Cheat sheet on sleep.

It's quality not the quantity of sleep, according to Wired How To's. The end of the article has a tip on how to take a successful midday nap which involves taking caffeine. I need to try this. The steps are:

1. Right before you crash, down a cup of java. The caffeine has to travel through your gastro-intestinal tract, giving you time to nap before it kicks in.

2. Close your eyes and relax. Even if you only doze, you’ll get what’s known as effective microsleep, or momentary lapses of wakefulness.

3. Limit your nap to 15 minutes. A half hour can lead to sleep inertia, or the spinning down of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which handles functions like judgment. This gray matter can take 30 minutes to reboot.

Other things discussed were practices that will give you the optimum amount of sleep, the effects of lack of sleep (depression, heart disease, hypertension, etc.) and polyphasic sleep. Polyphasic sleep is sleeping multiple times in a 24-hour period. The aim of polyphasic sleep is to reduce the number of sleeping hours per day but getting quality sleep in the process. Interesting topic especially for those who would like to get the most number of hours in a day without having to be sleep deprived.