like a baby

As a longtime believer in 90 minute sleep cycles, I was happy to hear them receive a celebrity endorsement this morning. While filling in for Regis Philbin in New York, Jimmy Kimmel said that he measured his sleep cycle and now knows to take one hour, forty-one minute naps. You can hear Jimmy and Kelly Ripa discussing naps in this audio clip or you can watch the entire "Host Chat" segment online. My sleep cycles also run a little longer than the 90 minute average although I haven't measured them as precisely as Jimmy. I usually divide my sleep into two shifts every weekday.

Lifehack.org has some information on polyphasic sleep, including a link to a great article called "The Power of the Sleep Cycle" by Glen Rhodes. The research quoted in the article backs up what I had learned from the late David Haines at WAVA in the '80s. Naps are a way of life for most animals and for human infants. What's good for them is good for me too. Sleep cycles have been a favorite topic of conversation for me ever since. I'm sure I must have talked about them with Jimmy when we worked together at KROQ in the '90s. According to Glen Rhodes, we're in good company:

It is said that many of the most productive people in history have understood and practiced this. Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Buckminster Fuller used this *exact* technique. Other great minds likewise used naps to their advantage including Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Napoleon, and Winston Churchill.

As far as longevity, Fuller lived to 87. Da Vinci into his late 60's. --Both lived over DOUBLE the average life expectancy of the men of their time.