The Stages Of Sleep

Did you know that sleep does not take place in a single, continuous session - but instead consists of five distinct stages? When you sleep, you move through all five stages in order to complete one cycle, and you repeat the cycle several times throughout the night!

There are two broad types of sleep- REM and Non-REM. During the stage of rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, your brain is relatively active. Your breathing is relatively quick, irregular and shallow. It is during REM sleep that you get dreams.

In contrast, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep refers to deeper and more restful sleep. . During NREM sleep, your brain waves, breathing, and heart rate slow down. It is further divided into 4 stages:

Stage One

This is the bridge between feeling sleepy and actually falling asleep. Here, brain and muscle activity slows down as you drift into short periods of dreams. During this stage, you might tend to easily drift in and out of sleep, and it’s not difficult to be woken up at this point.

Stages Two and Three

The second stage represents the official starting point of the sleep session. This stage usually lasts about 20 minutes as we move towards deeper sleep. As you transition to the third stage,your blood pressure, breathing and body temperature continue to fall, as the body becomes completely still.

Stage Four

This is the stage of deep sleep, during which it is very difficult to be woken up - but if you are, you might find yourself feeling groggy and disoriented for several minutes.