The Stages of Sleep

Sleep is a beautiful word and an exciting concept especially to those who suffer from insomnia. 

Although you are at rest, not every part of your body is resting.

The brain in particular is sending out all sorts of signals, many of which are controlling the various stages of sleep you'll be undergoing. Eye movements and muscle activity change throughout the various stages of sleep too. 

There are several known characteristics of sleep... we all look the same when sleeping... when a person is sleeping they lie down, their eyes are closed, the person doesn’t hear anything unless it is a loud noise that awakens them, and breathing becomes rhythmic and slow and in a distinguished pattern. 

You will also notice when a person is sleeping the person’s muscles will relax completely and the sleeping person will turn over and rearrange their body once or twice an hour to keep blood flowing to all parts of the body. 

There are five stages of sleep which have been identified and on a good night's sleep you pass through all of them, several times. Although there are 5 distinct stages, the first four stages are grouped together and classified as NREM or non-rapid eye movement. The fifth stage of sleep is known as REM sleep or rapid eye movement.

The different sleep stages are distinguished by the changes in brain wave activity that takes place. REM is also characterized by irregular but rapid breathing and heartbeat, a rise in blood pressure, increased brain activity and virtually no muscle activity.

NREM and REM sleep take place throughout the sleep period. The sleep that takes place during the first third of a night consists mostly of NREM while the sleep during the last third is mostly REM. Usually you will awaken from a REM stage.

These sleep stages repeat throughout the sleep period and these repetitions are known as sleep cycles. Several sleep cycles take place during a single sleep period. As the sleep cycles progress through a sleep period, the amount of REM sleep increases.

Keeping the various stages of sleep from becoming disrupted is what results in better-quality sleep.  But as we all know, there are some nights that getting uninterrupted sleep is much easier than others!