The de facto sleep schedule in the majority of modern society is to sleep for approximately 8 hours in a singular session. We might refer to this as “monophasic”, simply having one phase of sleep throughout your day. It is possible to break this up into multiple phases, however, giving us “polyphasic” sleep.

Polyphasic sleep cycles can be used to essentially customize your 24-hour day. Since the entire concept of this subject matter revolves around going unnoticed at night, you'll want to spend certain nights out and about. This can be problematic and conflict with your regular day scheduling, however, when you need to be well rested. By dividing your typical monophasic sleep cycle up, you can be well rested for more daily tasks while simply sleeping away the lower activity time frames.

In addition, polyphasic sleep can be used to temporarily decrease total sleep time to maximize productivity in any given time window. It is important to understand that sleep is vital to regenerating human physical health, including the mind. However, certain extreme cycles can be adopted for short periods.