I’ve done a small amount of very basic research into why people don’t take a couple of naps throughout the day as opposed to sleeping in one big eight-ish hour chunk. Most of the stuff I’ve read talks most prominently about sleep cycles and how those affect your sleep, and that naps might not be suitable because you can’t predict sleep cycles to align with naps, and that sleeping in one big chunk allows you to go through multiple sleep cycles. What I’m wondering is what happens neurologically that makes this true? Why does sleep not add up to the sum of its parts, and what, if any are the pros of each compared to each other?
In: Biology
I currently take two middle sized naps per day, because of my job. I sleep from 6am to 10am and from 6pm to 9pm.
Naps don’t provide the REM cycle. You can split it up if you allow big chunks where this cycle is completed, and some people do it. Our ancestors way way back apparently woke in the middle of the night.
It’s impractical for daily life.
>What I’m wondering is what happens neurologically that makes this true?
Sleep isn’t only a neurological ‘state’, all your body { physiology} is involved, in a short nap you body can’t quickly go into a deep state and sleep cycle so you can’t add up that little rest.
You can adapt your body to take multiple naps throughout the day, it has more to do with how society functions. A lot of the alternative sleep cycles call for a nap every other hour or so, and you can’t really do that if you are working an 8 hour shift. If you have not obligations and work from home then you could do those cycles. However they are more demanding in that you can’t miss a single nap without fucking your shit up, with the big chunk even if you pull an all nighter you can recover in about two days.
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