We all are well aware of the different stages of human life; a denarian would bravely answer questions about the life cycle of a moth, or the water cycle, and many more such universal activities.
But the question here is, can you point out any ubiquitous nature of the facts that are being studied? Yes, you are correct! It is the STAGES. Everything in this world follows some stages.
You might be flabbergasted hearing that even the slumber you go to every night, includes five very unique yet interrelated phases that are termed as the 5 STAGES OF SLEEP.
Welcome to this article with the stages, you might have already got an idea that here you will be provided with all the details of the 5 stages of the sleep cycle, sleep stages waves, how long is each stage of sleep, what are stages of sleep cycle, and a heck of a lot of sleep-related to knows.
While we wake up in the morning, our mind loses track of time and hence feels like we slept for only an hour or so, when it actually is 8 hours. But that is about the mind; how does your body feel? Do you feel fresh and energized? Does your body regain its strength?
So you see, when you sleep, your body performs a lot of tasks. They surpass different stages, which can be broadly categorized into two categories: REM and the Non-REM.
The Rapid Eye Movement aka REM sleep comprises only one stage contrary to which the Non-REM category consists of four stages. The stages in detail are:
Wake can be dignified the initial stage of the sleep cycle. This is the period when you go to bed, make quick plans for the coming day, close your eyes in order to sleep, and then start hallucinating.
It is usually not possible for someone to directly go to bed and get engulfed by deep sleep. Seldom you may find a case like this when the person is completely exhausted or drunk.
During this stage
This period extends a few minutes after you fall asleep until you move to light sleep, which is the next stage.
This is the period when you get tired of hallucinating and your mind starts to completely detach itself from consciousness. This is where you will not know you are sleeping but you are.
You might get up if someone moves around you or calls you since you are still not completely enveloped with sleep. This stage will continue for some 15-20 minutes.
During this stage
This is the shortest phase among all the 5 stages of sleep. In this stage, you will move from light to deep sleep. The sleep waves that your brain will produce include delta waves (these are quite deep and slow waves).
You must have already started hankering about the last time you had a deep sleep. Deep sleep is the saga where your mind is completely asleep.
In a direct sense, this is the stage where you are completely taken over by sleep. You tend to lose contact with whatever is going around you. This NREM stage will last for somewhat around 30 minutes.
During this stage
Our body gains consciousness way after our mind gains them. This is the stage from when our brain starts to activate. So in a gist deep sleep is the only period when our mind sleeps.
All those utopian dreams that you see are at this stage. Dreams are a result of our mind working fast as hell, and since our body sleeps we are unable to recall some of the dreams until morning.
During this stage
All the 5 stages of sleep as you can see in the above section do not mandatorily follow the first- second-generation third- fourth and then fifth sequence. They are not so disciplined.
We start with the wake stage and then the second, third, and fourth, but before moving to REM sleep, we circulate between the second and third stages for approximately 2-3 times. Finally, we move to REM sleep and then again back to the stage of light sleep. From here we jump a lot from one step to the other.
To sum up, the sleep cycle is not a 1-2-3-4-5 cycle. Instead, it is more of a 1-2-3-4-2-3-2-4-3-5-2-5….(we hope you got the idea).
In a nutshell, what we can conclude from the 5 stages of sleep are
Have a good sleep!!!
Also Read: 7 Tips To Fall Asleep Faster