Sophomore chemical engineering major
College students are notoriously known for their poor sleeping habits. Whether from the stresses of exams and papers or social life, finding time to meet the optimistic eight- to nine-hour quota of nightly sleep becomes difficult.
Studies have shown that poor sleep quality might have significant implications on the immune system, behavior and mental processing. In an environment in which we are trying to maximize our potentials and build our futures, it is important that we stay healthy and mentally alert, and that starts with the way we sleep.
Some people have learned to adapt to the college lifestyle by identifying and optimizing their sleeping habits. For some, this means using an alternative to the typical monophasic sleep cycle.
An example would be sleeping for about four hours at night and supplementing it with periodic 20- to 30-minute naps throughout the day or sleeping for 30 minutes every four to six hours.
These polyphasic sleeping patterns have been working for many and were used by notable figures such as Winston Churchill and Leonardo Da Vinci, to name a few.
The validity of such sleeping patterns is still relatively unknown, but findings are showing humans evolutionarily favor polyphasic sleeping cycles, especially in sleep deprived conditions — perfect for a college student.
When a person is undergoing sleep deprivation, multiple short naps will allow a person to hit the REM cycle faster, possibly within 20 minutes, a critical advantage of polyphasic sleep cycles. In a monophasic sleep cycle, however, it may take up to 90 minutes to reach REM.
This advantage of polyphasic sleep cycles can make it a powerful tool in sleep adaptation, especially for those who consider sleeping time-consuming and inefficient. With proper and careful utilization of a polyphasic sleep schedule, it might become a model for college students to maximize productivity with mental clarity and freshness.
Sauradeep Sinha is a sophomore chemical engineering major. He can be reached at ssinhadbk@gmail.com.
