By: Brandon Wong

Pretty much, polyphasic sleep means sleeping multiple times during the day. Theoretically, it allows for less sleeping and having more time during the day (for studying). This works best during exam period because there are no classes to interrupt napping.

Polyphasic sleep works best if you follow the same sleep regiment, just like normal sleeping. Most people participate in monophasic sleeping, where you just sleep through the entire night. During the school year, I sleep around 6 hours a night, and take a 30 minute nap after classes, which is biphasic. The most hardcore of these sleeping patterns is the uberman, with 6 20min naps every 4 hours (which means a total of two hours of sleep a day!). For more information, check out Wikipedia and Google.

The only important note to make, depending on how drastic of a sleeping pattern change you make there may be a longer adjustment period. Also, always use an alarm and get up when you’re supposed to, otherwise you may end up substantially oversleeping. Don’t forget to take into account when your exams are if you’re going to change your sleeping pattern. Sleep consolidates memory, and it’s never a good idea to write an exam without sleep.

Best of luck in April!

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