Importance Of Sleep And Its Different Stages

By Author: Ann Philip
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A proper sleep can help a person to maintain a healthy body and a strong mind. So, sleep is a natural and an essential part of a person’s life. A person takes nearly one-third of his life to sleep. Most people consider sleep as an option to remain inactive. Sleep is not an option, but a necessity. Proper sleep makes a person active and vigilant.

If a person won’t get proper sleep, then it’s normal to feel him sleepy at times when he is expected to be awake. Some of the problems associated with sleeplessness are lack of concentration, loss of energy, fatigue, lethargy, and emotional instability. A person who doesn’t get enough sleep can also face workplace accidents or any mishaps like that. So everyone needs a proper sleep to gain energy.

There are two main types of sleep. The first one is the Non-Rapid Eye Movement, or NREM, sleep and the second one is the Rapid Eye Movement, or REM, sleep.

If we are awake, the brain produces waves like Gamma, High Beta, Mid Beta, Beta Sensory Motor Rhythm, Alpha, and Theta waves. When we begin to sleep, which is the earliest phase of sleep cycle, we still feel ...
... awake and vigilant. During these hours the brain produces beta waves. These waves are small and fast. In the next stage, the brain starts to relax and slowdown. This evokes the slower waves called the alpha waves. As you are about to enter into sleep, you may experience a strange and vivid feeling called Hypnologic hallucination. People who go through this stage can experience things like hearing someone calling his name or falling to a deep pit. Someone may also experience myoclonic jerk.

A person will come across all these feelings while he is preparing to undergo a deep sleep. The stage one of the sleep cycle is a transition stage between wakefulness and sleep. During this period, the brain will produce high amplitude theta waves. These types of waves are relatively slow in nature. A person will remain in this initial stage of sleep for 5 to 10 minutes.

During the second stage of the sleep cycle, the brain produces sleep spindles. These are rapid and rhythmic activity produced by the brain for relatively short periods. In this stage, the body temperature of a person will come down and his heart rate will slowly slow down.

Delta waves are slow brain waves and these types of waves begin to emerge in the third stage of the sleep cycle. This stage is the transitional stage between light sleep and deep sleep. The fourth stage is called the delta sleep. Here, the height or amplitude of the brain waves increases in a dramatic way. People, who enter into delta sleep, will get a deep and sound sleep. This stage will last for almost 90 minutes. For children, this stage lasts for more than 40% of their total sleep time. People tend to wet their beds and go for sleep walks at the end of this stage.
In the fifth stage of the sleep cycle, people will experience the rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep. Most people start dreaming during this stage. Some of the characteristics of the REM sleep are rapid eye movements, increased respiration rate, and higher brain activity. In this paradoxical sleeping stage, the brain and other body systems will be active, while muscles are in a relaxed mode.

Though sleep begins in stage one and progresses into other stages, those stages can be repeated before entering into REM sleep. On average, a person enters the REM stage approximately 90 minutes after falling asleep. A network connection from providers like Cheap Internet can give us information related to different levels of sleep and dreaming process. I am planning to explore the worldwide web to get more data related to different stages of sleep.

As a freelancer, Ann likes to write about the ways a person should keep up his health. She collects information related to this from her home PC powered by Cheap Internet.