Polyphasic sleep heightens productivity?

Sleep deprived?   (Tesla, Public Domain)

If you take short naps rather than long slumbers, you might be a genius.  And if you’re not, you might produce even greater amounts of mediocrity.

“Rumor has it” that Nikola Tesla and Leonardo da Vinci each slept only two hours per day.  Rather than commit a whole two hours at once, they favored 20-minute “power naps” instead.

Each was indeed a genius, and each certainly produced his share of innovations.Nevertheless, questions arise: Would they have produced even more with an “early to bed, early to rise” type schedule?  Would they have lived much longer with more continuous bouts of sleep per day?

If they did produce more per day by power napping, but then lived for far fewer years, would their overall output really have improved?  It might take a mathematician like Einstein (who often had 10 hours of sleep per night) to figure this out. 

Resources

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/smart-living/if-you-have-this-one-crazy-sleep-habit-you-could-be-a-genius/ar-BBH0Glx?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=BHEA000

Copyright December 26, 2017 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved