Here’s an interesting look at the power of naps, i.e. breaking up the so-called usual 8-hour sleep cycle.
I’m a big believer in new sleep patterns. I think we’re doing it wrong by sleeping for long chunks. Without a spouse who’s willing to share my sleep habits, however, I’m not likely to change much!
Rather than helping us to get more rest, the tyranny of the eight-hour block reinforces a narrow conception of sleep and how we should approach it. Some of the time we spend tossing and turning may even result from misconceptions about sleep and our bodily needs: in fact neither our bodies nor our brains are built for the roughly one-third of our lives that we spend in bed.