The Sleep Cycle

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The Sleep Cycle

There are four stages of sleep, and REM sleep forms a fifth stage.

NREM sleep- Stages 1-4

REM sleep- Stage 5

The Cycle Pattern-

Each stage lasts roughly 5 to 15 minutes, and a cycle takes roughly 90 minutes. There are 4 or 5 cycles a night. We go first from Stage One to Stage Four, then a repetition of stages and REM sleep. Each cycle increases in REM length, and decreases in stages 3/4 of deep sleep.

Electroencephalogram (EEG)- A piece of technology that is used by placing electrodes on your head and recording brain waves and activity- this tells us what stage someone is at.

Sleep Spindles- sudden high frequency bursts of neural activity- cause is unknown. 0.5 seconds roughly.

K Complexes- Larger…

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Sabrina Smith02

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Stages of sleep

During sleep, you usually go through five stages of sleep. Simplified, stages 1-2 are light sleep, 3-4 deep sleep, and the fifth stage is REM sleep, also referred to as rapid eye movement sleep. The dream state.

The first is light sleep and in this stage, you drift in and out of sleep. Your eyes move slowly, your muscle activity is slow, and you would be easy to wake up.

In the second stage, your body starts preparing for deep sleep. Eye movements and brain waves slow down, your body temperature drops, and your heart rate slows down.

Entering the third stage, you are now in deep sleep. Extremely slow brain waves called delta waves are intermixed with smaller, faster brain waves.

In stage four, you stay in deep sleep and your brain almost exclusively produces the slow delta waves, guiding you towards the fifth stage.

Entering the last stage, stage five, also called REM sleep. Now your eyes are closed but move rapidly from side-to-side, due to the intense dream and brain activity you go through in this stage.

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