Wednesday 31 January 2018

SLEEP

Sleep can be divided into three stages; light sleep, deep sleep and dream sleep.

There is a lot about sleep that we still don’t understand, but we do know that there are three stages necessary for satisfactory sleep.
The first is light sleep, which is the stage between full consciousness and deep sleep, and a delicate state from which it’s easy to wake up.
Light sleep can be divided into N1 sleep and N2 sleep. While you spend a mere five percent of a night’s sleep in the N1 state, you will spend around 50 percent of it in the N2 state. These two stages of sleep can be distinguished by looking at variations in brain patterns.
The next is deep sleep, or N3 sleep. This is a restorative period that causes you to feel rested when you wake up in the morning. Most deep sleep occurs during the first half of your night’s sleep. Adults tend to spend 25 percent of each night in deep sleep, but this number declines with age.
During this period, the most growth hormones are produced. Therefore, it’s needed to boost your immune system, help you recover from injuries and strengthen your bones and muscles.
The author dubs the third stage dream sleep, but its scientific name is REM sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement, which refers to when your eyes move at a fast rate below your eyelids. Scientists are still trying to discover why this happens.
During REM sleep, your brain’s activity is very similar to when you’re fully awake, but muscle activity is low. This stage accounts for 25 percent of your night’s sleep, and it occurs four to five times every night in 20- to 40-minute cycles that increase toward the second half of the night. During this phase, you stop regulating your body temperature, and dreaming takes place.
Over the course of a night, you transition from N1 to N2, then to deep sleep, back to N2 and then to REM sleep.

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