The Uberman Sleep Cycle – The Secret of Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla for Their Ingenuity

Sleep is a vital indicator of our health and well-being. We almost spend up to one-third of our lives asleep. Yes, sleep is important, and if you hadn’t slept well the night before, you are more likely to be nervous all day long. You feel like a drunk person, eat more, your brain is not functioning, you can’t study…

Healthy sleep is essential, but no one ever said that we have to do it only at night at the same time. Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla considered sleep as a wasted time. They both used Uberman Sleep Cycle and maybe that was the secret to their ingenuity.

What is Uberman Sleep Cycle?

People in the pre-Industrial era used to break up their night’s sleep into two segments: “first sleep” and “second sleep”. Tesla and Leonardo were taking a little more aggressive sleeping routine. They practiced polyphasic sleeping, which means sleeping more than 3 times a day. This sleeping routine was called “The Uberman cycle”.

The Uberman cycle is consisted of six 20-minute naps, which are evenly distributed throughout the day.

It is claimed that da Vinci slept 15 minutes in every 4 hours for a total of 1.5 hours a day. This way he gained 6 extra productive hours a day, which means an additional 20 years of productivity in his 67 years of life. His sleeping routine was described in Claudio Stampi’s book written in 1992 called “Why We Nap”.

Tesla is believed to have slept no more than 2 hours a day. According to the Smithsonian magazine, Tesla’s professors were worried about his working and sleeping habits so much that they told his father about it. They believe that his sleeping habits could have been a reason causing his mental breakdown at age of 25.

Although, these sleeping habits are really odd, more time spent sleeping means less time for productivity. A study in Work and Stress published in 1989 found that these strategies of polyphasic sleep improve prolonged sustained performance, which means that not only you have more time to do stuff, but you will get even better results when you do them.

Do you think you want to try this Uberman Sleep Cycle like Tesla and da Vinci did? If yes, just please don’t do it in extreme.

You can also check the book: “Ubersleep: Nap-Based Sleep Schedules and the Polyphasic Lifestyle” 

Source: Curiosity