suit our bodies better than sleeping once a day is sleeping twice a day. Two shorter slumbers may suit our body clocks better than one long eight-hour sleep.
Our body clock naturally lends itself to the siesta because of a reduction in alertness in the early afternoon. They cited a 1990 study by psychiatrist Thomas Wehr that found "bi-phasic sleep," which is a science-y phrase for two separate four-hour blocks of sleep, is "a natural process with a biological basis."
Splitting sleep significantly enhanced afternoon picture encoding and factual knowledge under both 6.5 h and 8 h durations. Splitting sleep also significantly reduced slow-wave energy during nocturnal sleep, suggesting lower homeostatic sleep pressure during the day.
Most adults need 7 or more hours of good-quality sleep on a regular schedule each night. Getting enough sleep isn't only about total hours of sleep. It's also important to get good-quality sleep on a regular schedule so you feel rested when you wake up.
A Regular 8 Hours
Fu's research lab found that people who averaged 4 hours of sleep were 4 times more likely to catch colds. "Sleep is very important," Fu explains. "You need a minimum of 7 hours, and likely you need more. Some people may need up to 12 hours."
There are mixed views on whether segmented sleeping is safe. Since there hasn't been much research on the effect sleeping in shifts can have on your health, it's best to avoid it unless there's a reason you need to sleep that way, says Clete Kushida, MD, PhD, the medical director of the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center.
Does Sleeping Late Matter if You Get 8 Hours? This all depends upon how late, and how regular, a person's sleep patterns are. For example, falling to sleep at 4 am and waking at 12 pm will cause a person to miss out on a large amount of daylight, especially in winter.
In fact, a night of interrupted sleep is much worse for your mood than a shorter night's sleep. Those who go to bed on time, but wake up throughout the night, are more likely to be grumpy the following day than those who simply stay up past their bedtime.
Most of us agree that a monophasic sleep pattern – rising in the morning and sleeping at night – is best.
Stick to a sleep schedule
Set aside no more than eight hours for sleep. The recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult is at least seven hours. Most people don't need more than eight hours in bed to be well rested. Go to bed and get up at the same time every day, including weekends.
What these scientists found was that despite their geographic and cultural differences, there was a pattern among all three groups: They were relatively healthy and they got only 6.4 hours of sleep on average a day (ranging from 5.7 to 7.1 hours per night), sleeping another hour more in the winter.
“For most of the population, five hours of sleep isn't enough. Most people need around eight hours. If you're only getting five hours right now, try going to bed 15 minutes to 30 minutes earlier tonight and getting more sleep over the course of a couple of weeks. You might be surprised at how good you feel!”
And while the occasional long sleep is generally nothing to worry about, oversleeping several days a week could be a sign that something more serious is going on.
Quality sleep is continuous. Sleeping straight through the night with minimal disruption is more restorative than having your night's sleep interrupted frequently or for long periods of time.
Try to sleep for 90 minutes, opt for one full cycle to try and get through the day. If this is not possible, try to take a 20–30-minute power nap, so that you do not fall into that deep sleep cycle. Remember, any sleep is better than none, however, different amounts of sleep may make you feel groggier than others.
Biphasic sleep is a sleep pattern in which a person splits their sleep into two main segments per day. They may sleep longer at night, and then take a nap during the day. Or, they may split their nighttime sleep up into two segments. Biphasic sleep is also referred to as segmented or bimodal sleep.
don't settle for rest if you can't settle down
Get up and go to another room, do something relaxing and only go back to bed when you feel sleepy again. Lying in the dark with your eyes closed, however calm and comfortable you may be, provides none of the benefits of actual sleep.
If your school or work schedule requires you to be up between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m., these are the suggested bedtimes: School-age children should go to bed between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. Teens should try to go to bed between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. Adults should try to go to sleep between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m.
Everyman sleep schedule (4 hours of sleep)
For this option, you sleep for three hours during the night and take three 20-minute naps throughout the day. Ideally, this should get you to about four hours of sleep per day.
Extraordinary minds such as Leonardo's tend to have a quirky lifestyle choices behind them — and Da Vinci's bizarre lifestyle choice was how he slept. Da Vinci slept for a total of two hours per day, in which he took 20 minute naps roughly every 4 hours, known as the Uberman cycle.