There is an increasing amouth of pressure on our waking hours. Tv, internet, work, family and friends are just some of the things taking more and more time. We want more waking hours, so we sleep less. This is not good. Sleep is vital, but still many of us are sleep deprived. Some effects of sleep deprivation can be:

- Sickness
- Obesity
- Depression
- Growth reduction
- Type 2 diabetes (!)
More @ wikipedia

Enter biphasic sleep. As the name suggests, it’s simply splitting your sleep into two phases instead of the traditional monophasic sleep most of us use. Usually a biphasic sleeper will have some core sleep at night, 3 or 4.5 hours, and then a 1.5 hour nap after the usual working hours. Notice how my examples use 1.5 as a multiplier? It’s because that is the length of a sleep cycle. A sleep cycle consists of light then REM then heavy sleep. Short version: We want to wake up during the light sleep. We dream during REM.

My biphasic sleep begain by accident. Summer break had me working early every morning and staying up late every night, so I developed the habit of napping when I got home from work. What surprised me was how awake and clear I felt after realatively little sleep. I was aware of the potential benefits of biphasic sleep from my own (failed) polyphasic sleep experiment in january, but somehow the idea of going biphasic escaped me.

The schedule differs from person to person. The most common is a 4.5/1.5h split, and this is what I’m doing. I tried 3/1.5h, but found myself sleepy during certain periods of the day. Now I usually stay up until 01:30 and get up at 6, feeling fresh and clear. I’ve been doing this for about 2 months now, and my experiences are mainly positive. An added bonus for me is my new eating habit. When I get home I eat something light, usually some fruit, because I’m going to bed soon. When I wake up I’m moderately hungry and eat something light again, completely eliminating the heavier food commonly served for dinner.

I see a few practical negatives. If you have a family you will be sleeping for a part of your children’s awake time, something you might value more than the extra waking hours. However if you are comfortable with the children looking after themselves for an hour and a half you and your partner can nap at the same time, squeezing in not only a few extra hours to spend with each other later but also a cozy nap snuggled up together. Any parent can tell you this is very valuable time. By sleeping around 5-6 o’clock you will also miss some of the daylight we all like, especially during the darker parts of the year. I’ve also noticed that if I miss my nap my mind gets tired.

Other than this I’ve experienced no discomforts. My productivity is at an all-time high, I feel awake and quite honestly I don’t see myself ever going back to monophasic sleep. If I were to set a grade I’d give biphasic sleep a 10 out of 10.