Falling Asleep - The 5 Stages of Sleep

When you sleep, your brain goes through 5 different stages of sleep. Each stage of sleep exhibits a different brain wave activity and each serves a different purpose. When you are awake, your brain is a it\'s highest level of activity. This is known as the beta brain waves.

The beta brain waves are associated with active conscious thinking. This is where most insomnia sufferers stay when they are tossing and turning in bed. Before the body can shut down and go to sleep, the brain must first go through a series of slowing and shutting down.

Stage 1 Sleep

This state has many names such as day dreaming, zoning out, trancing and many others. It is also associated with hypnosis or self-hypnosis. It is the first step of falling asleep and is when the brain enters an alpha brain wave pattern.

In this stage, a person is still somewhat aware. Sounds may be enhanced and the awareness is being shifted inwards.

If you ask someone who seems to be falling asleep if they are sleeping, they will often respond that they are not. They are in fact in stage 1 sleep which is very easy to come out of.

This is also the most effective stage of sleep when taking a nap. It allows the brain to rest and replenish without shutting down the body. This stage lasts about 10-15 minutes and differs for everyone.

Stage 2 Sleep

Stage 2 is categorized by sudden bursts of brain activity. This is the period when the body is shutting down. It may be accompanied by random arm and leg movements.

If you\'ve ever dozed off in public and startled yourself awake, this is why. The on-off transition into deeper sleep ensures that the body is in a safe and secure position before completely shuts off.

Brain wave patterns during sleep stage 2 are referred to as sleep spindles and K-complexes because of the peaks and valleys they form on a graph.

Stage 3 & 4 Sleep

This is known as deep sleep and is very hard to rise from. It is the lowest frequency that the brain reaches and which is called delta brain waves. It is also the hardest stage of sleep to be awoken from and result in grogginess.

This is when the body has completely shut down and the body is rejuvenating. During deep sleep, blood pressure, breathing, and heart rate are at their lowest of the day. Blood vessels are fully dilated and blood is allowed to flow to areas that are normally turned off. Muscles are able to be nourished and repaired.

During a normal night, sleep stage 4 which is for really deep replenishment of the body, is only reached during the first few cycles of sleep. It may even never be reached if the body is kept inactive. This is why activity is so important.

Stage 5: REM Sleep

REM sleep is the most fascinating stage of sleep and is associated with dreaming. Scientists still do not know what true purpose it serves and there is much debate about it. The most credible explanation given so far is that it allows our brains to go through the day experiences and process what was learned.

REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement or Random Eye Movement. It was discovered by a scientist by the name of Nathaniel Kleitman in the 1950s. He noticed that when people entered this stage of sleep, their eyes would start moving very rapidly in all directions. He also discovered that over 90% of the subject that were woken up reported being in a dream.

What\'s most interesting is that during REM sleep, the brain wave activity is much like the beta brain wave activity during the wakeful state. This makes sense since dreaming tends to be full of action. It is different in the fact that the reasoning center of the brain is not active and explains why purple elephants or going to school in your underwear is totally normal in a dream.

REM sleep cycles are more frequent and longer during the last part of the night. People who practice lucid dreaming, which is the practice of controlling one\'s dream, report having more lucid dream in the last sleep cycles of the night.

Sleep Cycles

During sleep, the brain cycles from sleep stage 1 to sleep stage 5 numerous times. Each sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes.

Early in the night, the brain spends more time in sleep cycles 3 & 4 and proceeds to spend more and more time in REM sleep. The last REM period can last up to 30 minutes or more.

The verdict is out on what purpose REM sleep, but science will surely find out soon. Dreams are a fascinating aspect of being human and worth investigating.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 11:08 pm and is filed under Sleep Apnea Snoring . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.