Why is it better to sleep in one big chunk, rather than taking a couple of naps throughout the day?

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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

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

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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