From Mozart to Obama: The rich and famous make do with very little sleep

Scientists have previously claimed that those who sleep for eight hours every night have better cognitive performance than others, however, if you told this to inventor Thomas Edison, he would have perhaps laughed. According to an infographic on sleep patterns of the rich and famous, Edison thought sleep was a waste of time and maintained a polyphasic sleep cycle. [caption id=“attachment_2112323” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AP[/caption] For the uninitiated, polyphasic sleep cycle is a pattern of sleeping in which a person sleeps multiple times in 24 hours, especially for more than two hours. A very extreme form of this same cycle was followed by Leonardo Da Vinci. According to the infographic Da Vinci slept after every four hours for just twenty minutes so that he had more time to work. Sleep is indeed a priceless commodity and the rich and famous people spent it wisely it seems. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the classical music composer, stayed up till 1 am at night to work on his music. Apparently he would be up by 5 am the next morning again. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, wasn’t much of a sleep lover either. Apparently he only slept for six hours. Unlike Freud and Mozart, former Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Winston Churchill led his country through the second world war as he slept in the house of parliament. Apparently, he had kept a bed there exclusively for his naps. Yet another British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher however barely got any sleep. Apparently during her time in office she only slept for four hours. In fact, later a gene that helps people get by with less sleep was named the Thatcher gene. The current United States President does have a much different sleep pattern than Thatcher. He tries to get as much sleep as possible, however, has directed his staff to wake him up in case of emergencies. You can read about the sleep habits of rich and famous in this infographic.