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Light vs deep sleep1/18/2024 A considerable number of people “push through” NREM Stage 1 get a second wind and remain awake. Your body has a preferred chronotype or sleep time or chronotype. Usually, you won't remember these sensations when you wake up. You may have the sensation of falling or spinning around. Your muscles may twitch suddenly or jerk violently. You can also have hallucinations involving taste or smell. It could be visual (even with your eyes closed) or auditory (even if you are wearing ear plugs). You might experience a hallucination of some kind. Psychic phenomena are common in NREM Stage 1 or light sleep. If someone wakes from this stage of sleep, you might tell them you were still awake, even though you weren't. Once you settle in, your muscles relax, your heart rate declines, and your brain waves abate, preparing you for sleep. Muscle tone is still present, and your breathing is regular. These theta waves are mostly generated in your frontal cortex, the "executive" center of your brain. Your brain is still producing lots of high-amplitude theta waves. You spend just 5% of your total sleep time in this stage, the shortest amount. įor the first five to ten minutes, you go through a transition period from wakefulness to sleep. Your “sleep switch” activates, and your body is ready for sleep. “Bedtime” is when your body receives signals that it’s time to go to sleep, like the sun going down, your body temperature peaks, and melatonin is released. This first stage is relatively simple to understand. In Stage 4, your neurons are primarily generating delta waves. When you finally enter REM sleep, in Stage 4, most of the neurons in your brain are firing very slowly. As you start feeling drowsy, alpha waves take over.Īs you enter Stage 1 Sleep, theta waves begin to predominate, and there are even more theta waves in Stages 2 and 3. When you are awake, your brain produces beta and gamma waves, the fastest kind of electrical communication between the neurons in your brain. EEG records five different speeds of brain waves.įrom the fastest waves in light sleep to the slowest waves in deep sleep, these types of brain waves are called: The neurons in your brain "talk" to each other through waves of energy. Taking a Closer Look at SleepĪ lot of what scientists know about the nature of sleep comes from studies of volunteer patients who spent the night in a sleep lab hooked up to an electroencephalograph, more commonly called an EEG. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine used to recognize five stages of sleep, but sleep was redefined to four stages in 2007. Stage 4 is a type of sleep known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.These stages are also described as quiet sleep. Stages 1 through 3 are a type of sleep known as non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep.How Many Sleep Stages Are There?Įach stage of sleep plays a unique role in maintaining brain health and performance by making needed repairs and maintenance. The sleep stages generally involve changes in muscle tone, brain activity, and eye movements. (Images Source: The Gatorade Sports Science Institute)
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