Stages of Sleep

Posted on April 10, 2008 in Latest News

There are five phases of sleep namely –

Stage 1 – Light Sleep – This is the phase in which you are almost falling deep into sleep. You can be easily woken up. Your eye movement and body movements slow down. You may experience sudden jerky movement of your legs or other muscles known as hypnic myoclonia or myoclonic jerks. These “sleep starts” can give a sensation of falling. The motor areas of the brain being spontaneously stimulated cause them.

Stage 2 – Medium Sleep – Most of us spend 50% of our sleeping time in stage 2. In this stage our eye movement stops and our brain becomes slower.

Stage 3 and 4 – Deep Sleep – These two stages of deep sleep are necessary for making your sleep satisfying.

REM – Rapid Eye Movement – This stage where most dreaming occurs. When you enter into REM sleep, your breathing becomes fast, irregular and shallow. Your eyes will move rapidly and your muscles become immobile. Heart rate and blood pressure increase. Men may develop erections. About 20 percent of sleep is REM sleep for adults. REM sleep is also the phase of sleep in which you dream. This sleep phase begins about 70 to 90 minutes after you fall asleep. The first sleep cycle has a shorter phase of REM sleep. Toward morning, the time spent in REM sleep increases and the deep sleep stages decrease.

Comments

Leave a Reply