REM Sleep Cycle and its stages

Sleep is one of the crucial bodily activities you need to follow for maintaining good health. This is the period when your body gets time to rejuvenate, and muscles regain their power. Your body goes through various procedures when you are entering the sleep cycle. The moments when you have your dreams it is the time when you roll between the cycle of non-REM and REM sleep.
Since sleep is important, it is undoubtedly one of the best activities which allow one to maintain good physical and mental health. When you are sleeping, your body gets the time to work on certain things. Through the phase of REM sleep, body undergoes muscle repairing, bone growth, balancing hormones, and sorting the memories out. If sleep disruption happens during a sleep cycle, the entire cycle is no more useful. Rapid eye movement and Non-Rapid eye movement are the two phases of sleep. In most the cases, people enter into the sleeping mode from their drowsiness into NREM sleep.

Stages of Sleep Cycle                              

The very first stage is the Non-REM sleep cycle stage. Non-REM sleep comes first. It has three stages, including the last Non-REM stage. It is the time when you enjoy deep sleep. From this sleeping stage, it is almost impossible to wake someone up.
The second phase of the sleep cycle includes REM sleep. Rapid eye movement takes place for a whole hour and a half before falling asleep. REM provides you with the phase when you tend to have several dreams.

What is REM Sleep?

The term REM refers to rapid eye movement. While this REM sleep phase is going on, it is natural that your eyes will move in various directions. But during this period, the eyes never send information to the brain. Instead, it begins with non-REM sleep, then a small period of REM sleep, and the sleep cycle restarts. People generally dream in the REM sleep phase.

What is the REM Sleep Cycle Stages?

Generally, the REM sleep cycle starts after almost 90 minutes of falling asleep. The first period of REM keeps lasts around 10 minutes whereas duration of REM sleep increases in the upcoming sleep cycles.  The final REM sleep stage can last up to an hour. During this period, the heart rate and breathing starts to increase.

Why do you dream during REM sleep?

It is natural to have dreams during the phase of REM sleep. Your brain remains active, and therefore, you can enjoy several dreams in mind. REM will always be important as it keeps stimulating your brain. Not only that, REM sleep has its connection with the process of learning. In addition, increased protein production has its link with REM sleep. Generally, babies spend 50% of their sleep during the REM stage, while adults can do that only for about 20%.

What happens when your body enters REM sleep?

Other than your suddenly increased brain activity, or relaxation of muscles, it is natural that your body will surpass changes. For example, several changes take place during REM sleep.
Some of the basic changes include:
- Faster breathing
-Rapid eye movement
- Increased heart rate
- Higher Blood pressure
-Penile erection

What is the intensity of REM sleep?

The amount of REM sleep in one’s sleep cycle keeps changing with your age. During the childhood period, the percentage of REM sleep is the highest. With age and time, both the duration and intensity of REM decrease. The level of intensity decreases during young adulthood and gets worse when someone gets older.

How to maintain a Proper sleep cycle

Before you sleep, every time you think of sleeping at night at a reasonable hour, isn’t it? But due to professional or personal reasons, you might find it difficult to sleep at the same time everyday which affects your sleep cycle. So, here are a few tips that may help you maintain a proper sleep cycle.
•   Develop and maintain a sleep schedule: This will improve your sleep cycle and, at the same time, you can keep a sleep diary too.
•    It is said that alcohol helps people in falling asleep faster. But it hinders deep sleep and affects the stages of REM sleep. So, it is better to reduce alcohol intake when trying to get into a healthy sleep cycle.
•    Lower caffeine intake: Though caffeine is on the top of the favorite list for many, it can stimulate the human brain. Higher caffeine intake gives way to insomnia. Try to keep the intake in control, or you will lose the REM sleep phase.
•    Reduce medication: If you are under long-term medication like antidepressants, it may not be effective anymore, or you may have less REM sleep.
•    Quit smoking: Those who smoke regularly have less REM sleep. Even after sleeping, they wake up because they have some issues with nicotine withdrawal.

Problems with the Lack of REM sleep

When you miss your sleep schedule, you are more likely to have a disruptive sleep. If this persists, certain health issues may come up. Research says that there are over seventy disruptive sleep disorders out of which some are common and resolves with time, while others need medical attention.  
You already know how important sleep is for maintaining your health. So, ensure that stress, lack of sleep, unwanted health issues, or other reasons do not affect the quality and duration of your sleep. Still, for further complications, you can always take up medical consultation, talk to experts, and go for sleep therapy.

Note: The article is meant for general awareness of the readers. The information can’t be used as a substitute to a medical prescription or diagnosis by a medical professional. In case you are experiencing sleep related issues, kindly consult a registered medical professional or a sleep expert.

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