If sleep does not come easy for you knowing how you sleep or knowing the mechanics behind what makes a healthy night’s sleep could help you figure out the issue of what is keeping you awake. Comprehending sleep is not so easy because you aren’t of necessity awake or asleep. There are a number of things that occur once your head falls on to the pillow and you shut your eyes that contributes to how soundly or how lightly you will slumber.
Drowsiness is the first stage of sleeping and this is where your muscles relax, you start to feel tired, and you can no longer keep your eyes open. This stage usually lasts only a few minutes usually between five and ten. Stage two of sleep is a very faint sleep and at this point your respiratory system and body temperature fall considerably. Your heart rate should also lag at this point in the sleep process.
Stages three and four are easily considered “deep sleep” and are certainly where it should be hard to wake up. You may feel groggy and be unable to adjust quickly but this vital stage in sleep allows the brain to truly “turn off” as your circulation slows, at which point it begins to rejuvenate the body. There is also a heightened level of immune action during these two important stages of rest.
Stage five is considered REM sleep and is generally thought of as the dreaming phase of the REM sleep cycle. Drifting in and out of stage five happens often so you may find yourself having several dreams during your period of REM. This cycle is characterized by a number of physical responses where you may experience rapid breathing that is of the shallow sort, deep or even irregular. There may also be a quickening of the pulse and blood pressure.
This particular portion of the entire sleep cycle is designed to assist in the processing of emotions and to help relieve stress with each of the sleep cycles providing a benefit to the person sleeping. Those who tend to sleep lighter than others are stuck in the early sleep stages and hardly ever make it to phases three and four where they need to be in order to obtain the most rest possible. For those who have a hard time arousing from sleep probably hanging around too long in deep sleep and rise suddenly when they wake up rather than travel through each stage on the way to waking up.
Sleep can be put off kilter based on how much time you spent in each cycle the evenings before, so if you spend more time in deep sleep one night the next night you may spend more time in REM or light sleep. Your body adjusts over time and you’ll likely spend equal amounts of time in every stage of sleep. That is why it is more accurate to say that it is impossible to get caught up on sleep but you can catch up on rest.
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